Speaker 1: Studio Jibli doesn't really care what's coming next. The ambiguous
Speaker 1: future of Japan's most prestigious group of animators won't get
Speaker 1: clearer anytime soon. By so He Kim and Felix Gillette
Speaker 1: read aloud by Mark Leindorf. On a Friday morning in April,
Speaker 1: at Studio Jibli's headquarters on the outskirts of Tokyo, Goro
Speaker 1: Miyazaki faces an excruciating test. After roughly a year of toil.
Speaker 1: It's time to screen his animated short for his famously
Speaker 1: demanding father, Haiau Miyazaki, one of the most celebrated directors
Speaker 1: on the planet, and then listen to his unvarnished feedback.
Speaker 1: The Miyazakis have often clashed over the years, constant arguing,
Speaker 1: constant fighting. Goro recalls of one of their early collaborations,
Speaker 1: but perhaps this project will be different, the passage of
Speaker 1: time occasionally being a mellowing influence Haiau is eighty five,
Speaker 1: Goro fifty nine. For a long time, the creative dynamic
Speaker 1: inside Jibli has largely revolved around the older filmmaker's eye.
Speaker 1: Over the previous four decades, the studio has forged a
Speaker 1: distinctive style of richly layered hand drawn animation in more
Speaker 1: than twenty feature length films. The movies, which appealed to
Speaker 1: both children and adults, often star young heroes saving war
Speaker 1: torn environments from nefarious forces amid phantasmagoric phenomena. Collectively, the
Speaker 1: films have generated over two billion dollars in ticket sales,
Speaker 1: won two Academy Awards, and helped trigger a global boom
Speaker 1: in anime, a market now worth in excess of twenty
Speaker 1: five billion dollars annually. According to the Association of Japanese Animations.
Speaker 1: It's been, by many accounts, the greatest run in animation
Speaker 1: since the heyday of Walt Disney. Now, with Haiau in
Speaker 1: his professional Twilight, things are inevitably changing, although into what
Speaker 1: exactly is still unclear. After starting his career as a
Speaker 1: landscape architect, Goro joined Geebly in the late nineteen nineties
Speaker 1: and went on to direct three major fiere elms. When
Speaker 1: giebiologists speculate about potential creative airs, his name is inevitably
Speaker 1: front and center, But so far Goro has brushed aside
Speaker 1: such chatter, and his dad has offered nothing close to
Speaker 1: an endorsement, at least not yet in a private screening
Speaker 1: room at headquarters, Goro presents A Night in the Valley
Speaker 1: of the Witches. It's a short, playful film fifteen minutes
Speaker 1: long that Goro directed alongside animator Akihiko Yamashita. Unlike Jibli's
Speaker 1: most acclaimed films such as My Neighbor, Totoro or Spirited Away,
Speaker 1: this featurette won't have a wide release in cinemas. Instead,
Speaker 1: it made its debut in July at a single theater
Speaker 1: inside JIBLI Park, a kind of anti Disneyland. The studio
Speaker 1: operates in Naga Kute, a couple hundred miles southwest of Tokyo.
Speaker 1: A short while after the screening, Goro strolls into a
Speaker 1: nearby conference room for an interview with Bloomberg BusinessWeek. Naturally,
Speaker 1: everyone is curious, how'd your father like the movie? He
Speaker 1: went insane, Goro says, before or clarifying, insaying in a
Speaker 1: good way. His dad, he says, was happy with what
Speaker 1: he saw. The film is something children will enjoy, and
Speaker 1: the feeling of children being happy, that is other people's
Speaker 1: children in the abstract sense, has always been important to
Speaker 1: his father. We would have to take his word for it.
Speaker 1: With reporters in the vicinity the elder Miyazaki had maneuvered
Speaker 1: out of prodding range. He saw it, and then he
Speaker 1: was exhausted. Goro says he went back home. Studio Jibli's
Speaker 1: headquarters are on a serene suburban block dotted with single
Speaker 1: family homes. The outside of the main building is covered
Speaker 1: in dense creeping vines, creating a green exoskeleton that gives
Speaker 1: the place a puckish larval aura, like a shaggy caterpillar
Speaker 1: on the cusp of molting. Goro is joined in the
Speaker 1: conference room by Kinichi Yoda, an up and coming executive.
