Studio Ghibli is a Japanese animation film company operating from its global headquarters at Koganei Tokyo, Japan. The firm is a renown animation film company, with a special focus on the anime feature films, characterised by hand drawn computer animations originating from the Japanese culture. In addition to animation films, Studio Ghibli has also produced different types of short films, television films, and TV commercials. The current study focuses on examining the transnational appeal of the Japanese culture as presented in studio Ghibli films (Benham, 2014). In this regard, the focus of the study is to examine how these studio Ghibli films bring out the tenets of the traditional Japanese culture in all their movies, and how this approach in movie production has influenced other animation film industries in the world, including the US based Disney Studios and the UK based Pinewood Studios.
In order to present the findings in a clear perspective, the research will focus on critically analysing three movies selected from the studio Ghibli films to establish how each of the movies encompasses the Japanese culture. The study will also discuss the local and international performance of each of three movies to determine how they influenced the film industry with their style and approach to anime films. The study will also involve an analysis of how these films have infiltrated into the international film industry and affected the production of movies within international markets, particularly the Disney Film Industry. The three studio Ghibli films analysed in this research study with the focus of demonstrating the phenomenon regarding the transnational appeal of the traditional Japanese culture in the film industry include Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke, and the Tale of Princes Kaguya films.
The selection of these three films for review in this study is informed by the fact that these films are among the best performing films from the Ghibli studios, both nationally within the Japanese audience, and internationally, especially within the North American film industry and the European film industry. These films are the leading in terms of the most watched films from studio Ghibli, and in terms of revenues, whereby Spirited Away, for instance, reported the highest amounts of revenue ever to be earned from a Japanese Ghibli film in history. Furthermore, these films are also selected with the premise that they feature a lot of the Japanese culture. For instance, all the three films are built out of fantasy containing the magical world containing spirits and other mystical beings, such as gods.
The research objectives addressed by the study include establishing the key stereotypes and representations of the Japanese culture as presented in studio Ghibli films, in addition to examining how these Studio Ghibli films challenge these stereotypes. The other objective entails investigating the road to popularity for the anime/studio Ghibli films in different parts of the world, especially outside the Asian continent and address how it stemmed out so well outside the Japanese culture. The research also seeks to determine the influence of the community and fan base in promoting further production and development of studio Ghibli films. Lastly, the study explores how studio Ghibli films influenced the mainstream American and English animated films, with a special focus on how Disney films influenced the success of Ghibli films outside the Japanese market setting. The study also notes of the influence of these Japanese themed films on Pinewood Studios, which is the leading film company in the United Kingdom.
From this study, what is clear is that the film industry usually encompasses the cultural underpinnings from the society in which it is produced, such as the case of the studio Ghibli films that encompass the Japanese cultural and religious values. There is rich Japanese cultural content in most of the studio Ghibli films, which are used to display the cultural practices, religious practices, and traditional way of life of the Japanese (Benedict, 1967, p.25). The Japanese society is unique for being capable of coexisting both traditional and modernism concepts simultaneously in an equilibrium stage for decades, regardless of the introduction of modernism practices infiltrated by the entrance of the Western influence to the East Asian region.
In fact, the Japanese culture is among the Eastern culture countries that foreign cultures has not infiltrated or polluted. The same perspective applies to the film industry of the country in the sense that it has maintained its uniqueness regardless of its interaction with other film industries from the rest of the world. As a result, Japan has nurtured many famous and influential film directors such as Akira Kurosawa for live action movies and Hayao Miyazaki for animated movies (Dinh, 2013). Director Miyazaki is considered as one of the three founders of Studio Ghibli films, the anime film studio that has been instrumental in placing Japan on the world’s map both in popularity and in exposure of Japanese cultural richness.
