1.Prologue
Every foreign visitor to Japan arrives with a similar list of must-visit locations: Meiji Shrine, Takeshita Street, Shibuya Scramble Crossing, and Kaminarimon, etc. Perhaps the most sacred among these—for fans of anime, at least—is the Ghibli Museum. Tickets for the following month go on sale on the 10th of every month at 10 a.m., and the available spots fill up quickly. Over the years I’ve purchased my share of tickets for friends visiting from Australia and the U.S. (In recent years visitors can also purchase tickets through an English-language interface online, as well as through travel agencies.
Over the course of the 90s and aughts, animator Miyazaki Hayao and Studio Ghibli have elevated Japanese anime from children’s entertainment to world-class art. I first encountered classics like My Neighbor Totoro, Kiki’s Delivery Service, and Prince Mononoke during my time living in the U.S., and was immediately drawn in by the fantastical aesthetic and life-affirming stories, and struck with a sense of nostalgia for a quintessentially Japanese childhood that I could have never known. When Spirited Away arrived in 2002 (2001 in Japan), it marked the moment Miyazaki became a household name even among families that had never really taken to anime before.
Later, as I went deeper into my study of the Japanese language, I had the chance to see the original Japanese version of Spirited Away. What struck me immediately was that the film as a whole is basically the same whether you watch it in English or Japanese—it hadn’t been cut down and edited to suit some American producer’s idea of what American audiences will and will not watch. Most TV and feature length anime I’d seen in English had been significantly rejigged—often to the point of insult. Later still, I learned that the screenwriters who had adapted the script had tried to match the dialogue as closely as possible to the mouth movements of the characters on screen. They must have been diehard Miyazaki fans.
When Spirited Away won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature in 2003, Miyazaki Hayao was not there to receive his award. In an interview at a later date he said that he didn’t feel like visiting a country that was in the middle of bombing Iraq.
Nevertheless, Miyazaki’s reputation and popularity continued to grow in the years that followed. When it was announced in that every Studio Ghibli feature (except Grave of the Fireflies) would be coming to Netflix over the course of a few months starting in February 2020, anime fans around the world rejoiced. With the new coronavirus pandemic keeping so many people indoors, these films are the perfect respite.
In this article we’ll cover Studio Ghibli’s two visionaries—Miyazaki Hayao and Takahata Isao—as well as Suzuki Toshio, the producer who orchestrated the studio’s rise to prominence.
2.Takahata Isao’s Distaste for Fantasy and Embrace of Realism
Takahata Isao was born in 1935 in Mie Prefecture in Western Japan. His family relocated further west to Okayama Prefecture in 1942. The following year, Okayama City was hit by a major U.S. air raid, and in his attempt to escape the firestorm, Takahata encountered many burned bodies strewn about the area. This experience would greatly affect Takahata, who would later channel his memories into his classic Grave of the Fireflies.
Takahata would later enroll in the literature department at the University of Tokyo, where he studied French literature. His time as a student there would greatly shape his values and his interests; he first became interested in animation when he wrote subtitles for the French animated film The King and the Mockingbird (Le Roi et l’Oiseau).
After graduating university, Takahata joined Toei Animation. His work as an assistant director earned him his first opportunity to helm a feature: The Great Adventure of Horus, Prince of the Sun. However, when the project went way over budget and schedule, and turned out to be a box office flop, he was demoted to assistant. There was a silver lining, however—the project was the first time Takahata worked with novice animator Miyazaki Hayao. The two would hit it off and grow closer over the ensuing years.
Takahata and Miyazaki would both leave Toei Animation in 1971, and a few years later they would join Zuiyo Enterprises (now known as Nippon Animation). There, Takahata would direct of string of TV animation projects, the most famous being Heidi, Girl of the Alps. Throughout this period, he cultivated his own style—which emphasized realism, in contrast to most anime at the time, which adhered to the exaggerated and “deformed" aesthetic pioneered by Tezuka Osamu. Takahata focused on depicting the details of everyday life. In the case of Heidi, Girl of the Alps, he even traveled to Switzerland to get a sense of the geography and the lifestyles of the Swiss people. His work is firmly grounded in reality.
Takahata’s auterism would greatly influence Miyazaki. And he would also serve as a mentor figure to the junior Miyazaki as he gradually began to write and direct original work. When Miyazaki started work on Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind in the early 80s, Takahata joined the project as a producer. Takahata, in turn, would bring an unknown composer/pianist by the name of Hisaishi Joe on board; Hisaishi’s music would become an integral part of Miyazaki’s work in the ensuing years. A few years later, when Miyazaki and Suzuki Toshio—who was then working at the publishing company Tokuma Shoten—were attempting to find an animation studio to produce Laputa, Castle in the Sky, it was Takahata who suggested that they set up their own animation studio. The three of them, joined by Tokuma Shoten head Tokuma Yasuyoshi, founded Studio Ghibli, and Takahata would turn down an executive position as he believed creators should not take on the responsibility of running a business.
