Studio Ghibli at 40: Can an Ethical Animation Studio Still Exist, or Even Survive?

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Studio Ghibli's prestigious reputation consists of truths and exaggerations. The company has spent 40 years as a world leader in quality animation while independently funding projects based on prior successes — until their sale to Nippon TV in 2023.
Behind every great library of art is a machine that needs to sell it, and Ghibli, which turns 40 this June, is no different. As much as we laud the altruistic, ethical enterprise established by Toshio Suzuki, Isao Takahata, and Hayao Miyazaki, Ghibli can be just as cynical as its Western counterparts.
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Ghibli's branding as an ethical animation studio isn't unfounded. Rayna Denison, author of 'Studio Ghibli: An Industrial History,' has admired the thoughtful way Suzuki, Takahata, and Miyazaki constructed the studio.
'They put deep thought into what they wanted to do with their studio before they founded it,' Denison told IndieWire. 'You get early interviews with Miyazaki saying things like, 'If you're only hiring people on temporary contracts, then they're not really your employees, so you can't expect much from them.' He makes jokes about how if he has to turn his air conditioning off to save money to pay people's salaries, he's willing to sweat through the entire summer for the sake of animation. Miyazaki came out of a left-leaning union movement in the 1960s, so I think he had started thinking about a better way to make animation. That's why Ghibli has a creche, and there are places to put your bicycle, all these little touches that are very Miyazaki.'
For Michael Leader, co-host of the 'Ghibliotheque' podcast and co-author of 'Ghibliverse' and 'The Animation Atlas,' the works of Studio Ghibli rise above the conversation about animation being a kids' medium.
'They go all the way back to the basic idea of storytelling,' Leader said. 'If you think about when storytelling was just people around a campfire, it would be aimed at whoever was there. They never said, 'This is a story for kids.' It's how they made sense of the world. But then these folk tales become fairy tales, which become bedtime stories for kids, and then they're turned into something for Disney, and suddenly it's just kids stuff. But actually, when it's done well, it's wise, it's got life lessons, it's got a worldview. Miyazaki and Takahata mostly made work for younger audiences, but it has the wisdom and worldview and craft and skill of any sort of story.'
The miracle of Miyazaki's movies is that he's able to make such thoughtful art while setting box office records. 1997's 'Princess Mononoke' was the highest-grossing release of all time in Japan until 'Titanic' arrived that same year. His mentor/older-brother-figure, Isao Takahata, had some successes but ultimately different goals.
'The difference between Miyazaki and Takahata is that Takahata tried to push the envelope of what animation can do and who it is for,' said Denison. 'When they released [1991's] 'Only Yesterday,' the promotional magazines for it had interviews with adult professional women from across Japan. It was aimed squarely at women who were in their 20s and 30s. It was a really risky thing for him to do, but this is what Takahata did at Ghibli. They gave him the freedom to experiment and to push the limits of Japanese animation.'
Not only were Takahata's films more experimental than Miyazaki's, but he also had a less conventional way of working. 'You always take [studio CEO] Suzuki's stories with a grain of salt, because he loves to tell a story,' said Leader. 'But he claims that after Miyazaki made loads of money from 'Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind,' he said to Takahata, 'I'd like to fund you to make another film. I've been to this area of the country where there's a beautiful canal system where you could maybe set an animated film.' Takahata comes back with a three-hour documentary. It's really slow and goes way over budget, meaning Miyazaki had to make another sweeping adventure film, and that's where 'Castle in the Sky' came from.'
Even Takahata's 'Grave of the Fireflies,' widely regarded as a masterpiece, was mired by the director's approach to his work. 'Takahata missed the deadline [for 'Grave'],' said Leader. 'It was released unfinished, which was professionally embarrassing. No one would fund another Takahata project because he blows budgets, misses deadlines, and delivers a film unfinished. So Miyazaki really put himself on the line to get 'Only Yesterday' made.'
For Leader, this hammers home the unreality of a studio without an intense marketing machine around it. 'You need your films to be bought and watched, because that's how they become embedded in the culture, how they pass between generations. No animation studio in the world has that freedom to completely self-finance based on the legacy of what they've done, unless your dad owns Nike.'
One of the main ways Ghibli finances its work is through merchandise, an industrial complex unto itself.
'Initially, Toshio Suzuki agreed to put a cap on merchandising profits, so they weren't looking to massively exploit what was available to them,' said Denison. 'But when they briefly shut the studio in 2014, they really shifted modes, and we've seen an explosion in Ghibli merchandising. It was also really important to the early life of the studio, and it allowed the studio to become a permanent enterprise. The success of Totoro and then Jiji merchandise mattered when they were trying to build their own studio in the early 1990s and have a permanent home for Studio Ghibli.'
Then, 1989 proved to be a pivotal year for the studio. 'My Neighbor Totoro' first showed on TV and launched a demand for plushies, while Ghibli found their first theatrical hit in 'Kiki's Delivery Service.' That's also when Ghibli began telling stories about women. 'When they're promoting 'Kiki's Delivery Service,' it's seen as another girl-focused movie, following on from 'My Neighbor Totoro,' so they're becoming known for Shoujo animation,' said Denison. ''Kiki' was also sold on the idea of how one overcomes depression. I find that fascinating from a relatively young studio, in what should just be a girl's adventure movie, to be dealing with psychological blocks and maturity and becoming a mature version of yourself and finding your power again as a woman.'