“As the trend toward globalisation has intensified over the last decade, both national histories and national identities have become contested territories, as the citizens of an increasingly interdependent world attempt to define themselves vis-à-vis what many fear to be an oppressively homogeneous global culture dominated by the United States,” Napier (2001, p.467)
Chapter Two: Literature Review
Film Content and Analysis
As mentioned above, three films are to be reviewed in this analysis in order to expose the transnational appeal of the Japanese culture as presented in the Studio Ghibli films (Ue, 2015). The three movies reviewed in this case include Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke, and the Tale of Princes Kaguya films. These three movies are among the studio Ghibli films that reported the best performance ever in the history of Japanese animated film exports to the international markets, especially in the American film industry through Disney Studios and the European film market, such as in the UK through the Pinewood Studios.
Spirited Away
film is about a small girl named Chihiro who is travelling with her parents, then her father accidentally take a wrong turn and ends up in a mystical world where spirits roam freely at night. Chihiro’s parents are transformed into pigs after being tricked into taking some magical soup offered at the bathhouse (Boyd and Nishimura, 2016). The film’s plot centres around the activities undertaken by Chihiro to maintain her identity and free her parents from the spell that was holding them as pigs. As such, the film brings into perspective the mystical nature of the ancient Japanese culture, which believed largely in the existence of spirits and other magical worlds.
Princess Mononoke
film is about a young girl known as Mononoke who takes a leading role in the war against the gods. Mononoke has special abilities, as she is able to speak to animals and plants, having been raised by the wolves (Hoff Kraemer, 2016). As such, the film brings into perspective the strategic role played by women in the traditional Japanese society, and exhibits the mystical nature of the transnational appeal of the Japanese culture as presented in studio Ghibli films. Princess Mononoke had spend all her life living with the wolves, and as such, this explains why and how she had this rare gift that enabled her to communicate with the animals and plants.
The Tale of Princess Kaguya film showcases the mystical nature of Japanese ancient traditions, as the princess is born out of a magical bamboo bud, and taken home by a peasant farmer. The peasant farmer becomes a rich noble and moves from the village to town after he becomes rich overnight after he found gems and other precious metals in the bamboo forest the same day he found the mystical bamboo child, named Princess Kaguya (Takahata, 1999). While living in town, the farmer, now assuming the father role of the young princess, who grew faster than other normal children, used his wealth to turn the young maiden into a princess, which in turn attracted different suitors from noble families that came to woe her. The film ends when the young maiden is taken back to her home planet mars, leaving her earth parents in tears.
History of Studio Ghibli Films
The Studio Ghibli films came into existence in 1985, founded by two famous directors named Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata. Toshio Suzuki, also famous for his exceptional skills in film production, joined the duo. Initially, the directors worked together in various films before they decided to establish the Studio Ghibli Film Company (Odell and Le Blanc, 2014, p.62). Miyazaki named this small company ‘Ghibli’, picking a name from a certain type of Saharan wind. For nearly two decades, Studio Ghibli existed as a subsidiary company to Tokuma Shoten. It got its independence to operate as an autonomous firm in 2005. Nowadays, Studio Ghibli is among the largest film studios in Japan, employing many workers whereby 150 to 300 people can be assigned to work on a single project (Lane, 2015).
Studio Ghibli Company is the third most successful animation studio in the world, after Disney Studios and Pixar studios. The success of Studio Ghibli films is attributable to the business decision by its founders to export their film content to the rest of the world, with a particular focus on the Western countries beginning with the United States and extending to the European film industry, such as the UK-based Pinewood Studios (Iwabuchi, 2004, p.31). Studio Ghibli films started showing outside the Japanese film market in the early 1990s whereby several films made their debut in the international markets. Some of these films include My Neighbour Totoro
(Tonari no Totoro) and Princess Mononoke (Mononoke-hime) (McCarthy, 2004, p.14). The workers of the newly formed Studio Ghibli also made a significant contribution to the success reported by the Ghibli movies through their dedication and commitment to the company. Some would even spend more than 12 hours drawing the animes.
“Manga and anime (illustrated serial novels and animated films) are highly influential Japanese entertainment media that boast tremendous domestic consumption and worldwide distribution and an international audience,” Thomas (2012, p.14).