Takahata and Miyazaki would subsequently produce their films separately. While Takahata was all about introducing a touch of fantasy into the pursuit of realism, Miyazaki was more about bringing realism to elaborate fantasies. This difference is perhaps best illustrated in their 1988 features, which were screened as a double feature: Takahata’s Grave of the Fireflies, and Miyazaki’s My Neighbor Totoro. While the former is a war drama depicting siblings struggling to figure out what it means to be a kid in a time of war, the latter is a fantasy about sisters experiencing childhood at its fullest.
Side note about Grave of the Fireflies: when Takahata was unable to finish some of the coloring before the premiere date, the film was shown in an unfinished form, with two scenes still in black and white. (Takahata subsequently finished the film and the unfinished copies were replaced.) Feeling that he had failed as a professional animation filmmaker, Takahata resolved to quit his job, but was stopped by Miyazaki, who would encourage him to make the film that would become 1991’s Only Yesterday.
While Takahata’s films were eclipsed by Miyazaki’s films in terms of box office success, he is still regarded as one of the masters of Japanese animation, who helped elevate anime into an art form. More than anything, he was the rival that Miyazaki needed to push him to greater and greater heights. Suzuki one said, “Miya-san actually makes his films for an audience of one. The person he wants to show his work to, more than anything else, is Takahata Isao."
●Takahata Isao Picks
3.Miyazaki Hayao, the Hardest Working and Most Beloved Animator in Japan
Miyazaki Hayao was born in present-day Sumida Ward, Tokyo. His family evacuated to Utsunomiya during the war, and settled in the Eifukucho neighborhood of Tokyo in 1950. Miyazaki’s memories of Utsunomiya would partly inspire the idyllic setting of My Neighbor Totoro, and his mother’s spinal tuberculosis would form the basis of the story.
Miyazaki was a frail child with a natural talent for drawing. He voraciously read the manga of Tezuka Osamu, who would inspire him to become a manga artist. While attending Gakushuin University, he would choose to go into animation instead, and joined Toei Animation after graduating. There, he would cultivate his talents as an animator, and also became chief secretary of Toei’s labor union, fighting for better pay for animators.
Miyazaki and Takahata Isao would leave Toei Animation in 1971. In 1974, Miyazaki would be in charge of scene setting (locations, times, seasons, etc. of a particular story) and layout on Heidi, Girl of the Alps, and the project would be his first taste of success. In the second half of the 70s, he made his feature directorial debut with The Castle of Cagliostro. While the film was unsuccessful in terms of box office—it was the era of sci-fi anime epics—it would later come to be regarded as a seminal work of animation, influencing such people as John Lasseter at Pixar. During the production of this film, he was interviewed by Suzuki Toshio, who was then the deputy editor-in-chief of the monthly anime magazine Animage, published by Tokuma Shoten. It would prove to be the start of a long working relationship.
After The Castle of Cagliostro had wrapped, Suzuki offered to present Miyazaki’s proposal for Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind to his colleagues at Tokuma Shoten. Miyazaki would begin publishing the Nausicaä manga in Animage in February 1982. When the series became popular with readers, Tokuma Shoten head Tokuma Yasuyoshi decided to green light a feature-length animated film. Takahata Isao would join as producer. Following the film’s success, Miyazaki, Takahata, Suzuki, and Tokuma would found Studio Ghibli.
While Miyazaki creates fantasies geared for children, it’s important to distinguish between the type of fantasy created by Miyazaki and the kind produced by Disney. Miyazaki brings an important sense of realism—a sense of time, a sense of place—to his work.
It’s also interesting to note that while it is clear through films like Nausicaä and Princess Mononoke that Miyazaki is interested in ecological and environmental themes, Miyazaki is also known to be obsessed (the man himself would likely prefer a term like “fascinated") with military technology. Aviation is also a big part of his work, and with The Wind Rises he made an entire fictionalized biopic of the designer of the Mitsubishi A5M fighter plane.
As I stated at the beginning of this piece, Miyazaki decided not to attend the Academy Awards because he was turned off by the idea of visiting a country that was in the middle of bombing Iraq. Anti-war and pacifism are important themes in his work, and he has also voiced his opposition to amending Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution. And although Miyazaki attended Gakushuin University—which is attended by most of the member of the Imperial Family—it was there that he became interested in socialist and communist movements. His beliefs and his ambivalence is reflected in his work, and in Studio Ghibli as a whole; while most animators in Japan are freelancers, Studio Ghibli hires their animators full time. There’s a bit of a utopian feel to the studio.
