The universes created by Studio Ghibli have managed to resonate in the hearts and minds of audiences around the world, with the numerous movies continuing to revisit theaters year after year. From My Neighbor Totoro to Howl’s Moving Castle to Spirited Away, the animation studio does one of the best jobs of creating stories that mix the mundane with the magical in stunning two dimensional animation. With a theme park specifically devoted to Studio Ghibli opening in the next few years, creator Hayao Miyazaki has taken the opportunity to share some of the original concept work for the Studio Ghibli museum, which if you didn’t know is currently open!
Online news source of Sora News 24 shared the details about the original artwork, as well as some examples of said designs, via their Official Twitter Account, which mostly includes looks at the strange combination of cat and bus in My Neighbor Totoro:
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Another reason to visit the Ghibli Museum in Tokyo! https://t.co/HFiH5ksnzT
— SoraNews24 (@RocketNews24En) October 2, 2019
Studio Ghibli was first founded in 1985, originally created to adapt the critically acclaimed manga, Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, but continued to spread its wings far past this initial offering. Having been nominated for numerous academy awards, and winning one for Best Animated Feature with Spirited Away, the animation studio has continued to create amazing stories in feature length films year after year.
Hayao Miyazaki has long been an animator, attempting to create entirely new worlds with which to express his talent. Though he can sometimes have harsh words for up and coming animators, it’s clear that Miyazaki’s love of his work and the art of animation can be seen in everything that he does.
The Studio Ghibli theme park will open in 2022, boasting numerous parts of the park recreating the various films that the animation house is known for. This isn’t the first time however that anime properties have been featured in an amusement park however, as Universal Studios Japan has had several franchises featured at their park including Attack On Titan, Sailor Moon, Neon Genesis Evangelion, and Detective Conan to name a few.
Miyazaki has made the news recently, having informed interviewers that he turned down a number of live action adaptation offers for his franchises. Do you think any of the Studio Ghibli movies should be made into live action adaptations?
Will you be attempting to make the trek to the Studio Ghibli museum to check out this new exhibit? Which of Ghibli’s movies do you consider to be your favorite? Feel free to let us know in the comments or hit me up directly on Twitter @EVComedy to talk all things comics, anime, and Ghibli!
