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NEWS: Arrietty Director Yonebayashi Left Studio Ghibli


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ptj_tsubasa



Joined: 04 Feb 2009
Posts: 129
PostPosted: Thu Mar 12, 2015 5:44 am Reply with quote
Was it Mamoru Oshii who once said that the best thing Ghibli could do would be to close down so that all the talented animators there could pursue interesting projects elsewhere in the anime industry – instead of being cooped up in Ghibli, which has virtually no connections to the rest of the anime industry?

About 20 years ago, that is.
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MajorZero



Joined: 29 Jul 2010
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PostPosted: Thu Mar 12, 2015 7:11 am Reply with quote
So, Ghibli is really done for? I mean, both Takahata and Miyazaki aren't getting younger and Goro isn't nearly as talented as his father. It seems this guy was their last hope but now even he's gone.
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Kimiko_0



Joined: 31 Aug 2008
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PostPosted: Thu Mar 12, 2015 7:46 am Reply with quote
That's not good for Ghibli. Yonebayashi and Miyazaki the Younger were supposed to be their main directors after Miyazaki the Elder and Takahata retired. I don't think Goro Miyazaki will be able to keep things afloat by himself, and Ghibli only doing menial labor for other anime studios would be kinda sad for a studio of their stature. Maybe it's indeed better to close down.
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Mr. Oshawott



Joined: 12 Mar 2012
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PostPosted: Thu Mar 12, 2015 8:26 am Reply with quote
Oh, man...Just when I thought Ghibli was over their dark moments, this had to happen. Perhaps Hiromasa-san decided it was time to move on to perhaps another studio somewhere to make that next film that he said would be different from his last one.
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Blackiris_



Joined: 06 Sep 2013
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PostPosted: Thu Mar 12, 2015 8:54 am Reply with quote
Mr. Oshawott wrote:
Oh, man...Just when I thought Ghibli was over their dark moments, this had to happen. Perhaps Hiromasa-san decided it was time to move on to perhaps another studio somewhere to make that next film that he said would be different from his last one.


He also mentioned Ponyo. Personally, I think the painful, but most realistic answer is: Ghibli will likely not make another movie. Over the years, Miyazaki's films were the only ones with guaranteed financial success, so his works were able to finance the works of other creators (like Takahata, whose works never appealed to the mainstream as much) as well. Not sure about Arrietty, but I think Marnie was not very successful for a Ghibli work and Kaguya was definitely a financial loss.

Ghibli productions are very expensive because of the high animation quality, and because they don't outsource their work to Korea and China, and because the payment is a bit better than in the average anime studio, I think.

The lack of a replacement for Miyazaki as the leading director of the studio may be one reason (maybe things would be different now if Yoshifumi Kondo was still alive), but I also think it is very difficult for Ghibli to helm another high-budget production that's no certain financial success right now. I also suspect that a big part of the staff left the studio after Marnie. I mean, Suzuki said that Ghibli is not currently working on anything specific. They can't have 400+ animators doing nothing, so there's obviously more to it.

Yonebayashi likely moved on because it was his best chance to make other works/movies. He even said he talked with Nishimura, the producer of Kaguya and Marnie. It's sad, really, but Miyazaki said years ago that this future is inevitable for the studio. "It's fall apart, I can clearly see it," he said in the documentary, and he was right. He was not pessimistic, but realistic. We don't get a whole lot of insight into the inner workings of the studio, but from the bits and pieces we know it's not so difficult to see what's going on at the moment. Suzuki is pretty straightforward about it, to be honest.


Last edited by Blackiris_ on Thu Mar 12, 2015 10:37 am; edited 1 time in total
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koinosuke



Joined: 24 Sep 2005
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PostPosted: Thu Mar 12, 2015 10:08 am Reply with quote
This is some pretty major news. Just when the future of the studio was starting to look a little brighter, too. I really have to wonder what's going to happen from here.
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Angel M Cazares



Joined: 23 Sep 2010
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PostPosted: Thu Mar 12, 2015 10:38 am Reply with quote
Blackiris_ wrote:
but Miyazaki said years ago that this future is inevitable for the studio. "It will fall apart," he said in the documentary, and he was right. He was not pessimistic, but realistic.