The drawing task is very difficult and takes a lot out of the artists. For instance, in the film Only Yesterday, the directors required at least 74 thousand drawings to develop it (Studio Ghibli in Numbers, 2013). According to the Box Office Mojo reports, The Secret World of Arrietty was the best performing film produced by Studio Ghibli, given that the film earned over 19 million US dollars. Apart from economic measures of success, Studio Ghibli movies can also be considered as being successfully judging by the popularity and audience that these films report in the local scene. Most of the available statistical results indicated that the Ghibli films were quite famous among the Japanese audience ranging from 16 to 69 years.
A recent research study conducted to establish the viewership of these films indicated that 95.6% of participants of the study population comprising of 1,251 participants watched these studio Ghibli movies (Odell and Le Blanc 2014, p.56). This is attributable to the fact that the directors of these studio Ghibli films adopt a ‘general audience’ approach when producing most of the studio Ghibli films. The Culture Convenience Club Company Limited was the company that conducted this research study, and its findings established that most of the participants had actually watched a Studio Ghibli film directed by Hayao Miyazaki at least once or more during their entire lifetime (Napier, 2003, p.11). The Studio Ghibli film that was ranked as the most popular among the audience was My Neighbour Totoro, watched by 85.5% of the participants. The second most watched film from the Ghibli Studios was Spirited Away, watched by 83.4% of the participants.
“This article will examine how these distributors and the print/broadcast media are involved in the process of discursively segmenting a variety of audience taste formations, and then recruiting these niche demographics to build an aggregate audience by generating multiple promises and invitations-to-view, or hype, around a film text,” Dew (2007, p.53).
Similarly, third most watched Studio Ghibli film according to the survey was Kiki’s Delivery Service, watched by 78.4% of the research participants. The research also confirmed the fact that a significant majority of the Japanese audience had trust in film director Hayao Miyazaki as one of the most respected movie directors in the country (Boni, 2017, p.89). The survey reported that at least 96% of the Japanese moviegoers had watched a film produced by the famous director. The captivating content of his films is what attracted large audiences, as the audience could identify with the uniqueness of themes and messages contained in the films.
The Japanese film industry is not only popular, but also quite profitable, judging by the amounts of revenues earned by these films. For instance, Spirited Away film is the leading studio Ghibli film that reported the highest amount of revenues ever earned from a single release of an animated movie, as the film earned over US $ 274 million. The second most profitable movie from the Studio Ghibli production house was the Howl’s Moving Castle, which earned US $ 253.2 million in revenues, followed by Ponyo movie, taking the third place with its earnings in the tune of US $ 201.8 million. The success of these movies is attributable to the unique quality in terms of animations, themes, and main message presented by the film to the target audiences.
The Japanese Film Industry and the World
Studio Ghibli films are not the only export animation products from Japan. In fact, other film exports from Japan are doing well in the international markets. One of the most notable competitors of the Studio Ghibli films is the Toei Animation Studios and Nintendo, which were the biggest names in the Japanese film industry during the ‘90s. These studios provided the biggest competition for the studio Ghibli movies both locally and internationally, judging from the global success of its wide range of movie series, including Dragon Ball Z and Pokémon, which was released first as a game in 1996 by Nintendo (Shimizu, n.a). During this period, the video games were a lot more popular in the market compared to the animated movies both within its local Japanese markets, and in the globally, whereby the video games reached their peak in popularity.
Similarly, the Pokémon game also gained international recognition during the ‘90s, a fact largely attributable to the fact that OLM Inc. released the Pokémon anime series simultaneously in the American market during the same period when the game was being released by the Japanese filmmakers. The American was quick to adapt the English version of the Pokémon anime series when it was first introduced into the market in 1998 (Napier, 2003, p.12). Today, the series stands out as the highest grossing media franchise of all times, taking the lead of other big names in the anime and film industry, such as Star Wars, and Disney’s Mickey Mouse. This is a perfect example of how the Japanese film industry infiltrated and influenced international market.
