Portal:Studio Ghibli


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Founded in June 1985, Studio Ghibli is headed by the directors Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata and the producer Toshio Suzuki. Prior to the formation of the studio, Miyazaki and Takahata had already had long careers in Japanese film and television animation and had worked together on Hols: Prince of the Sun and Panda! Go, Panda!; and Suzuki was an editor at Tokuma Shoten's Animage magazine.

The studio was founded after the success of the 1984 film Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, written and directed by Miyazaki for Topcraft and distributed by Toei Company. The origins of the film lie in the first two volumes of a serialized manga written by Miyazaki for publication in Animage as a way of generating interest in an anime version. Suzuki was part of the production team on the film and founded Studio Ghibli with Miyazaki, who also invited Takahata to join the new studio.

The studio has mainly produced films by Miyazaki, with the second most prolific director being Takahata (most notably with Grave of the Fireflies). Other directors who have worked with Studio Ghibli include Yoshifumi Kondo, Hiroyuki Morita, Gorō Miyazaki, and Hiromasa Yonebayashi. Composer Joe Hisaishi has provided the soundtracks for most of Miyazaki's Studio Ghibli films. In their book Anime Classics Zettai!, Brian Camp and Julie Davis made note of Michiyo Yasuda as "a mainstay of Studio Ghibli’s extraordinary design and production team".

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Selected profile

Joe Hisaishi in Paris in 2011
Mamoru Fujisawa (藤澤 守, Fujisawa Mamoru; born December 6, 1950), known professionally as Joe Hisaishi (久石 譲, Hisaishi Jō), is a composer and musical director known for over 100 film scores and solo albums dating back to 1981. While possessing a stylistically distinct sound, Hisaishi's music has been known to explore and incorporate different genres, including minimalist, experimental electronic, European classical, and Japanese classical. Lesser known are the other musical roles he plays; he is also a typesetter, author, arranger, and conductor.

He is best known for his work with animator Hayao Miyazaki, having composed scores for many of his films, including Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1984), Laputa: Castle in the Sky (1986), My Neighbor Totoro (1988), Kiki's Delivery Service (1989), Porco Rosso (1992), Princess Mononoke (1997), Spirited Away (2001), Howl's Moving Castle (2004), Ponyo (2008), and The Wind Rises (2013).

He is also recognized for the soundtracks he has provided for filmmaker 'Beat' Takeshi Kitano, including A Scene at the Sea (1991), Sonatine (1993), Kids Return (1996), Hana-bi (1997), Kikujiro (1999), and Dolls (2002), as well for the video games Ni no Kuni: Dominion of the Dark Djinn and Wrath of the White Witch. He was a student of legendary anime composer Takeo Watanabe.

Selected work

Title of film in Japanese
My Neighbor Totoro (となりのトトロ, Tonari no Totoro) is a 1988 Japanese animated fantasy film written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki and produced by Studio Ghibli. The film–which stars the voice actors Noriko Hidaka, Chika Sakamoto, and Hitoshi Takagi–tells the story of the two young daughters (Satsuki and Mei) of a professor and their interactions with friendly wood spirits in postwar rural Japan. The film won the Animage Anime Grand Prix prize and the Mainichi Film Award for Best Film in 1988.

In 1988, Streamline Pictures produced an exclusive dub for use on transpacific flights by Japan Airlines and its Oneworld partners. Troma Films, under their 50th St. Films banner, distributed the dub of the film co-produced by Jerry Beck. It was released on VHS and DVD by Fox Video. The film was released on VHS and laserdisc in the United States by Tokuma Japan Communications' US subsidiary in 1993 under the title My Friend Totoro. Troma's and Fox's rights to this version expired in 2004.

The film was re-released by Walt Disney Pictures on March 7, 2006 and by Madman on March 15, 2006, with a new dub cast. This DVD release is the first version of the film in the United States to include both Japanese and English language tracks, as Fox did not have the rights to the Japanese audio track for their version.

Selected related article

Anne of Green Gables (赤毛のアン, Akage no An; lit. Red-haired Anne) is an animated television series, part of Nippon Animation's World Masterpiece Theater. It was adapted from the novel, Anne of Green Gables, by Lucy Maud Montgomery. Produced by Nippon Animation in 1979, it was first broadcast on Fuji TV from January 7, 1979 to December 30, 1979. Fifty episodes were produced in total.

The series was directed by Isao Takahata. He chose to make this animated version very true to the original source material, although his two previous works (Heidi, Girl of the Alps and 3000 Leagues in Search of Mother) had been adapted and altered.

Hayao Miyazaki did the scene setting and layout. Previously, he had worked on 3000 Leagues in Search of Mother, although he left the production and Nippon Animation after the first 15 episodes. Miyazaki noticed a difference in Takahata's philosophy of animation; Takahata stuck to controlled, realistic acting at the time, similar to his former work. Miyazaki had not intended to do other work with Takahata, but he had also not planned on becoming independent in this season of his work.

Yoshifumi Kondo was selected for character design and animation director over Yoichi Kotabe, who had stopped work with Takahata after 3000 Leagues in Search of Mother. Kondo went on to work with Takahata on the films Grave of the Fireflies and Only Yesterday. The voice of Anne was provided by Eiko Yamada, who became a staple of World Masterpiece Theatre anime, going on to play Lavinia in Princess Sarah and Jo March in Little Women (the latter of which also featured character designs by Kondo).

Selected media

Catbus cosplay (next to San taking a picture) at FanimeCon in 2010.
Catbus cosplay (next to San taking a picture) at FanimeCon in 2010.

Catbus cosplay (next to San taking a picture) at FanimeCon in 2010.

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Subcategories

Wikipedia: Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind · Studio Ghibli (animated films, people) · Ni no Kuni · Topcraft
Commons: Studio Ghibli · Cosplay (Howl, in the US, Kiki, Mononoke, Nausicaä, Porco, Totoro· Films (Howl, Kiki, Laputa, Mononoke, Nausicaä, Ponyo, Porco, Spirited Away, Totoro, The Wind Rises, The Boy and the Heron), Museum · People (Gorō Miyazaki, Hayao Miyazaki, Isao Takahata)

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