Studio Ghibli: The Films of Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata

I love Hayao Miyazaki and studio ghibli. This book however, is a disappointment. While the prose is interesting and informative, half of what makes the movies so beautiful ava wondrous - is the art. So where are the illustrations? Non existent. And that's why it gets 3 stars.

People looking for beautiful spreads of cels, film captures, and pre-production sketches and paintings should go for Viz Graphics “Art of” books. But if you’re looking for behind the scenes facts about Studio Ghibli from its people and movies to more obscure works, this is the place to go. This second edition covers all the movies up through 2014 (which is all of them as of this review, with the exception of the new documentary “Never-Ending Man”).I don’t consider myself a hardcore fan, but I’m fairly knowledgeable and this book had new information for me.

Great review of the work of Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli up to the release of "Howl's Moving Castle." Good critical appraisal of the various works put out by Team Ghibli. Enjoyed reading about the history and background of Studio Ghibli.

This was a very well researched and well written overview of the films of Studio Ghibli, and also the earlier films of the two premier directors, Miyazaki Hayao and Takahata Isao. I have been a fan of their animated films for years, and I learned a great deal from this book. For instance, I didn't know that Gauche the Cellist was a story by Miyazawa Kenji, author of Night on the Galactic Railroad. I found out quite a bit of information on the background of many of their films, which makes watching them much more interesting.It is not an in-depth study, but is a great overview of their works. It kind of paved the way for me to read Miyazaki's "Starting Point."

Short but very comprehensive accont of the story. I bought it as a gift for my wife. She loved it so much she has booked us a visit to the Ghibli museum.

Great

I received the wrong book it did not look like the item because its the older version.

Not great, but good info, It was helpful and informative. I would prefer a bit more of content, but It's Ok.

While this is an enjoyable read, covering the principal Studio Ghibli films and describing their primary themes, it doesn’t go into much detail about the actual Studio. There are very brief descriptions of how it was set up, but no in-depth detail of how the partners trained, how they polished their skills, why they decided they needed artistic independence, why they travelled abroad, what support they received from family and/or colleagues and so on. It’s a useful but relatively superficial introduction to Studio Ghibli. In view of the gushing reviews, I was rather disappointed – you won’t find any deep analysis or more than a few interesting tidbits of information.

I stumbled upon the work of Studio Ghibli during lockdown in 2020 - with time on my hands and Netflix I was able to catch up with a lot of the International animations that I had missed. The work of Studio Ghibli was a revelation and I was surprised that I had missed it. Given the lack of exposure given to their movies in the UK I decided to do a bit of background reading so picked this little book up to fill in the gaps. If you like movie trivia and the background story behind the studio, then this is a mini-treasure-trove of information. After a general introduction to the Studio each of its works are then analysed and common threads teased out. It is a slim tome weighing in at 171 pages and too often reads like a gushing fanzine. The writers are (mostly) not critical of the studio’s work which is a little frustrating given that (personally) I didn’t like some of the movies. “Princess Mononoke” was weird, “Pom Poko” plain silly, “Nausicaa” baffling, “Laputa” could have been better and “Earthsea” was a car-crash. (Don’t get me started on “The Cat Returns”!) Some of it is cultural, some if it is a matter of taste and some of it is because the studio chose its material poorly. Anime from Japan can be a bit take-it-or-leave-it. When it is good it is delight, but when it is bad you can end up wondering “what the hell were they thinking?” The flaws in the work of Studio Ghibli is what contributes to the humanity of the project yet it is only in their review of “Tales from Earthsea” (2006) that the authors begrudgingly admit that this movie was a mess. Even they could not ignore the fact that it was panned by the critics and you see why. It was awful. The only other criticism you see in this book is of the rushed ending in “Marnie”.If the lack of objective criticism is one problem then the other is that this book doesn’t choose to give any international context for anime. The authors do make a gallant effort to explain some of the Japanese cultural references, specifically in “My Neighbours the Yamadas” but all the anime conventions go without comment. For example: why do none of the romances ever lead to any form of physical affection? Although lovers never hold hands or kiss, you will see a kiss of love between two small children in “Ponyo” as well as much declarations of love between the two teenage girls in “Marnie”. This transcends the cultural norms from a western Hollywood perspective yet Colin Odell & Michelle Le Blanc never raise this. It is almost as if they cannot see how strange this seems. Maybe it is because they are too close to the subject to be objective? Having two authors leads to some overlaps. It is like two books spliced together. You get one author’s perspective, then the other’s, hence some duplication and excess occur. This leads to the writing going overboard and it can seem pretty pretentious to the casual reader. This edition is the 2019 update to the 2009 original (via a 2nd edition in 2015) so includes “Arrietty” (2010), “Poppy Hill” (2011), “Wind Rises” (2013), “Princess Kaguya” (2013) & “Marnie” (2014). “When Marnie Was There” was sadly to be the last movie the studio made before it ceased to be. It is sadly missed but, thankfully, much emulated & influential.

I found this book really disappointing. I wasn't even convinced it was the same book that others have reviewed. One reviewer wrote about the illustrations.. This book is NOT illustrated. It has a couple of pages in the centre with some pictures but that's it. The book is very small. The size of a standard paperback and it could easily be read in an afternoon.The content of the book is interesting enough, but given the price, I do think buyers will be left disappointed. I am returning this book.

This is a overall fairly good review of the formation and films of Studio Ghibili. What can be hard is following some aspects if it is a film that one has not seen, and the pre-studio formation works are not easy to find in my experience. There is clear enthusiasm for the Studio outputs, which sometimes gives a sense of a lack of objectivity, especially for Tales from Earthsea for example where it was clear the author is rather trying too hard to get a positive perspective. That said it was an enjoyable and fairly informative read.

This is exactly what we were looking for. My daughter completed a year 8 school project on Studio Ghibli using this as her main reference point. It is really well written in an accessible style.