bodyType

customContents

entityId

entityUuid

articlePageQuery

filter

article

articleBaseAdvertisingInfoArticle

articleListArticle

articleSeoArticle

hooksArticleAcknowledgementGateOverlayArticle

hooksTrackPageViewArticle

hooksContentInterestArticle

articleLinkingDataContent

hooksAmpRedirectArticle

articleSchemaContent

liveArticle

advertZone

sentiment

contentLock

topics

types

sections

paywallTypes

createdDate

publishedDate

urlAlias

moreOnThisArticles

sponsorType

commentCount

authorLocations

authors

corrections

displaySlideShow

multimediaEmbed

printHeadline

seriesContainer

articleSpeeches

socialHeadline

headline

images

flag

firstTopic

glossary

flattenTypeIds

image

relatedLinks

relatedNewsletters

__typename

sponsor

pdfFiles

seriesReverseOrder

series

disableOffPlatformContent

published

updatedDate

summary

subHeadline

body

keywords

readingTime

customTimezone

liveContents

Agence France-Presse

Japan’s Studio Ghibli turns 40 this month with two Oscars and legions of fans young and old won over by its films’ complex plots and hand-drawn animation.
But the future is uncertain, with the latest hit, The Boy and the Heron, probably the final feature from its celebrated co-founder Hayao Miyazaki, now 84.
The studio behind the Oscar-winning Spirited Away has become a cultural phenomenon since Miyazaki and the late Isao Takahata established it in 1985.
Its popularity has been fuelled recently by a second Academy Award in 2024 for The Boy and the Heron, with a voice cast including Robert Pattinson, and by Netflix streaming Ghibli films around the world.


In March, the internet was flooded with pictures in its distinctively nostalgic style after the release of OpenAI’s newest image generator – raising questions over copyright.
The newly opened Ghibli Park has also become a major tourist draw for central Japan’s Aichi region.
Julia Santilli, a 26-year-old from Britain living in northern Japan, “fell in love with Ghibli” after watching the 2001 classic Spirited Away as a child. “I started collecting all the DVDs,” she says.
Ghibli stories are “very engaging and the artwork is stunning”, says another fan, Margot Divall, 26.
“I probably watch Spirited Away about 10 times a year still.”


Before Ghibli, most anime, as animations are known in Japan, were made for children. But Miyazaki and Takahata, both from “the generation that knew war”, included darker elements that appeal to adults, Miyazaki’s son Goro said.
“It’s not all sweet – there’s also a bitterness and things like that which are beautifully intertwined in the work,” he said, describing a “whiff of death” in the films.
For younger people who grew up in peacetime, “it is impossible to create something with the same sense, approach and attitude”, Goro said. Even My Neighbor Totoro, with its cuddly forest creatures, is in some ways a “scary” film that explores the fear of losing a sick mother, he explained.
Susan Napier, a professor at Tufts University in the United States and author of Miyazakiworld: A Life in Art, agrees.
“In Ghibli, you have ambiguity, complexity and also a willingness to see that the darkness and light often go together,” unlike good-versus-evil US cartoons, she said.

The post-apocalyptic Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind – considered the first Ghibli film despite its release in 1984 – has no obvious villain, for example. The anime, featuring an independent princess curious about giant insects and a poisonous forest, felt “so fresh” and a change from “a passive woman … having to be rescued”, Napier says.
Studio Ghibli films also depict a universe where humans connect deeply with nature and the spirit world. A case in point is 1997’s Princess Mononoke, distributed internationally by Disney.
The tale of a girl raised by a wolf goddess in a forest threatened by humans is “a masterpiece – but a hard movie”, Napier says. It’s a “serious, dark and violent” film appreciated more by adults, which “was not what US audiences had anticipated with a movie about a princess”.
Ghibli films “have an environmentalist and animistic side, which I think is very appropriate for the contemporary world with climate change”, she adds.