Speaker 1: Three years ago, JIBLI announced it was selling a forty
Speaker 1: two point three percent stake in the business for an
Speaker 1: undisclosed sum to Nippon Television Holdings, a major Japanese media
Speaker 1: conglomerate that had had long invested in the studio's films. Yoda,
Speaker 1: then a producer at Nippon TV, joined gibli's board of
Speaker 1: directors and has since served as the primary liaison between
Speaker 1: the two camps. Whatever happens next, Yoda, fifty one will
Speaker 1: be a driving force. In May, the companies announced that
Speaker 1: he'd been promoted to become Jibli's president and chief executive
Speaker 1: officer starting on June twenty second. For the next two hours,
Speaker 1: the younger Miyazaki and Yoda hold forth on Jibli's future,
Speaker 1: from their inchoate plans for the next feature film, to
Speaker 1: their stance on artificial intelligence, to the importance of extending
Speaker 1: the brand beyond the screen. Yoda declines to say anything
Speaker 1: about Jibli's financial situation or Nipon TV's assessment of it.
Speaker 1: According to public records, as of March thirty first, twenty
Speaker 1: twenty five, JIBLI had forty four billion yen, about two
Speaker 1: hundred and seventy nine million dollars in assets, and brought
Speaker 1: six billion yen and net profit over the past year.
Speaker 1: JIBLI is not a company focused primarily on profit, Yoda says.
Speaker 1: At a time time of great flux in the entertainment industry,
Speaker 1: many incoming CEOs like to position themselves as agents of change,
Speaker 1: guiding anxious flocks into a brave new world of technologically
Speaker 1: optimized content creation. Not Yoda, if anything, He describes himself
Speaker 1: as Jibli's protector of the old ways. JIBLI is not
Speaker 1: a place that works hard to maintain a company. I
Speaker 1: think it is a place to make art, Yoda says
Speaker 1: when I'm often asked about this outside. I say what
Speaker 1: matters is that nothing changes. Despite its small staff and
Speaker 1: the many years, often three to five, it takes to
Speaker 1: produce a future length animated film, JIBLI has managed to
Speaker 1: grind out a new movie roughly every two years, no sequels,
Speaker 1: but recently the studio's cadence has gotten off track. It's
Speaker 1: been more than two and a half years since Jibli's
Speaker 1: latest film hit theaters, Hayao's The Boy and the Heron.
Speaker 1: The movie about a youngster who loses his mother and
Speaker 1: gets mixed up with mystical birds, was a success, winning
Speaker 1: the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature and generating more
Speaker 1: than two hundred and ninety million dollars in global ticket sales.
Speaker 1: But since its premiere, JIBLI has announced no theatrical movies,
Speaker 1: intensifying scrutiny of the Gnomic company. The hunt for something new,
Speaker 1: Yoda and Miyazaki say, is ongoing, but tricky. The process
Speaker 1: is driven by the intuition of the studio's aging founders,
Speaker 1: rather than more prosaic concerns such as market research, investors
Speaker 1: or the calendar. They don't think ahead that much, Yoda says,
Speaker 1: we have put out films inspired by whatever's happening at
Speaker 1: that point in time. If it doesn't feel right, he says,
Speaker 1: JIBLI won't force something into production. It doesn't mean that
Speaker 1: they have stopped thinking about or coming up with creative ideas.
Speaker 1: They're constantly thinking about, Okay, if we were to put
Speaker 1: a film out now, what would that be. Meanwhile, the
Speaker 1: global demand for anime that Jibli helped ignite decades ago
Speaker 1: has since attracted competitors from beyond Japan. The top film
Speaker 1: in the world last year was najah III, an animated
Speaker 1: fantasy adventure from China that built off the huge reception
Speaker 1: for naja in twenty nineteen, the sequel grows more than
Speaker 1: two billion dollars globally, topping the best offerings of Hollywood
Speaker 1: and Japan. Movie making, Miyazaki says, has become more industrialized.
Speaker 1: It's very hard to just create a feature film and
Speaker 1: put that into theaters and then make financial sense from that.
