Anime tourism in Italy: Travelling to the locations of the Studio Ghibli films

Film-induced tourism, intended as travelling to places where films and TV series have been shot or set, has been extensively studied in the last two decades in several disciplinary fields. For example, the term ‘media pilgrimage’ emerged in media sociology to highlight the sacred dimension these practices may assume, while fan studies have focused on the narrative of affection built upon specific places. Calling forth the relationship between film and landscape, these phenomena have been also explored in the light of film semiotics and media geography. In the past decade, the representation of landscape and the construction of the sense of place in animation benefited from increased scholarly attention; however, the links between tourism and animation still appear under-explored. Japanese animation, because of its prominent use of real locations as the basis for the building of its worlds and the tendency of its fanbases to take action (even in the form of animation-oriented tourism), is an especially promising field, in this respect. In the last fifteen years, a debate on ‘content(s) tourism’ has involved the Japanese government as well as academic scholarship, referring to a wide variety of contents, from novels to films and TV series, anime, manga, and games. The article presents a case study: a discussion of the experience of anime tourists who visited the Italian locations featured in the films by the world-famous animator and director Miyazaki Hayao, especially in Castle in the Sky (1986) and Porco Rosso (1992). The experiences of anime tourists were collected from images and texts shared through the social network Twitter.

Spectacular Mundane in the Films of Studio Ghibli

This article examines how Studio Ghibli constructs the mundane activities shown in their films as spectacular. Looking at the history of the ways in which domestic and routine events are depicted in Japanese animation, I will use various methodologies, beginning with formalism and phenomenology before moving on to feminism and Marxism to critically analyse several Ghibli films as case studies – My Neighbors The Yamadas (1999, Hōhokekyo Tonari no Yamada kun), Only Yesterday (1991, Omoide Poro Poro), and Howl’s Moving Castle (2004, Hauru no Ugoku Shiro). Using these methodologies, the films are placed into a broader cinematic context, and the filmic legacy of their treatment of the mundane is explored.

A Modular Genre? Problems in the Reception of the Post-Miyazaki ‘Ghibli Film’

With the eternally looming spectre of Miyazaki Hayao’s retirement, the death of Takahata Isao and the failure to establish a viable new artistic figurehead to follow in their footsteps, Studio Ghibli has been at a crucial crossroads for some time. Over the past few decades, the acclaimed Japanese animation studio has adopted three main strategies to cope with these changes: apprenticeship to foster new talent, co-productions both domestically and abroad, and shutting down their production facilities. Each approach has affected Ghibli’s evolving brand identity – and the meaning of the ‘Ghibli film’ – causing confusion in the international critical reception of the resulting movies. Academic approaches too have shown difficulties dealing with recent shifts. While conceptualizing the ‘Ghibli film’ as the product of a studio brand or as the work of auteurs Miyazaki and Takahata has proven useful, such frameworks have become inadequate for accommodating these changes. This article therefore proposes a new approach for understanding recent ‘Ghibli films’, arguing that, rather than being treated as a brand or genre, they have increasingly been fashioned along modular lines.

Miyazaki Hayao’s Animism and the Anthropocene

The need for a reconsideration of human-nature relationships has been widely recognized in the Anthropocene. It is difficult to rethink, however, because there is a crisis of imagination that is deeply entrenched within the fundamental premises of modernity. This article explores how ‘critical animism’ developed by Miyazaki Hayao of Studio Ghibli can address this paucity of imagination by providing alternative ways of knowing and being. ‘Critical animism’ emerged from the fusion of a critique of modernity with informal cultural heritage in Japan. It is a philosophy that perceives nature as a non-dualistic combination of the life-world and the spiritual-world, while also emphasizing the significance of place. Miyazaki’s critical animism challenges anthropocentrism, secularism, Eurocentrism, as well as dualism. It may be the ‘perfect story’ that could disrupt the existing paradigm, offering a promise to rethink human-nonhuman relationships and envisaging a new paradigm for the social sciences.

Nilai-Nilai Shintoisme pada Perbedaan Warna dan Bentuk Gerbang Dunia Dewa di Awal dan Akhir Film Spirited Away Karya Studio Ghibli

Spirited Away is an animation made by Ghibli Studio on 2001 under Hayao Miyazaki direction. This movie awarded as The Best Animation by The 75th Academy Award. This movie tells about the journey of Chihiro, the protagonist who’s been “spirited away” to the spirit world. There’s a significant difference on the visual and surounding of the scene when Chihiro went inside the spirit world through the gate in the beginning of the movie and when she’s back from that world at the ending. Even it’s pretty clear that it is the same place, but the gate, the colors, material, and the environment seems to be different. This visual generate a long controversy, include of how excactly the story end. Question arise of the significant distinction on the visual of the gate between the scenes, like why on the beginning the color of the gate is red with some characteristic of Shinto’s Temple architectural, but then the gate at the ending is white and made from stone piles. Hayao Miyazaki as creator of the movie has never explicitely answer the question on this matter. This qualitative study using visual examination method on colors and material of the gates, from the perspective of Shinto’s and Japanese architecture, to know the reason behind the importance of differentiating the visual of the gates in the beginning and the ending of the movie.

