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Catalogue introduction

Japan, Anime & Manga Japan

Largest animation industry in the world. By the mid-90s, over 40 new TV animation series alone running in any one week of the year. An industry within which 'live-action' cinema can legitimately be regarded as a sub-set of the expansive, more popular, and often more engaging medium of animation.

Anime. A pseudo-French word used to denote the vast terrain of fantastic images, dizzying narratives and sensational sounds of Japanese animation. A vibrant vocabulary born from 30 dynamic years of anime's graphic sibling - manga (Japanese comics). Animation - not the reductionist, ageist, derided medium we are subjected to in the West, but a respected form of cultural expression born from the uniquely Japanese sense of the calligraphic, the iconic and the idiomatic.

In the West, words rule. In the East, sound and image form a materiality from which is carved complex ideas, sentiments and feelings we in the West ascribe too readily to a rarefied literary tradition. Japanese culture views the graphic and animated image and its audio-visual iconography as poetic material from which can be shaped a range of narratives, styles and effects far broader then we have allowed in the Disneyland of our Occidental dreaming.

Studio Ghibli

Nowhere is this level of sophistication more apparent than in the work produced by Studio Ghibli - currently the biggest and most recognized independent animation studio in Japan. It also happens to produce the most artistically advanced examples of cel animation in the world.

Studio Ghibli (it's WWII Italian fighter pilot slang to describe the hot wind blowing across the Sahara Desert) was formed in 1985 by Hayao Miyazaki & Isao Takahata under the financial support and incorporation of Tokuma Shoten Publishing. Miyazaki and Takahata met while honing their craft at the Toei-Doga Animation Studios in the early 60s. There they became nakama (comrades) and forged a strong creative relationship: they both led the animators' union at the studio, plus director Takahata urged animator Miyazaki to move into the directing field. From there they developed a vision to make quality feature animations for theatrical release. This imperative would become the foundation of Studio Ghibli's identity. While Takahata had directed numerous films & TV series over this period (including the acclaimed THE GREAT ADVENTURES OF HORUS: PRINCE OF THE SUN, 1968), Miyazaki directed fewer (including his distinctive take on Monkey Punch's LUPIN III: CASTLE OF CAGLIOSTRO, 1979).

Concurrent with their explorations in the field of television animation, Miyazaki commenced work on the manga NAUSICAA: IN THE VALLEY OF THE WIND (since made available in 7 translated volumes through VIZ Publications). Serialized in ANIMAGE magazine from 1982, its popularity soon prompted the production of a feature animation, which in turn allowed Miyazaki and Takahata to commence the realization of their vision. Following the success of the NAUSICAA film in 1984 - produced by Takahata and directed by Miyazaki - Studio Ghibli officially came to life in 1985 with the production of LAPUTA: SKY CASTLE.

After the release of LAPUTA in 1986, production increased at Studio Ghibli. MY NEIGHBOUR TOTORO and TOMBSTONE FOR FIREFLIES were concurrently produced then released as a double bill in 1988. While not as big box-office draw cards as expected, FIREFLIES has gone on to be critically regarded and TOTORO keeps growing in popularity - especially since the marketing of the film's soft toys (ironically 2 years after the film's release). Then came the box office smash of KIKI'S DELIVERY SERVICE in 1989 which solidified Studio Ghibli's track record and status within Japan's animation industry. More films followed (see the filmography at the end of these notes), culminating in Takahata's POM POKO being selected as Japan's entry into the 1994 Academy Awards for Best Foreign Film.

By 1995, Studio Ghibli had shifted to larger premises, implemented a plan to employ full-time staff as opposed to contract work attached to discrete projects, ventured into TV series production, and opened the East Koganei Village School of animation for which the school master is Takahata. Currently, Studio Ghibli is completing post-production on the first film to be released under their recent distribution deal with Buena Vista (Disney), THE PRINCESS OF MONONOKE. Buena Vista will also be releasing most of Studio Ghibli's back catalogue, thereby allowing the West greater access to the marvellous work of Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata.

Hayao Miyazaki

Hayao Miyazaki's work is carried by various streams of fantasy, most of which are navigated by central teenage girl characters. (Speilbergian 'wonder boys' they're not.) Yet rather than make bishojo anime (for the 'young girls' market), Miyazaki makes fully rounded dramas within which there simply exists strong girls. Such characters in Miyazaki's work form a base from which ecological concerns extend on both macrocosmic and microcosmic levels. Acknowledging existence from dimensional, planetary effects to the slightest physical nuances, Miyazaki's characters always tread carefully. They also fly beautifully. Miyazaki is obsessed with flight of all kinds, and often uses it as the vehicle for not only high-keyed drama, but also to generate emotional substance in his characters. The high quality animation which realizes all these concerns is controlled and distinctive. Miyazaki's acute rhythmic sensibility privileges inspiring silence as much as dizzying motion effects, typifying his uniquely Japanese slant on the medium.

Isao Takahata

Perhaps cast in Miyazaki's public shadow (despite Studio Ghibli being a collaborative vision), Isao Takahata produces work of equal depth, precision and emotional intensity. Whereas Miyazaki explores his ideas in speculative settings, Takahata has forged his style and approach through sharp realism with a breath-taking sense of naturalism. His works are often slow, generally lingering, and exhibit a focused approach to investigating individual characters' shifting states of mind. His drawing style and character design shares many similarities to Miyazaki's, but Takahata's characters are distinctly sombre, reflective, tragic. Yet Takahata also delivers a wry humour derived from what could be termed a 'political cartoonist' sensibility (POM POKO being a tour de force in this respect). A published author on key European animators, Takahata's complex themes are energized by his approach to animation, wherein naturalism can suddenly collide with visual metaphor in the most unlikely combinations. Takahata deftly makes his points by juggling and combining devices, effects and audio-visual language, thereby producing rich experimental work which neither alienates nor confuses.

Complete contents of this page © Philip Brophy