01 Oct / Studio Ghibli: The Films of Hayao Miyazaki & Isao Takahata by Colin Odell and Michelle Le Blanc and Satoshi Kon: The Illusionist by Andrew Osmond
Studio Ghibli and Satoshi Kon are together an empowering exercise in girl power: strong, independent female protagonists of all ages abound in their anime. With countless awards, including a Best Animated Feature Oscar for Spirited Away, Hayao Miyazaki is one of anime’s greatest. His Ponyo just debuted to joyful reviews in a star-dubbed English version. British film critics and coauthors of many Kamera books, Colin Odell and Michelle Le Blanc (Vampire Films; David Lynch) capture Miyazaki’s phenomenal career, intricately linked with that of his creative partner Isao Takahata, and provide an excellent overview of “the most profitable animation company in the world” outside Hollywood. Studio Ghibli, whose unique name is derived from an Italian aircraft used in World War II, was formed in 1985 by Miyazaki, Takahata, and producer Suzuki Toshio as an incubator for uncompromising artistic freedom; it has since produced “three of … the top-ten-grossing non-English-language films of all time” – including My Neighbor Totoro.
While Ghibli’s films have become well known in households with children, Satoshi Kon is gaining prominence in the adult anime market. Andrew Osmond, another British film reviewer, covers Kon’s four films (Perfect Blue, Millennium Actress, Tokyo Godfathers, and Paprika) and his television series (Paranoia Agent) with painstaking synopses, analyses, sample dialog, and production notes for each title. According to Osmond, “Kon makes us unsure of what’s real and what’s not. He’s less a magician than an illusionist of anime.” While his research is thorough – and mostly firsthand from numerous interviews – occasional repetitive overwriting makes Osmond’s the less compelling of the two titles.
Verdict: Read together, Studio Ghibli and Satoshi Kon form an ideal contemporary anime 101 self-study. While both self-admittedly contain spoilers, both will make you want to see the films (again) with fresh eyes. For a deeper – and engrossing and irreverent – look at anime from Miyazaki’s perspective, try his recent book, Starting Point 1979–1996.
Review: “Arts & Humanities,” Library Journal, October 1, 2009
Readers: Young Adult, Adult
Published: 2009
Oh I would love to read this! I adore his films!
Whose? Miyazaki’s or Kon’s? Miyazaki’s we can watch with the kiddies … Kon? Not yet for sure. When they’re a bit older. Except maybe for Kon’s Tokyo Godfathers which is fine for slightly older kids.
Did anyone see star-dubbed US version of Ponyo? The Japanese version was SOOO adorable. I just can’t imagine those American voices …
dubbed version are always a lower quality except for some movies like gits
I don’t think I know this movie, gits that you mention here …
ghost in the shell (french dub)
If you EVER get the opportunity to see Robert Lepage’s Lipsynch (it’s currently touring internationally), you MUST MUST do anything to get a ticket and go. It’s an 9-hour marathon of interlinked stories for the state that have to do with the voice — who has a voice, who loses their voice, who gives voice to silent, lost souls, how voices change, reclaiming voice, defining voice, etc.
One of the running themes in the work is about dubbing films into various languages … you see the whole process of certain scenes from a film being constructed, how different the scene and characters look once they’re up on the screen, how that screen is transformed by other voices to mean other things … the layers are truly mind-boggling. And delicious intellectual FUN, as well. Having seen the play now, I think of dubbing in a whole different way … the complicated technical logistics of the actual dubbing, how words transfer on film and tape, how inflections can completely change meaning without changing words, etc. etc. Like I said, truly amazing.