“The attention to the transcultural here is an attempt to move beyond discussions of how Japanese anime are, and to open up a space in which to discuss their relevance beyond their home nation. In these ways, the creative work undertaken by those within and beyond the industries related to anime is demonstrating the global reach of Japanese cultural products,” Denison (2011, p.221)
Aside from the gross success reported by the Pokémon franchise in the US film industry, and the international markets, the animation series was particularly instrumental in shaping the thoughts and values of many generations in America. In fact, the Huffington Post reports ‘The Pokémon Effect’ of 2016 released by the OLM Inc., which influenced the release of over 22 animated movies based on the Pokémon game and its animated series. Of all the Pokemon movies, the one biggest grossing amount earned by the first movie was US $ 163 million, sold both locally within the American markets, and internationally across different global markets (Leonard, 2004, p.64). These sales are largely attributable to the younger generation, especially the children audiences, who were more into the Pokemon games than the movies. Even though this performance was not as successful as the success reported by the Spirited Away anime film produced by Studio Ghibli, it is no doubt one of the most successful movie exports from Japan.
Another successful movie franchise inspired by the Japanese cultural setting and structures was the Dragon Ball Z media franchise, which managed to release 15 movies, most of which were released in the international markets. The most successful of these movie series was Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods, the 2013 release, which grossed over US $ 52 million globally (Iwabuchi, 2004, p.11). However, these differences are not just provided in gross numbers.
Comparative Analysis of Studio Ghibli Films and Its Competitors
On the one hand, the Pokémon movie franchise and the Dragon Ball Z series reported massive success with their international audience because of their interactive games and previously released anime series. On the other hand, the movies from studio Ghibli films stood out from their competitors, a fact largely influenced by the immersive scenery and fantastic animation styles used in the anime films (Odell and Le Blanc, 2014, p.09). These movie franchises had the children and teenagers as their target audiences judging by their choice of animation style in the presentation of the Dragon Ball Z and the Pokémon series. On the other hand, the studio Ghibli films had a slightly different approach as their target audience included both children and adults.
The traditionalist perception of Miyazaki, who did not want to use too much technology in the process of making movies, is a major factor that contributes to the great quality of the Studio Ghibli films. Regardless of this fact, most of his movies produced by the studio Ghibli films remained popular even to this day, earning them the timeless feature, which is a massive success in the movie industry.Judging from Miyazaki’s traditional point of view, he preferred telling a story using traditional methods for his works (Spiegel, 2013). In fact, even his most popular movies integrated minimal help of digital appliances. For instance, in Princess Mononoke, the film director only painted 10 minutes digitally, and the rest was done by hand (McCarthy, 2004, p.84). This makes the studio Ghibli films quite different from their worthy competitors, noting that the Dragon Ball Z and Pokemon series used a lot of digital technology in the creation of their images, owing to advanced movie industry in the United States.
“From that time these animated Japanese series and films became part of American children’s television, before a second wave of anime films in the 1980s brought a new dystopic future vision to the world. Miyazaki Hayao’s films span these two extremes – from child-friendly narratives featuring cuddly creatures to films that deal with death, war and adult responsibility,” Denison (2007, p.326)
The other major difference between the Studio Ghibli films and its competitors lies in their story lines. On the one hand, the Pokemon and Dragon Ball Z based their story lines on an antithetical relationship between a leading hero character and the villain they had to confront, in most cases through violent means, throughout the series (Thomas, 2012, p.112). These films tried to pass across a strong moral message to its target audience, irrespective of the fact that the background stories of the villains were present in the series. Both Dragon Ball Z and Pokemon franchise managed to skilfully evoke their audience to identify with their heroic characters, usually through immersing their personality into the gaming world completely.
By giving the audience the power of control over the fantasy characters and creatures, the approach contributed significantly in promoting the popularity of the two franchises significantly. This is different from the Studio Ghibli films, as most of them did not produce video games to accompany their movie releases (Lane, 2015). However, this approach forms the reason as to why the Pokemon and Dragon Ball Z series reported a high margin of success in the international markets. This is because their content was perceived to be ‘culturally neutral’ by its international audience, which was contrary to most of the studio Ghibli movies, noted to contain too much cultural elements from the Japanese people.
The success of the two franchises as reported in the American market played a significant role in contributing to the popularisation of the Studio Ghibli films in these markets as well (Spiegel, 2013). Generations of American audience and international community that consumed the Pokemon and Dragon Ball Z products also developed a deep interest in the Japanese animation films in general, and in the Japanese culture in particular. Studio Ghibli films gained a much broader international audience because of the previously popularised Japanese themed franchises, irrespective of the fact that the Ghibli films also managed to gain their own popularity through its different masterpieces.
