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NEWS: Japan's Animation Blu-ray Disc Ranking, December 1-7

Those awards have nothing to do with sales numbers in Japan, they barely have anything to do with sales numbers in America either. It can win all of the prestigious little animation awards it wants, it can even take the Golden Globe, but the Academy Award is the only one the general populace will ever care about. Winning that could give it a shot at seeing some sort of wider release instead of the limited arthouse circuit.

I started to lose faith on to the Academy Awards since their judging system has been questioned which include Oscar baiting. I rather stick to Golden Globes since they have a better judging system.

Princess Kaguya should never have cost US$50m to make. That amount is absurd for an animated movie out of Japan. The three producers should hang their heads in shame for greenlighting that much funding.

Look, I like Isao Takahata and his body of work a lot; far more than Hayao Miyazaki and his films. But he's never been as commercially successful as Miyazaki, he isn't a household name and his films have been low-key.

Princess Kaguya has made just two-thirds of the gross in Japanese theatres as Spirited Away did, and the latter cost just forty percent of the former to make. So Spirited Away made more money with a much smaller budget.

While Princess Kaguya could still rake in money overseas like Spirited Away did, I very much doubt that it will. If I'm right, that leaves home video sales as the only other major source of revenue . . . and the numbers have been incredibly weak for a family-friendly film by a much-beloved studio.

Studio executives everywhere seem to be under this illusion that to make a really good film - and especially a profitable one - you have to throw vast sums of money at it. That's simply not the case at all.