For the past 20 years or so, however, the future of that Utopia has been up in the air. Miyazaki first announced his intention to retire after finishing 1997’s Princess Mononoke, and he has repeated that intention many times in the ensuing years only to come back for one more film. What would become of Studio Ghibli after Miyazaki left for good? In 2014, he announced his intention to retire for the fifth time, and Studio Ghibli’s production department was subsequently shut down—sending shockwaves throughout the animation industry and Japan.
Then, in November 2016, Suzuki Toshio announced that Miyazaki had begun work on a new film. In May 2017, Studio Ghibli announced that it was hiring. But with Takahata Isao having passed away in 2018, it seems that this will likely be Miyazaki’s final film. (Whether it will be finished or not remains to be seen.) The question is, will that be the end of Studio Ghibli, or a new beginning?
●Miyazaki Hayao Picks
4.Suzuki Toshio, the Producer Behind Studio Ghibli’s Success
As we’ve looked at so far, Takahata Isao and Miyazaki Hayao, two giants of modern Japanese anime, could not have realized their creative visions—nor would they achieve such international acclaim—without the behind-the-scenes support of producer Suzuki Toshio.
Suzuki was born in Nagoya in 1948. He attended Keio University and joined Tokuma Shoten in 1972 after graduating. He rose up the ranks as an editor, and became the deputy editor in chief of Animage, Japan’s first anime magazine geared for fans (rather than industry people). Suzuki interviewed Miyazaki Hayao for the magazine, and the rest is history. When they were about to start working on Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, it was Suzuki who convinced Takahata Isao to come on board as producer.
Ever since Studio Ghibli was founded, Suzuki has served as producer for every film that the studio has made. And while My Neighbor Totoro and Grave of the Fireflies are now considered classics, they were not box office successes in their time. When Studio Ghibli started working on Kiki’s Delivery Service, Suzuki knew he had to make it a hit in order to recoup costs. In the middle of production, he approached Nippon Television for support. With Kuroneko Yamato as a sponsor and the promotional reach of Nippon Television at his disposal, the film broke box office records and was a massive success. This would establish the Studio Ghibli brand as a reliable investment, and for all of its projects moving forward it was able to secure a major corporate sponsor. Suzuki was the mastermind behind all of that. (Porco Rosso was sponsored by Japan Airlines, Princess Mononoke was sponsored by Nippon Life Insurance Company, Spirited Away was sponsored by Mitsubishi Corporation, Howl’s Moving Castle was sponsored by House Foods, and Ponyo was sponsored by Asahi Soft Drinks.)
In recent years, Suzuki continues to support Miyazaki on his latest film, while also making preparations to open a Ghibli theme park in Aichi Earth Expo Memorial Park. The whole endeavor sounds a little too much like something Disney would do, but Suzuki explained in an interview that while it will be a theme park in one sense, it will also serve as a regular park. He says they intend to retain as many buildings as they can, and keep the general landscape similar to the way it is now. They are attempting to build a new kind of park.
5.Epilogue
Ever since Miyazaki announced his retirement for the first time after Princess Mononoke, people throughout Japan have wondered: who will be Miyazaki Hayao’s successor? Who will carry Studio Ghibli in to the future? At the very least it seems a savior will not emerge from within the company itself.
But Disney may offer a blueprint. After the death of Walt Disney, the studio fell into a multi-decade slump. While the company made efforts to cultivate a successor within the company, they ultimately did not succeed. Then in the 80s, a generation of animators and filmmakers who had grown up watching Disney films arrived, and launched the so-called Disney renaissance in the 90s. The key takeaway is that it was a team effort, with several talented directors and producers, as well as composers like Alan Menken, bringing things together so that Disney films were more than the sum of their parts.
When it comes to Studio Ghibli, though, asking who will be Miyazaki’s successor, or Takahata’s successor, is a fool’s errand. Both are geniuses with that special something that set them apart from the pack. By seeking out animators who might carry on the torch, they risk burdening up-and-coming talent with mountains of unwanted expectations.
In 1997, disgraced and convicted former Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein’s company won the rights to distribute Princess Mononoke in the U.S. Weinstein was notorious for chopping up foreign films and rejigging them to suit his tastes, and Miyazaki’s film was no different; when Miyazaki flew to New York to meet with Weinstein, he was asked to make numerous cuts to the film.
A few days later, legend has it, Weinstein received a package from Studio Ghibli in the mail. Inside was one katana, along with a note that read “No cuts". The gift had been sent by Suzuki.
If the Japanese animation industry is to to keep growing, the question we should really be asking is, “Who will be Suzuki Toshio’s successor?"
In part three, I will cover Tomino Yoshiyuki, who was greatly influenced by Takahata and Miyazaki, and Anno Hideaki, who was once touted as “the next Miyazaki".