Miyuki Yonemura, a professor at Japan’s Senshu University who studies cultural theories on animation, says watching Ghibli films is like reading literature.
“That’s why some children watch Totoro 40 times,” she says, adding that audiences “discover something new every time.”
Miyazaki and Takahata – who died in 2018 – could create imaginative worlds because of their openness towards other cultures, Yonemura says. Foreign influences included Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, writer of The Little Prince, and animator Paul Grimault, both French, and Canadian artist Frédéric Back, who won an Oscar for his animation The Man Who Planted Trees.
Takahata studying French literature at university “was a big factor”, Yonemura says. “Both Miyazaki and Takahata read a lot,” she says. “That’s a big reason why they excel at writing scripts and creating stories.”
It’s so widely loved that I think it will carry on. As long as it doesn’t lose its beauty, as long as it carries on the amount of effort, care and love
Margot Divall, Studio Ghibli fan
Miyazaki was inspired by several books for Nausicaä, including the 12th-century Japanese tale The Lady Who Loved Insects, and stories from Greek mythology.
Studio Ghibli will not be the same after Miyazaki stops creating animation, “unless similar talent emerges”, Yonemura says.
Miyazaki is “a fantastic artist with such a visual imagination”, while both he and Takahata were “politically progressive”, Napier says. “The more I study, the more I realise this was a unique cultural moment,” she says.
“It’s so widely loved that I think it will carry on,” says Ghibli fan Divall. “As long as it doesn’t lose its beauty, as long as it carries on the amount of effort, care and love.”


Hong Kong abruptly cancels 3 Japanese film screenings amid diplomatic row

Road to Vendetta movie review: Jeffrey Ngai plays an assassin in illogical lead-role debut

Want to find solace in film? 10 movies that may offer catharsis and hope

Japanese concerts cancelled in China as diplomatic row takes cultural toll

Asian cinema: Japanese films

As Studio Ghibli turns 40, fans worry about its future once Hayao Miyazaki retires

A still from Studio Ghibli’s The Boy and the Heron. Photo: Studio Ghibli

Animated film director Hayao Miyazaki of Japan’s Studio Ghibli at the Berlin International Film Festival in 2002, where his film Spirited Away won the Golden Bear, the top prize. It won an Oscar the same year. Fans worry about Ghibli’s future when the director, now 84, retires. Photo: AFP

Vice-president of events and exhibitions for Studio Ghibli Kenichi Yoda (right) with Ghibli Park creative development manager Goro Miyazaki at the 77th Cannes Film Festival in 2024. Photo: AFP

Indonesian animated movie Jumbo topples Frozen 2 at the country’s box office

A still from the Indonesian hit animation film Jumbo, about a spirited orphan boy named Don. Photo: Visinema Group

Jumbo director Ryan Adriandhy. Photo: Reuters

A still from Jumbo. Photo: Visinema Group

Visinema Pictures’ founder Angga Dwimas Sasongko.

The 10 most famous K-drama actors of all time, including Squid Game’s Lee Byung-hun, Train to Busan’s Gong Yoo and Hyun Bin

From Lee Byung-hun to Gong Yoo to Hyun Bin (pictured), we rank the 10 greatest male K-drama actors of all time. Photo: Instagram/@hyunbinactor_

Ji Chang-wook in a still from “If You Wish Upon Me” (2022).

So Ji-sub in a still from “Doctor Lawyer” (2022).

Kim Soo-hyun in a still from “One Ordinary Day” (2021). Photo: Viu

Lee Jong-suk in a still from “Big Mouth” (2022).

Gong Yoo in a still from “The Silent Sea” (2021). Photo: Netflix

Kim Minha (left) and Lee Min-ho in a still from “Pachinko” (2022). Photo: Apple.

Song Joong-ki in a still from “Reborn Rich” (2022).

Bae Yong-joon (right) and Choi Ji-woo in a still from “Winter Sonata” (2002).

Hyun Bin (right) and Son Ye-jin in a still from “Crash Landing on You” (2020).

Lee Byung-hun in a still from Our Blues.

Lifestyle

Entertainment

Culture

Film & TV

News

Asia

East Asia

The Boy and the Heron could be the last animation from veteran artist Hayao Miyazaki, known for his engaging hand-drawn works


The Boy and the Heron could be the last animation from veteran artist Hayao Miyazaki, known for his engaging hand-drawn works.


Hayao Miyazaki

Japan

Netflix

As Studio Ghibli turns 40, fans worry about its future once Hayao Miyazaki retires

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}The Boy and the Heron could be the last animation from veteran artist Hayao Miyazaki, known for his engaging hand-drawn works

The Boy and the Heron could be the last animation from veteran artist Hayao Miyazaki, known for his engaging hand-drawn works