Speaker 1: A lot of the animation you see out there now
Speaker 1: is based on a manga and then it becomes a
Speaker 1: TV series, and then you have the partnership with the
Speaker 1: music company to have a big theme song attached to it,
Speaker 1: and so there's this wholesale business scheme. There's like a
Speaker 1: template almost to make sure that it's a profitable business
Speaker 1: in creating an animation film. We as a studio have
Speaker 1: never done that. Gibli's competitors have no such qualms. Major
Speaker 1: US animation studios continue to pump out sequels to prior hits.
Speaker 1: This year alone, we'll see Toy Story five, The Angry
Speaker 1: Birds Movie three, and new installments in the Minion's Super
Speaker 1: Mario Brothers and Paw Patrol franchises. Once years earlier, Hayau
Speaker 1: considered making a sequel to his two thousand and eight
Speaker 1: fantasy adventure film Ponio, but the idea was eventually scrapped
Speaker 1: in favor of another original, The wind Rises. Sequalization just
Speaker 1: isn't appealing to them. The Jibli executives say they aren't
Speaker 1: considering My Neighbor Totoro II or anything similar. When you
Speaker 1: make a film, it's not like a fun, happy, exciting process.
Speaker 1: Goro says, it's very laborious. It's very tedious. If anything,
Speaker 1: the process of creating any animation has grown even more laborious.
Speaker 1: In part that's because Jibli's gaggle of animators is older
Speaker 1: and less suited for round the clock binge working than
Speaker 1: they used to be, and in part because of labor
Speaker 1: laws enacted to curb such workplace successes. So even when
Speaker 1: the engine gets going, we have to stop. Yoda says,
Speaker 1: that is extremely frustrating. Miyazaki says he's not planning to
Speaker 1: pitch any movies to his dad anytime soon. Where the
Speaker 1: executives considering ideas from aspirational filmmakers outside their ranks, Yoda replies,
Speaker 1: if there's someone willing to do the film, yes, we
Speaker 1: would love to. But doing so, Miyazaki points out, wouldn't
Speaker 1: be easy under the current circumstances. As long as Hayau
Speaker 1: is around, He says, it'd be absolutely impossible. Yoda nods
Speaker 1: and chuckles. Any sane animation director would not come close
Speaker 1: to this castle. To the outside world, how exactly Jeebli
Speaker 1: operates has always been something of a mystery. In nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty four, Hayau directed NAUSICAA of the Valley of the Wind,
Speaker 1: a haunting kaleidoscopic film based on a manga series he'd
Speaker 1: created for Enimage magazine. Critics swooned over the movie, about
Speaker 1: a daring princess searching for salvation in a toxic post
Speaker 1: apocalyptic world. Following Nausica's commercial success, Hayau and his creative
Speaker 1: partner Isao Takahata, an erudite director who translated French poetry
Speaker 1: at the University of Tokyo, reinvested the proceeds into a
Speaker 1: new film project. They also began molling over how to
Speaker 1: establish a permanent base for their productions. Toshio Suzuki, the
Speaker 1: editor of ANIMAJ who champion NAUSICAA and its adaptation for
Speaker 1: the big screen, approached his boss, Yasuyoshi Tokuma, with a
Speaker 1: business idea. Brash and politically connected, Tokuma was the head
Speaker 1: of Tokuma Shoten, a media conglomerate that, in addition to animaj,
Speaker 1: controlled extensive holdings in books, music, graphic novels, magazines, live
Speaker 1: action films, and video games. Years earlier, Tokuma had been
Speaker 1: a supporter of legendary filmmaker Akira Kurosawa. Now, listening to
Speaker 1: Suzuki's pitch, he sensed similar potential in this pair of
Speaker 1: mid career animators. In nineteen eighty five, Hayao, Takahata and
Speaker 1: Suzuki formed Studio Jibli as a semi independent subsidiary of
Speaker 1: Tokuma Shoten. At the time, Hayau was known within the
Speaker 1: industry not just for his storytelling, but also for his
Speaker 1: leftist wariness of capitalism. As the new studio's top producer,
Speaker 1: Suzuki to took on the business side of the operation
Speaker 1: and let Hayau and Takahata tackle the creative challenges. Thanks
Speaker 1: to films such as My Neighbor, Totoro, Grave of the Fireflies,
Speaker 1: Kiki's Delivery Service, Princess Mononoke, and Spirited Away, along with
Speaker 1: the alluring musical scores of frequent collaborator Joe Hisaishi, the
Speaker 1: co founders made JIBLI into a globally renowned studio. On