Spin is key to Ghibli's success, being able to market themselves as blockbuster filmmakers in Japan and as prestigious 'world cinema' filmmakers elsewhere. The person chiefly tasked with finding a marketing spin on Hayao Miyazaki's and Takahata's work is Toshio Suzuki, a man described by Goro Miyazaki as 'a dark wizard who makes me do things I don't want to.'
As much as he's a master marketer, Suzuki is also an incredibly talented producer, constantly getting the best from his directors. 'He's trying to bring these generational talents together and make them play off each other, do some behind-the-scenes wrangling and ego management to make them do something great,' said Leader.
What Suzuki most notably helped realize was Ghibli's sheen of prestige. 'They became known as the anti-Disney,' said Leader. 'Disney sold out years ago. They became about selling theme parks and cruises and characters in suits and Disney adults and being emblematic of American imperialism. Ghibli was seen as something of substance, something handcrafted and beautiful, which plays into orientalist tropes about Japan.'
Miyazaki being pushed to the forefront, mostly due to the way audiences respond to his movies, risks diminishing the work of everyone else at the studio. 'We haven't talked about Yoshifumi Kondo, Hiromasa Yonebayashi or Goro Miyazaki, these other directors who are doing interesting works,' said Denison. 'I feel so sorry for Goro Miyazaki. He's set up to fail from the very beginning by Suzuki who invites him in to do the work [for 2006's 'Tales from Earthsea'] and then creates a narrative of discord between Goro and his father.'
Hayao Miyazaki's ubiquity comes with other problematic elements. 'What Miyazaki means as a buzzword that can now be boiled down to an aesthetic, a vibe, or an AI filter,' said Leader. 'The real person that is existing right now in Japan isn't the Miyazaki fans know. Instead, Miyazaki is the meme of him saying [of artificial intelligence animation], 'It's an insult to life itself.' It happens with any creator. They get flattened once 1000s around the world are tattooing them onto their body. Steven Spielberg fought for many years against being the guy who makes films where a kid looks up at the sky, or the Scorsese thing where he only makes films about gangsters. Miyazaki has reached that level.'
'I feel like the boy in the Heron is very interesting,' said Denison. 'A lot of people have been commenting about the fact that it's not as original as some of his other films. I think that's because it's that much more personal. This is a master animator looking back over his career, over his relationships, and what people in his life have meant to him, and building a story around that it is just that much more personal for him.'
Leader points out how Miyazaki's work has evolved since the early '90s. 'The Balkan conflicts with Yugoslavia radicalized him and changed his view of the world. Then, you see that happen again in the early 2000s with the war on terror and post-911 American imperialist stuff in the Middle East. You do see his worldview change through the films. Also in his old age, his films become about him again.'
There have been times when the image Ghibli sells directly conflicts with its actions. 'There are these women behind the scenes that you keep seeing in all these documentaries whose names are never listed, who don't get a lot of credit for the work they do,' said Denison. 'That was one of the things that drew me to write the book. I wanted to think about how the studio with this stellar reputation for making feminist animated heroines relegates all these women to the backgrounds.
'In the early days of Japanese animation at places like Toei Animation, where Takahata and Miyazaki trained, women weren't allowed to train as directors. It used to be the case that women retired after they got married as an expected part of the industry. It's also the case that women have been at the bottom lines of the industry and been very exploited. The practice of working from home and being paid by the cell is something that applied more to women across the decades.'
Though Ghibli did a lot of work to improve working conditions, the studio has never promoted a woman to direct a film. ''Porco Rosso' is the only movie where women got promoted to big roles,' added Denison. 'Everybody was busy working on 'Only Yesterday,' so Miyazaki's usual team wasn't available to him, and so he looked around the studio and elevated the seven people he felt deserved elevation, and apparently they all just happened to be women.'
The idea of succession and promoting talent has been a stumbling block for Ghibli, putting the future of the studio beyond Takahata, Miyazaki, and Suzuki into doubt. 'I don't think without the three of them, there's a reason to keep it going,' said Denison. 'I don't think there's the impetus behind it, but it's also a brand name that Nippon TV [which acquired Ghibli in 2023] bought into so they could use the intellectual properties and extrapolate them and keep the theme parks going. They could import directors like Yonebayashi back in and do new films with new directors, but I don't know if I see that happening.'
Leader believes that the era of the studio actively making things is over, allowing us to look back on their unique place in the cinematic landscape. 'They were able to create the sense that the studio was having this huge cultural impact, but they weren't a Disney-level operation. Also, other auteurs that we would put Miyazaki alongside, their access to their art is dictated by bigger studios. The Christopher Nolan story is whether he's working with Warner Bros. or Universal, Scorsese has to go to Netflix or Apple to get funding. Ghibli managed to do it in a way that was relatively independent and unsullied of that business. You wouldn't have Miyazaki trying to pitch a Kool-Aid movie.'
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