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Late Ghibli Director Isao Takahata's Unproduced Scripts Found at Home

NHK reported on Tuesday that around 130 pages of scripts and notes on unproduced works were found in late director Isao Takahata's home in June earlier this year. Seiji Kano, a professor at Tokyo Zokei University, and director of the Institute of Isao Takahata and Hayao Miyazaki Films, has examined the documents.

NHK's report stated the documents are written on paper from an animation company that Takahata joined after graduating college in his 20s. Though left unnamed in the NHK report, Takahata first worked at Toei Douga (now Toei Animation) after college.

Among the drafts is a script titled "Oeyama" (Mount Ōe), with a story based on Japan's myth on the slaying of the oni Shuten-dōji, with an included note that Takahata did not want to show the oni being slain, and that the depiction of the demon would be "somewhat comical."

Another script, "Moratta Hoseki" (The Gifted Jewel), is apparently based on Kenji Miyazawa's "The Fire Stone" children's tale, where a fox tricks a rabbit to do wrong and the rabbit loses his sight as punishment. In Takahata's notes, he would depict the story showing the rabbit realizing his mistake and driving away the fox.

Takahata's notes also contain ideas for a prequel to The Tale of Princess Kaguya (itself based on The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter Japanese folktale). 

Takahata died on April 5, 2018.

Takahata joined Toei Douga (now Toei Animation) in 1959 after graduating from the University of Tokyo in French literature. His directorial debut was on an episode of the Ōkami Shōnen Ken television anime, and he directed his first feature film, Horus - Prince of the Sun, in 1968. 

Takahata had a long career directing such classics as Little Norse Prince Valiant (Taiyō no Ōji - Hols no Daibōken), Alps no Shōjo Heidi, Anne of Green Gables, and Panda! Go, Panda! before he co-founded Studio Ghibli with Hayao Miyazaki and Toshio Suzuki. Takahata went on to create the feature films Grave of the Fireflies, Only Yesterday, Pom Poko, and My Neighbors the Yamadas. He also served as a producer on Miyazaki and Ghibli's Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind and Laputa: Castle in the Sky, and was the artistic producer on Wild Bunch and Ghibli's The Red Turtle.

Takahata's final film as director was The Tale of Princess Kaguya, which debuted in 2013.

Sources: NHK, Animation Magazine