Speaker 1: the road, meeting with theater owners or the press, Hayau
Speaker 1: and Suzuki, in particular, enthralled audiences. The duo were an
Speaker 1: irresistible study in contrasting styles. Haiau was brooding and tempestuous,
Speaker 1: Suzuki steady and optimistic. Haiau hated using computers, Suzuki loved
Speaker 1: gadgets of all sorts. Haiau was blunt and unsparing, Suzuki
Speaker 1: diplomatic and calculating. Together, they mesmerized the entertainment industry wherever
Speaker 1: they went. As Jibli's reputation soared, Haiau wore himself down
Speaker 1: again and again. He worked marathon sessions to finish his
Speaker 1: painstaking film, tensely chainsmoking while inserting himself into every facet
Speaker 1: of the process, scribbling and re scribbling sketches, drawing thousands
Speaker 1: of storyboard panels, assessing the color for every object, character,
Speaker 1: and costume, going over each vector of movement, line of dialogue,
Speaker 1: and sound, frame by frame, act after act. Afterward, he
Speaker 1: would repeatedly retire from the studio in exhaustion, then unretire,
Speaker 1: storming back to do it once more. Promising proteges came
Speaker 1: and went. It seemed as if Haiyau might not be
Speaker 1: temperamentally suited to nurturing a creative air. I trained successors,
Speaker 1: but I couldn't let go. Hayau would later concede in
Speaker 1: a documentary Never Ending Man, Haiau Miyazaki, I devoured them,
Speaker 1: I devoured their talent. There was no one left to
Speaker 1: take over. From an early age, Goro, the elder of
Speaker 1: the two sons of Haiau and his wife, former animator Akimiota,
Speaker 1: had stayed well out of devouring range. He chose to
Speaker 1: work in landscape, architecture and design, but then in the
Speaker 1: late nineteen nineties he teamed up with his dad to
Speaker 1: devise a playful configuration for the Jibli Museum, a fantastical
Speaker 1: exhibition hall dedicated to the technology and art of animation.
Speaker 1: When the museum opened on the outskirts of Tokyo in
Speaker 1: two thousand and one, it featured storyboards and sketches from
Speaker 1: Jibli movies, a whirling three D zootrope, and a lush
Speaker 1: rooftop garden. Fans loved it after the opening, despite battling
Speaker 1: with Haiau over everything from construction design to materials, Goro
Speaker 1: joined Jibli's artists. In two thousand and five, Tokuma Shoten
Speaker 1: spun off the studio. Moving forward, the animation shop would
Speaker 1: go solo, navigating through a consolidating entertainment industry increasingly controlled
Speaker 1: by corporate giants. The following year, Goro made his directorial
Speaker 1: debut with Tales from Irsey, an adaptation of an Ursula
Speaker 1: kaylea Gwen fantasy series. The film, which begins with a
Speaker 1: dramatic moment of royal succession, in which a prince stabs
Speaker 1: his father, the king, to death, did well virtually, but
Speaker 1: reviews were mixed, and the one that mattered most was
Speaker 1: far from glowing. At the premiere, Haiau walked out of
Speaker 1: the theater for a cigarette break, unable to hide his frustration.
Speaker 1: According to Ten Years with Haiao Miyazaki, a documentary about
Speaker 1: the studio from Japanese public broadcaster h K, from there,
Speaker 1: the creative relationship improved. On Goro's second film, From Up
Speaker 1: on Poppy Hill, the Miyazakis found a way to work
Speaker 1: together productively. When it premiered in twenty eleven, the elder
Speaker 1: Miyazaki was cautiously satisfied, according to the documentary. Even so,
Speaker 1: in a moment captured by nh K, he challenged his
Speaker 1: son to create something that could astonish him, presumably by
Speaker 1: surpassing his own work. Go ahead, threaten me, Haiau said
Speaker 1: at the time. As the years passed and his experience
Speaker 1: in the business deepened, Goro seemed perfectly positioned to lead
Speaker 1: Jibli's next chapter, but still both Miyazakis hesitated. At a
Speaker 1: press conference in September twenty twenty three, Suzuki, the co founder,
Speaker 1: explained where things stood. Since Jibli is a company I
Speaker 1: built together with Hyo Miyazaki. I wanted Miyazaki's eldest son,
Speaker 1: Goro to succeed us, he said, but Goro refused, and
Speaker 1: Haio opposed it. He believed it would be better to
Speaker 1: have a broader perspective and do various things. Goro, too,
Speaker 1: wasn't interested in leading the business alone. At the very least,
Speaker 1: they'd likely need to pare Goro with a suitable business partner.
