Ghibli and the World — Hayao Miyazaki's Achievement

In the previous episode, we saw how, in the 1980s, anime gained the new vessels of video and cinema, and opened a passage to the far side of the sea as well. Studio Ghibli, which had given its first cry in that era, was still on the eve of becoming known to the world.

The road Ghibli chose seemed, at first glance, to run against the times. In an age when technology was beginning to turn toward the digital, it kept walking the road of drawing each and every frame by human hand. It was the opposite direction from efficiency. And yet, at the end of that detour, heights the world would recognize were waiting.

In this episode, we trace roughly a decade and more of Ghibli, from a domestic favorite to the day the world’s film festivals awarded their highest prizes. Along the way, we also want to touch, without averting our eyes, on the cost of aiming for the farthest point.

A Double-Feature Gamble — Totoro and Grave of the Fireflies

One film that brought Ghibli’s name widely into homes was ‘My Neighbor Totoro,’ released in 1988. It depicted, in a gentle touch, the exchange between sisters who have moved to the countryside and a mysterious creature dwelling in the forest.

What is intriguing is the form of its release. ‘My Neighbor Totoro’ was at first thought difficult to release nationwide on its own, and so it was sent out as a double feature with director Isao Takahata’s ‘Grave of the Fireflies.’ Set in wartime Kobe, where a young brother and sister try desperately to live, ‘Grave of the Fireflies’ is a story full of pain, in stark contrast to the bright Totoro. That two works of such different texture stood within the same running time became a talking point for years to come.

The form of a double feature was, in box-office terms, a gamble. But as a result, Ghibli came to show, early on, that it was a production group holding both poles of style under the same roof: ‘reassuring entertainment for children’ and ‘a heavy story that pierces an adult’s heart.‘

To the Domestic Summit — Princess Mononoke

Entering the 1990s, Ghibli’s works grew in scale. One of their high points was ‘Princess Mononoke,’ released in 1997.

In a world evoking medieval Japan, it depicts a struggle between the gods of the forest and humans who clear nature through ironmaking. The stance of not judging either side as simply evil, of carrying each one’s rightness and karma forward through the story, was a trait running through Miyazaki’s works. The sheer volume of animation was great as well, and considerable labor is said to have been poured into it for its time.

The box-office revenue of ‘Princess Mononoke’ is said to have reached a scale that stood at the top of Japan’s all-time box office at the time. This work showed, in numerical terms too, that animation could become a national hit standing alongside — or even surpassing — major live-action films. Anime was no longer the possession of a portion of enthusiasts; it had become something a broad swath of society went to the theater for.

While standing at the domestic summit, Ghibli’s eyes had already begun to turn beyond it as well. How would a style devoted to hand-drawing be received outside Japan? The answer to that question would be shown in the next work.

The Farthest Point the World Recognized — Spirited Away

In 2001, Hayao Miyazaki’s ‘Spirited Away’ was released. It is the story of a girl who, having wandered with her parents into a mysterious world, works at a bathhouse where the myriad gods gather, and in doing so regains herself. Japan’s folkloric worldview and a universal story of growth overlapped, drawing in a wide range of audiences.

Domestically, it is said to have left record-setting box-office results. But what makes this work special is that its acclaim crossed the border. In 2002, ‘Spirited Away’ won the Golden Bear, the highest prize, at the Berlin International Film Festival. For a feature-length animation to win the top prize at a world-class film festival was said to be a most exceptional thing. And in 2003, the same work won the U.S. Academy Award for Best Animated Feature. As a Japanese animated film, it was a first-ever feat.

By earning acclaim on two of the world’s great stages, Ghibli, and Japanese anime, shifted in position from a kind of exported entertainment to an object discussed as art. At the very least, the way it was talked about certainly changed. The choice to keep walking the road of hand-drawing — a road far from efficiency — produced, as a result, a one-of-a-kind texture, and that reached the world.

What Remains After the Achievement

Ghibli’s path leaves us with a question. Expression worked to the utmost limit does indeed strike the human heart. But how long, and on whose burden, can that road be continued?

Holding to hand-drawing, it is said, grew into a heavier choice year by year in an age of advancing mechanization and efficiency. Each time a superb work was produced, the challenges of securing the talent that supports it and of sustaining the workplace rose up as more pressing matters. Ghibli’s achievement was accomplished by taking on that difficulty. And precisely for that reason, it is not something that can be easily reproduced.

Even so, the meaning of what Ghibli showed is not small. That animation can be, not children’s amusement nor a fad consumed and forgotten, but a work spoken of for a long time. That an accumulation of handwork can reach people across borders and generations alike. This production group left these as living proof.

And at the very same time Ghibli was stacking up its hand-drawn achievements, in the world of anime, a work that would tear through the era by an entirely different principle was coming into being. Rising from a late-night broadcast slot and coming to be called even a social phenomenon — let us look at that shock in the next episode.