However, unlike its counterparts most of the Ghibli movies did not include the classical antithetical struggle between good and evil characters as featured in both Pokémon and Dragon Ball Z franchises. For instance, in Dragon Ball Z, the plot of the film centres on the adventures of Goku, the hero in the film, who, along with the Z warriors, defend the Earth against the forces of evil. As such, this helps the audience to easily identify with the hero character in the film from the very beginning. The action adverntures featured in the film are therefore entertaining and reinforce the concept of good versus evil. In fact, Dragon Ball Z series teaches the audience valuable character virtues such as teamwork, trustworthiness, as well as loyalty.
On the contrary, all the characters featured in these Ghibli films had both good and bad character traits. In fact, there was no clear line between who the evil characters in the film were and who the good characters in the film were. Similarly, all the characters possessed human traits, thereby making it difficult for the audience to identify the hero character in each of these studio Ghibli films (Napier, 2003, p.71). Irrespective of the strong representation of the human traits in each character, it was difficult to consider any one of them as a hero, in a saviour sense of meaning. For instance, in Princess Mononoke, it is difficult to identify the hero character between Prince Ashitaka and Princess Mononoke as both take the lead in the war against the gods. Furthermore, other characters in the film also contribute to the war in equal measure, such as the wolves and the spirits, in that it becomes difficult for the audience to identify with one character in the hero or heroine perspective. This shows how studio Ghibli film directors took great attention to details when developing the personality traits of all characters in the films.
Analysing the Ghibli Movie Universe in Relation to the Japanese Culture
The unique nature of the studio Ghibli films would warrant a righteous claim that these films do create a complete new universe for themselves, and take their audience to this universe with an exceptional entertainment experience. The universe created by the Ghibli films completely buys the audience who watch the films, without necessarily causing an effect whereby the audience can identify with one or more of the leading characters in the film (Kanji Mumblings, 2014). On the contrary, the films tend to provoke specific emotions and feelings among its target audience, thereby enabling them to feel the atmosphere of the movie.
The studio Ghibli films also gain their market prevalence because of their adoption of the Japanese culture as the basis for the main themes covered by its films. Irrespective of the fact that these movies tend to offer a huge variety of different stories, its most notable works concern specific aspects of the Japanese culture. Almost all of the studio Ghibli films depict the Japanese culture in one way or the other. However, a studio Ghibli film that depicts some core Japanese values and religious practices is the ‘Spirited Away’ film, the ‘Princess Mononoke’ film, and ‘The Tale of Princes Kaguya’ (Thomas, 2012, p.87). In most of the Ghibli movies, the autochthonous Japanese religion, Shinto, plays a crucial role in bringing out the main themes of the film.
In fact, Shinto motives are found in numerous details in all of the Ghibli movies, although they are most concentrated in the three films mentioned above. Shinto is a traditional Japanese religion that focuses on ritual practices that are carried out diligently in an effort to establish a connection between the present day Japan and its ancient past. By incorporating Shinto motives in most of the studio Ghibli films, the film directors are trying to make a connection between the modern day religious practices and the ancient traditional Japanese religious practices. This concept is used to bring out the fact that the studio Ghibli films are a representation of the Japanese culture, which is among the leading factors behind the massive local and international success reported by these films.
Many other features dominate the Ghibli movies, aside from the Shinto religious practices. By expressing the traditional Japanese interactions through the frames of the character movement were achieved in these Ghibli films through the presentation of gestures, walking movements, and running movements, not forgetting the facial expressions of the characters. In fact, according to McCarthy (2004, p.92), director Miyazaki insisted that all the characters featured in the studio Ghibli films to exercise proper etiquette by paying attention to the way they bow to one another or look at one another. When looking at the settlements of people in the Ghibli movies, each settlement is drawn carefully to cover many details that make the whole picture much easier to understand by a non-Japanese audience.