Between the Peechil-kamra and the Dabusa: Mapping Worldbuilding and Heterotopic Space on Board the Ibis in Amitav Ghosh’s Sea of Poppies

With the steady rise in the exploration of the idea of worldbuilding, studies have extensively researched the production and consumption of fantasy worlds created by animation studios like Disney and Studio Ghibli. However, the idea of worldbuilding remains inadequately studied in the context of South Asian fiction. This paper aims to engage with the thematic ramifications of ideas such as subcreation and worldbuilding by critically examining Sea of Poppies (2008), the first novel in Amitav Ghosh’s “Ibis” trilogy. The prevalent scholarship on this novel has largely romanticised the creation of the ship-community of jahaj-bhais and jahaj-bahens which was forged through the bond of jahaji-nata and have argued how, in the process of subcreating a world for themselves, the characters “transgress the accepted boundaries of race, gender, and caste” and free themselves from the artificial barriers and divisions prevalent on land. However, such a reading privileges the perspective of a few major characters such as Deeti and Paulette, while denying the multiple layers and hierarchies that permeate the physical space of the ship. Taking this as a point of departure, this paper explores through the eyes of a minor character, Jodu, how the dominant utopic narrative of jahaji-nata of Paulette and others may be challenged from within the heterotopic world of the Ibis. By reinforcing the structural inequities of our everyday lives in the subcreated world of the Ibis, Ghosh’s textual imagination constantly subverts the dominant perspective while holding the two worlds in precarious equilibrium.

MAY THE LOVE BE WITH YOU: FROM THE JOY OF LIFE TO THE TRANSCENDENCE OF EXISTENCE IN TAKAHATA ISAO’S ANIMATION WORKS

From Ponpoko: The Heisei Tanuki War (1994), through My Neighbours, the Yamadas (1999), and until The Tale of Princess Kaguya (2013), the animation movies directed by the reputed animation director Takahata Isao (1935-2018) and released by Studio Ghibli since mid-1990s address the phenomenon of “life” as a meaningful endeavour towards attaining higher levels of human awareness. This occurs either by living in accordance with the flow of history, or by enjoying every moment as it comes, or, respectively, by delving into cosmic rhythms of imponderability: every single entity of existence delivers significance and comprehension, as displayed on multiple layers in the three animation works analyzed in this paper. Thus, in a phenomenological approach inspired by Julia Kristeva’s monumental publication La Révolution du langage poétique (1974) which views cultural products as mirroring channels of repression (Verdrängung) and desire (Begehren), the analysis draws on an anthropological framework in which the researcher functions as a dynamic, self-reflexive interface mediating between the self-ness of the theoretical structure (here: life and the quest for its significance) and the other-ness of the representation medium (here: Japanese animated works).

Hayao Miyazaki

Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki (b. 1942) is arguably the most admired figure of Japan’s postwar animation industry (commonly known as anime). Deeply moved in his youth by his country’s first color feature-length animated film Hakujaden (Panda and the Magic Serpent, 1958, directed by Taiji Yabushita), Miyazaki decided to seek a career in animation after receiving his BA degree in politics and economy. Most of his output during the first sixteen years of his work as an animator consisted of working on other directors’ films and television shows. Miyazaki made his directorial debut, sharing credit and duties with his colleague Isao Takahata, on the television series Rupan Sansei (Lupin the Third, 1971–1972), an adaptation of a popular manga (comics) series about the exploits of a daring thief. The year 1979 saw the release of Miyazaki’s feature-length debut Rupan Sansei: Kariosuturo no Shiro (Lupin the Third: The Castle of Cagliostro), a spin-off of the television series, which gained attention for its spectacular action sequences. His second feature, Kaze no Tani no Naushika (Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, 1984), a theatrical feature adaptation of his own long-running manga series about the quest of a pacifist princess to save a war-torn world destroyed in an environmental apocalypse, hailed for its beautiful animation, design, and environmental subtext. The success of Nausicäa of the Valley of the Wind led to the foundation of Studio Ghibli, under the creative management of Miyazaki and Takahata. A string of critically acclaimed works solidified his position as a leading director in Japan’s animation industry: the Victorian-flavored adventure Tenkū no Shiro Rapyuta (Castle in the Sky, 1986), the nostalgic children’s fantasy Tonari no Totoro (My Neighbor Totoro, 1988), the coming-of-age fantasy Majo no Takkyūbin (Kiki’s Delivery Service, 1989) and the historical comedy-adventure Kurenai no Buta (Porco Rosso, 1992). At the turn of the century, Miyazaki directed the acclaimed historical fantasy Mononoke Hime (Princess Mononoke, 1997) and the modern-day fantasy Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi (Spirited Away, 2001), and each became the highest-grossing film in the history of Japanese cinema, an evidence of the important position that Miyazaki has achieved in Japan’s postwar culture. Spirited Away also won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature in 2002. Miyazaki’s later films in the 21st century met with a more mixed reception. Hauru no Ugoku Shiro (Howl’s Moving Castle, 2004), Gake no Ue no Ponyo (Ponyo, 2008), and Kaze Tachinu (The Wind Rises, 2013) were praised for their visuals, but came under criticism for their narrative qualities. The ongoing debate as to who is going to be Miyazaki’s successor as Japan’s leading animator demonstrates the deep cultural influence that his work continues to have on other animators and filmmakers.