Portal:Studio Ghibli

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Founded in June 1985, Studio Ghibli is headed by the directors Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata and the producer Toshio Suzuki. Prior to the formation of the studio, Miyazaki and Takahata had already had long careers in Japanese film and television animation and had worked together on Hols: Prince of the Sun and Panda! Go, Panda!; and Suzuki was an editor at Tokuma Shoten's Animage magazine.

The studio was founded after the success of the 1984 film Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, written and directed by Miyazaki for Topcraft and distributed by Toei Company. The origins of the film lie in the first two volumes of a serialized manga written by Miyazaki for publication in Animage as a way of generating interest in an anime version. Suzuki was part of the production team on the film and founded Studio Ghibli with Miyazaki, who also invited Takahata to join the new studio.

The studio has mainly produced films by Miyazaki, with the second most prolific director being Takahata (most notably with Grave of the Fireflies). Other directors who have worked with Studio Ghibli include Yoshifumi Kondo, Hiroyuki Morita, Gorō Miyazaki, and Hiromasa Yonebayashi. Composer Joe Hisaishi has provided the soundtracks for most of Miyazaki's Studio Ghibli films. In their book Anime Classics Zettai!, Brian Camp and Julie Davis made note of Michiyo Yasuda as "a mainstay of Studio Ghibli’s extraordinary design and production team".

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Selected profile

Joe Hisaishi in Paris in 2011
Mamoru Fujisawa (藤澤 守, Fujisawa Mamoru, born December 6, 1950), known professionally as Joe Hisaishi (久石 譲, Hisaishi Jō), is a composer and musical director known for over 100 film scores and solo albums dating back to 1981. While possessing a stylistically distinct sound, Hisaishi's music has been known to explore and incorporate different genres, including minimalist, experimental electronic, European classical, and Japanese classical. Lesser known are the other musical roles he plays; he is also a typesetter, author, arranger, and conductor.

He is best known for his work with animator Hayao Miyazaki, having composed scores for many of his films, including Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1984), Laputa: Castle in the Sky (1986), My Neighbor Totoro (1988), Kiki's Delivery Service (1989), Porco Rosso (1992), Princess Mononoke (1997), Spirited Away (2001), Howl's Moving Castle (2004), Ponyo (2008), and The Wind Rises (2013).

He is also recognized for the soundtracks he has provided for filmmaker 'Beat' Takeshi Kitano, including A Scene at the Sea (1991), Sonatine (1993), Kids Return (1996), Hana-bi (1997), Kikujiro (1999), and Dolls (2002), as well for the video games Ni no Kuni: Dominion of the Dark Djinn and Wrath of the White Witch. He was a student of legendary anime composer Takeo Watanabe.

Selected work

Title of film in Japanese
Pom Poko (平成狸合戦ぽんぽこ, Heisei Tanuki Gassen Ponpoko, lit. "Heisei-era Raccoon Dog War Ponpoko") is a 1994 Japanese animated fantasy film, the eighth written and directed by Isao Takahata and animated by Studio Ghibli.

Consistent with Japanese folklore, the tanuki (Japanese raccoon dogs, Nyctereutes procyonoides) are portrayed as a highly sociable, mischievous species, which are able to use "illusion science" to transform into almost anything, but too fun-loving and too fond of tasty treats to be a real threat – unlike the kitsune (foxes) and other shape-shifters. Visually, the tanuki in this film are depicted in three ways at various times: as realistic animals, as anthropomorphic animals which occasionally wear clothes, and as cartoony figures based on the manga of Shigeru Sugiura (of whom Takahata is a great fan). They tend to assume their realistic form when seen by humans, their cartoony form when they are doing something outlandish or whimsical, and their anthropomorphic form at all other times.

Prominent testicles are an integral part of tanuki folklore, and they are shown and referred to throughout the film, and also used frequently in their shape-shifting. This remains unchanged in the DVD release, though the English dub (but not the subtitles) refers to them as "pouches". Also, in the English dub and subtitles, the animals are never referred to as "raccoon dogs", which is the more accurate English name for the tanuki, instead they are incorrectly referred to as just "raccoons".

Selected related article

Magic Pengel: The Quest for Color, known as Rakugaki Ōkoku (ラクガキ王国, lit. "Doodle Kingdom") in Japan, is a 2002 role-playing video game developed by Garakuda-Studio and Taito for the PlayStation 2, published by Agetec in North America. Studio Ghibli also collaborated with this game. The game had a sequel in 2004 titled Graffiti Kingdom.

Combining the collectible monsters genre (e.g., Pokémon) with the interactive art genre (e.g., Mario Paint), Magic Pengel is centered on the player, as a character able to manipulate a "Pengel" (which looks like a stylized fairy combined with a paintbrush) to create a creature, or "Doodle". Using the Pengel (pronounced "pen-jell") as a cursor, the player simply sketches out the limbs, body, and other features. Depending on the amount of magic ink expended, and the types of body parts, the creature will be given certain statistics and created.

The story begins when you (the main character - this character is never shown or given a default name in order to keep with the "second person" feel of the game, however, it is implied that the unseen character is a young boy) wake up in someone's yard and sees a Pengel. A mysterious voice tells you that you can use the Pengel to draw whatever you like, and that the shape will become your companion on your quest. You draw a simple shape to become your first Doodle, however, the Doodle falls off a cliff and is rescued by a girl.

Selected media

Hideaki Anno and Ryūsuke Hikawa (Meiji University) participating in "The World of Hideaki Anno" at the Tokyo International Film Festival on October 30, 2014.
Hideaki Anno and Ryūsuke Hikawa (Meiji University) participating in "The World of Hideaki Anno" at the Tokyo International Film Festival on October 30, 2014.
Credit: Dick Thomas Johnson

Hideaki Anno and Ryūsuke Hikawa participating in "The World of Hideaki Anno" at the Tokyo International Film Festival on October 30, 2014.

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