Sharing a House with the Never-Ending Man: 15 Years at Studio Ghibli by Steve Alpert, Stone Bridge Press, 2/5 stars If you had visited the newly opened Ghibli Museum, in suburban Tokyo, in 2001, you might have been lucky to see artist and animator Hayao Miyazaki at work. Once a week the influential co-founder of Japanese animation giant Studio Ghibli would sit and draw at a modest wooden desk, to show fans how his films were made. Massive lines and crowds quickly formed to see Miyazaki; museum staff struggled to maintain order. His appearances were eventually scrapped, but the desk remains at the museum today, cluttered with palettes of gouache daubs and half-etched drafts, as if the artist had just stepped away and would be back any second. Such is the enigmatic aura of Miyazaki and his many creations under Studio Ghibli, the once-humble Japanese animation company that exploded onto the international stage with Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1984), My Neighbour Totoro (1988), Princess Mononoke (1997) and the Oscar-winning Spirited Away (2001). But how did this small, local company reach out to the world? A new book by the studio’s long-time international executive, Japanese-speaking American Steve Alpert, lifts the veil on some of the business transactions and industry practices that led to the studio’s success. The 25 best Japanese movies of the 21st century Sharing a House with the Never-Ending Man: 15 Years at Studio Ghibli isn’t so much about how these films were made or the creative processes at the animation giant. Instead, it’s a hybrid of business memoir and confessional text describing the life of a gaijin (“foreigner”) in Japan. The first half of the book focuses on Alpert’s time at the company in Japan, mostly at various Ghibli offices or with his Japanese colleagues. Here, he recalls professional customs that he found particularly unusual. Some are humorous, such as his memories of the stoic Yasuyoshi Tokuma, chairman of Tokuma Shoten (the parent company of Ghibli), inviting Alpert to his office just to eat tiny cups of vanilla ice cream: “There would be no talking at all sometimes; just eating.” Some feel more like ethnographic research; Alpert begins dozens of sentences with “The Japanese are …” After reading passage after passage of these seemingly minor observations, many will begin to wonder about the purpose of the book. The second half is more focused on international distribution and the road to critical acclaim, although the sections are not chronological and some chapters jump around awkwardly. Superfans will already know that there is only one true way to watch a Ghibli film: in its original Japanese language, with subtitles if one cannot understand Japanese. There is a reason for this, which Alpert confirms – international distributors, when dubbing these films, have over the years changed the script and music, and Miramax, then a subsidiary of Disney, was the greatest offender. (Alpert’s introduction of Miramax’s then head, Harvey Weinstein, is prefaced with a note that this was before his sexual misconduct came to light.) Describing the difficult process of translating the script of Princess Mononoke into English – a process that involved British author Neil Gaiman as the rightfully protective scriptwriter and a bellicose, sometimes screaming Weinstein – Alpert noted that initially “they filled silences with dialogue that wasn’t in the original script. They added plot points to fill out storylines they found unclear. They changed names to make them sound more American”. Excruciatingly superficial are details dedicated to these differences – minor in the end – and the clashes that ensued, as well as the recording and mixing sessions. Even a hard-core superfan might be hard-pressed to continue reading. There is hardly any discussion of the processes behind the making of the deeply philosophical Spirited Away , for example, but plenty of high-strung drama, name-dropping and descriptions of award ceremonies. The book’s highlights are rare: short sections about Miyazaki’s creative process and his philosophies about films and life. Through these, we learn that Miyazaki is a complex man: he is both methodical and unpredictable when starting a film. Alpert writes that Miyazaki would divide a project into “five parts; A, B, C, D and E” and that A, B and C would be drawn smoothly and without much delay, but then Miyazaki would encounter an existential, creative crisis at around D, which would cause the whole studio to temporarily collapse, waiting for his instruction. Netflix bets on Japanese animation with Studio Ghibli films And we learn that he is eager to oblige fans – Alpert relates a story of when, in France, Miyazaki drew Ghibli characters for the children and guests of a business partner. Yet he shuns public attention: when the 2003 Oscar for best animated feature was awarded to Spirited Away , Miyazaki was asleep, thousands of miles away in Tokyo. Having been offered a flight on Roy Disney’s private charter to attend the awards, he had resolutely declined. There is much detail in Alpert’s memoir (purely text-based; the accompanying images, unfortunately, are tiny, and black and white). He should be applauded for his memory, attention to detail and contributions to making Studio Ghibli films accessible to the world. Yet the text feels more like a dense report at times, cobbling together two experiences – one as a foreigner in Japan, and the other as an eagle-eyed observer. In doing so, he has stripped the films of some of their magic.