Miyazaki succeeds in presenting the core family values of the Japanese people through the studio Ghibli films, irrespective of the fact that family relationships usually turn out to be different in most society. However, in the case of Japan, families are a very special concern for all the societal stakeholders (Benedict, 1967, p.11). When the audience watches the behaviours of different characters featured in the studio Ghibli films, then it becomes much easier for the audience to conclude that the characters belong to a culture where the family unit is considered as a very important part of the society; as a basic social unit. This was especially in films where their internal family relationships are highly emphasised in the movie.
Studio Ghibli films also get to display many other unique traits of the Japanese community to its audience, key among them being the relationship that the Japanese community shares with the natural world in general, and with nature in particular. For instance, two of the most dominant doctrines in the country, Shinto and Buddhism, both place a lot of emphasis on the relationship between the Japanese communities and their natural environments, and defining the respect and reverence that these communities pay to their natural environment. For instance, Aston (2015, p.75) notes that the concept of Kami stands out as the central concept in the Shinto ideology, which is simply defined as a divine spirit of all the things and beings that surround us, but not divinity in a full sense of that word.
Most of the studio Ghibli films represent their spiritual worlds extensively. In fact, Thomas (2012, p.23) asserts that these studio Ghibli film depict the existence of spirits in nearly all environments of the movie. For instance, the Spirited Away Ghibli film is built on the premise of a spiritual world that exists in the fantasy world, primarily inspired by the legends and other stories from the Shinto ideology. Similarly, the Princess Mononoke film also displays forest spirits at every other occasion, almost throughout the entire film. The Tale of Princess Kaguya is in itself a masterpiece film that the directors use to elaborate to the target audience some of the traditional levels in the Japanese traditional society. A similar approach is also evident from the analysis of My Neighbour Totoro film, whereby Shinto inspired fantasy creatures take the central role in depicting the primary message contained in the film.
A further analysis of the studio Ghibli films also exposes the fact that the way most of the characters in this film interact with their environment is the exact same way in which the Japanese traditions and values dictate how individuals and societies have to tend to their natural worlds. In fact, one of the films that clearly depict the traditional environmental values observed by the Japanese community is the Princess Mononoke film, which also depicts the influence that human beings have on nature (Thomas, 2012, p.12). In the film, the protagonist is a warrior figure who wants to protect the forests from destruction attributable to industrialisation practices.
The studio Ghibli films also depict architecture and scenery in a very realistic manner, a fact attributable to the traditional animation style used by the studio Ghibli directors to present their respective films (Napier, 2003, p.45). The great architectural prowess of the Japanese people and the beautiful sceneries that mapped their communities are clearly depicted in most of the studio Ghibli films. Examples of these include the town structures of Princess Mononoke
film, the bathhouse in the Spirited Away film, and the rural landscape as depicted in the My Neighbour Totoro film. In addition, the scenery and animation style covered in The Tale of Princess Kaguya film also presents the audience with a clear picture of the Japanese ancient communities. All of these prove the fact that studio Ghibli films do a very good job in promoting and presenting the Japanese way of life, especially their culture, to their target audience both within the local Japanese markets and internationally.
The manner in which these studio Ghibli films present the Japanese culture to their audience, they do it with the primary intention of introducing and displaying some aspects of the Japanese culture to both their young audiences and the adult audiences. The Ghibli movies use fantasy motives to immerse children into the world of imagination (Leonard, 2004 p.87). On the other hand, the Ghibli films engage their adult audiences with their fantastic storyline covered in each film, not forgetting the well-developed characters and mesmerizing animation.
The studio Ghibli films have a tendency of depicting young children as their main protagonists by placing them in situations where they have to act in a rational and responsible manner, more so in the way one would expect an adult to think and behave. The Spirited Away
film gives a clear presentation of this quality of the Japanese themed Ghibli films, which feature a young girl named Chihiro (Shimizo, s.a.). The young girl has to overcome all sorts of predicaments in her life regardless of her young age, meaning that in most times, she has to think like an adult in order to get through most of her predicaments.
The Ghibli films also present the Japanese culture in relation to how it associates with the female gender in their society, particularly the
