Weeks after the celebrated Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki made his long-awaited comeback, the studio he founded almost four decades ago has secured its long-term future, easing concerns over its struggle to find a successor.
Studio Ghibli said this week that the company would be acquired by the private broadcaster, Nippon TV, which promised to continue building on Ghibli’s global success.
Miyazaki – widely considered to be one of the world’s greatest animators – founded Studio Ghibli in 1985, leading it to a string of successes, including an Oscar in 2003 for Spirited Away.
The studio built a loyal following around the world with films like My Neighbor Totoro and Princess Mononoke, while Miyazaki was nominated for two further Academy Awards – for Howl’s Moving Castle in 2006 and The Wind Rises in 2014 – the same year he was chosen to receive an honorary Oscar.
The agreement with Nippon TV, which will become Ghibli’s biggest shareholder, came after Miyazaki, 82, and its president, 75-year-old Toshio Suzuki, failed to persuade Miyazaki’s son to take over the running of the studio.
“We have long struggled with the question: who will be the successor,” Studio Ghibli said in a joint statement with Nippon TV.
Miyazaki’s son, Goro, has repeatedly been mentioned as a possible successor, but has “firmly rejected the idea,” the statement said. “It is too much to shoulder by myself. It is better to leave it to somebody else,” Goro, an anime director, said, according to the statement.
Nippon TV described Ghibli as a studio that “we can be proud of”, adding that its autonomy would be respected after the acquisition. The broadcaster will receive 42.3% of voting rights in the studio, which will become its subsidiary. It has not disclosed how much it will pay for the acquisition.
Nippon TV has helped finance Ghibli films since 1985, when it became the first broadcaster to televise Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind. It also had a role in the 2001 opening of the Ghibli Museum in western Tokyo.
After the release The Wind Rises in 2013, Miyazaki announced he would no longer make feature-length films, saying his age was beginning to dent his perfectionism. But four years later, Ghibli said he was coming out of retirement to make what would be “his final film, considering his age”.
Kimitachi wa Do Ikiru ka? (How Do You Live?) was released in Japan in July and will appear in the US, as The Boy and the Heron, in December, with the UK release date yet to be confirmed.
With Agence France-Presse
