The master had already retired five times before. Miyazaki is not the only director at Studio Ghibli, the animation company he co-founded in , but he is behind the three most successful Japanese anime of all time. Ostensibly, his mantle has now been passed to the man perched on a London hotel sofa before me, a slightly awkward year-old in a flat cap with two directorial credits to his name. A reclusive girl with an undiscovered talent for drawing, she is sent by her harried single mother to live with her aunt and uncle in the countryside.
Made in the wake of the Japanese earthquake and tsunami, the film is full of references to a conservative ideal of Japan: a traditional festival, an idyllic countryside, and a secret that connects Anna to her ancestors, through which she learns to accept herself.
So is Anna Japan? Yonebayashi cocks his head and gives the longest and quietest of many pauses. Anna is a lonely girl. Will Ghibli ever employ a female director? Nishimura fields this question. Unlike live action, with animation we have to simplify the real world. Women tend to be more realistic and manage day-to-day lives very well.
Men on the other hand tend to be more idealistic β and fantasy films need that idealistic approach. The company was groundbreaking in the s for hiring full-time staff rather than drafting in contractors: an expensive production model that allowed Ghibli to train the next generation of brilliant animators, including Yonebayashi himself. Now Ghibli is facing the hard industry truth: hand-drawn animation is ever more expensive and risky to make, especially not outsourced to cheaper countries.
Even Miyazaki has tacitly admitted as much β a short film made for the Ghibli museum in Tokyo will be his first in full CGI. As for the shadow of Miyazaki, we must feel his presence, as well as that of Takahata-san, the two maestros who established Ghibli and gave not just Japan but the whole world courage.
