It's Christmas break. You've got about 2 weeks off school. What do you do with all that spare time on your hands? How about watch some movies? This week (I guess I should say month now, as I don't post nearly as often as I should) I'll be taking you through the works of Hayao Miyazaki, Isao Takahata, and all the other talented people of Studio Ghibli.
First, a brief history. Miyazaki-sensei was born on January 5, 1941 in Tokyo, Japan. He used to work for Toei, then teamed up with Isao Takahata at A Pro. He directed some tv shows, including Conan the Boy in the Future and Lupin III. His first feature film was Lupin III: The Castle of Cagliostro. (source)
After Cagliostro, Miyazaki wanted to direct his own work, Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind. Anime films and television series are usually based on manga series, which ensures an audience. The producers Miyazaki-sensei approached didn't want to make a movie about a new series. So, Miyazaki made them a manga series. Two years later, Nausicaä made its film debut. It is widely regarded as Miyazaki's masterpiece.
The money he made from Nausicaa allowed him to open up his own animation studio. Thus, Studio Ghibli was born. "ghibli" (pronounced with a soft "g") is an Italian word for a hot desert wind, and also the name of an Italian plane. The real word is pronounced with a hard "g", but by that time it was noticed, the name had already stuck.
Ghibli is a very unique studio in that all of its animators work for salary, not commission. Thi ensures top quality on all the films made there. But in order to have the money to pay salaries, Ghibli must release many movies on a regular basis. I'm not complaining, though, as I have yet to see a Ghibli movie I didn't like.
While the films that come out of Studio Ghibli are directed by many differnt people, the majority of Ghibli films are by Miyazaki-sensei. All the feature films he has directed are:
Lupin III: The Castle of Cagliostro
Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind
Laputa: Castle in the Sky
My Neighbor Totoro
Kiki's Delivery Service
Porco Rosso
Princess Mononoke
Spirited Away
Howl's Moving Castle
All of sensei's works are outstanding, but my absolute favorite is Mononoke Hime (Princess Mononoke). Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi (Spriited Away) would be my second favorite. It's really hard to put the rest in order, because they're all different genres. (Nausicaa is Sci-Fi, Totoro is childrens, Laputa is action-adventure, Kiki is coming of age, etc.) Mononoke broke every Japanese box office record when it first came out, and for a while held the title of biggest-grossing movie in Japanese box office history. It was knocked off by James Cameron's Titanic quickly after, but then Spirited Away came out in 2001 and re-broke all the box office records. To my knowledge, Spirited Away still holds the records. That's how big Miyazaki-sensei is in Japan. An animated film holds box office records.
Other movies that have come out of Studio Ghibli are:
Grave of the Fireflies
Only Yesterday (covered under the Disney-Tokuma deal, but not yet released in America)
Pom Poko
My Neighbors the Yamadas
Whisper of the Heart
The Cat Returns
Tales of Earthsea (not going to be released until at least 2009 because the Sci-Fi channel currently holds the rights to the Tales of Earthsea books)
And Miyazaki-sensei's next film, Ponyo on a Cliff is scheduled to come out in 2008 in Japan, and is covered under the Disney-Tokuma deal, so we will see it eventually. Short movies like On Your Mark, Ocean Waves, and Gauche the Cellist are not covered in the deal, so I can't say if we'll ever get to see them. The only legal way to get them as of now is to buy a Japanese DVD player and buy the Japanese DVDs. But then they're still in Japanese. ^_^;;
A very reliable Studio Ghibli fansite is nausicaa.net. (I'd give you the official site, but it's in Japanese.) Just about anything and everything you'd ever want to know about Miyazaki-sensei, Takahata-sensei, Hisaishi-sensei, and the rest of Studio Ghibli is on there.
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