I wish some of the fans in this thread were also realistic, not delusional. Studio Ghibli will probably never return to its former glory, but some people refuse to accept the facts.
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Chrno2



Joined: 28 May 2004
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PostPosted: Thu Mar 12, 2015 11:05 am Reply with quote
What Yonebayashi left? Oh crap? How the hell did that happen. He just finished this film I thought he was going to continue. That's a shame.
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Blood-
Bargain Hunter



Joined: 07 Mar 2009
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PostPosted: Thu Mar 12, 2015 11:51 am Reply with quote
I find these "Ghibli is basically just spinning its wheels" stories incredibly depressing. I hope somebody finds away to keep the Ghibli enterprise alive and well, just like Disney continued to do great things even after Weird Old Walt shuffled off into the sunset.
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GATSU



Joined: 03 Jan 2002
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PostPosted: Thu Mar 12, 2015 12:45 pm Reply with quote
Blackiris: Arrietty made money, but I think part of it had to do with cashing on Ponyo's success.
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Posts Sometimes



Joined: 27 Jul 2014
Posts: 38
PostPosted: Thu Mar 12, 2015 12:47 pm Reply with quote
Blood- wrote:
I find these "Ghibli is basically just spinning its wheels" stories incredibly depressing. I hope somebody finds away to keep the Ghibli enterprise alive and well, just like Disney continued to do great things even after Weird Old Walt shuffled off into the sunset.

Walt Disney's death didn't kill Disney, but it took more than 20 years for them to recover from losing him. And don't forget he wasn't nearly as involved in the actual film-making as Miyazaki is at Ghibli. That doesn't really bode well for Ghibli's future without him.
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Blood-
Bargain Hunter



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PostPosted: Thu Mar 12, 2015 12:51 pm Reply with quote
Valid points.

*goes back to being depressed*
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insert name here



Joined: 27 Jul 2011
Posts: 84
PostPosted: Thu Mar 12, 2015 1:08 pm Reply with quote
Watching Kingdom of Dreams and Madness, and the second documentary about the making of Kaguya, really left me with the impression that Ghibli is a really well oiled machine designed to make movies for Hayao Miyazaki. When Takahata tried to do something in a different style for Yamadas, he nearly "broke the studio." To make Kaguya like he did, he had to hire mostly freelancers, and in effect set up a whole new workspace. Without Miyazaki, I think Ghibli is pretty much done. If they make films differently, will they still even be Ghibli in anything but the name?
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Penguin_Factory



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PostPosted: Thu Mar 12, 2015 1:17 pm Reply with quote
It's not really surprising he's left- if Ghibli aren't making movies anymore there's nothing for him to do there.

While we're on the Ghibli prognostication train: no matter what else happens, this is the end of an era for them. When people think of that studio they were thinking of the movies of Miyazaki and to a lesser extent Takahata, and now that they're both retired no more of those are going to be made.

As to what happens from here, I think we will probably see Ghibli producing new things again, whether that's movies (definitely the least likely, for the time being), a series, or whatever, but they'll almost certainly be cheaper, commercially safer and possibly as part of a work for hire arrangement (not sure how the business specifics of that would work out). I can kind of see them following the same trajectory as Gainax, ie going from a known name with a unique creative thumbprint to just another run of the mill studio that works on whatever it needs to to keep the lights in, while simultaneously mining their famous back catalog.

Which I guess is kind of depressing, but they've had a legendary run and like I said, Ghibli as a cultural and creative entity was never going to outlive Miyazaki and Takahata. I kind of feel like we should have made our peace with this a long time ago.
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Blood-
Bargain Hunter



Joined: 07 Mar 2009
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PostPosted: Thu Mar 12, 2015 1:59 pm Reply with quote
Penguin_Factory wrote:
.Which I guess is kind of depressing, but they've had a legendary run and like I said, Ghibli as a cultural and creative entity was never going to outlive Miyazaki and Takahata. I kind of feel like we should have made our peace with this a long time ago.


Perhaps so. And it's not like I necessarily believed that Ghibli could consistently scale the heights it did under Miyazaki, but I did sort of assume the studio would continue to put out stuff. I liked Arrietty. I suspect I'll like When Marnie Was Here. Sad to think that there may very well be NOTHING coming out in the future.
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