Speaker 1: Some went to step into the role of Suzuki, who,
Speaker 1: like Hayau, was well into retirement age. He'll turned seventy
Speaker 1: eight on August nineteenth. Like Suzuki, Kinichi Yoda had spent
Speaker 1: some of his early professional years in journalism. In the
Speaker 1: two thousands, while working as a reporter for the newspaper
Speaker 1: Yomiuri Shimbun, he crossed paths with Suzuki when writing an
Speaker 1: online feature about JIBLI. A few years later, Yoda jumped
Speaker 1: to Nippon TV, which had long controlled the rights to
Speaker 1: air the studio's movies on television in Japan. Yoda took
Speaker 1: on a role managing the growing number of collaborations between
Speaker 1: Nippon TV and JIBLI, including art exhibitions dedicated to the
Speaker 1: studio's work and a twenty twenty two stage adaptation of
Speaker 1: My Neighbor Totoro. At one point, Yoda facilitated an introduction
Speaker 1: between Suzuki and Nipon TV chairman Yoshikuni Sugiyama. Afterwards, Suzuki
Speaker 1: invited Sugiyama to a hot spring in the Tohoku region,
Speaker 1: known for its therapeutic mountain waters, breathtaking landscapes, and premiumsake.
Speaker 1: At some point, amid the invigorating steam of corporate diplomacy,
Speaker 1: a plan got hatched for a deeper entwinement of the businesses.
Speaker 1: In twenty twenty three, Nipon TV announced it was buying
Speaker 1: a hefty portion of JIBLI, which would become a semi
Speaker 1: independent subsidiary. Crucially, Yoda would take charge of the integration
Speaker 1: strategy of respectful non interference. Three years later, listening to
Speaker 1: Yoda and Goro banter in the conference room, it's easy
Speaker 1: to hear echoes of their predecessors. I always ask Goro, okay,
Speaker 1: let's come up with a new film, Yoda says, and
Speaker 1: then his answer is always, well, I want to retire. Repeat.
Speaker 1: I'm confident if I say that I will retire, that
Speaker 1: I will retire. Gorel responds somewhat convincingly. His dad says,
Speaker 1: Yoda said the same thing. His dad says, Yoda said
Speaker 1: the same thing. We'll be right back with Studio Jibli
Speaker 1: doesn't really care what's coming next. Welcome back to Studio
Speaker 1: Jhibli doesn't really care what's coming next. At the beginning
Speaker 1: of Spirited Away, Jibli's two thousand and one hit, a
Speaker 1: family driving through an unfamiliar, secluded patch of Japan takes
Speaker 1: a wrong turn and happens upon a mysteriously deserted amusement park.
Speaker 1: The mom, dad, and their school age daughter explore on
Speaker 1: foot and find an empty restaurant with a surprisingly sumptuous buffet.
Speaker 1: Without hesitating, the adults stuff their faces. Soon they're magically
Speaker 1: transformed snout to tail into grunting pigs. Haiau's sly send
Speaker 1: up of the gluttony at the heart of many amusement
Speaker 1: parks will likely resonate with anyone who's visited one. Naturally,
Speaker 1: Jibli's version is different. At Jibli Park, which opened in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty two, there are no roller coasters, no carnival games,
Speaker 1: no gut busting buffets. Located in Nagakute, Jibli Park is
Speaker 1: full of dense greenery, winding walking paths, and bird song.
Speaker 1: On a recent spring day, clots of visitors drift through
Speaker 1: its tranquil grounds. Meticulous recreations of settings and characters from
Speaker 1: the Jibli universe fill the central indoor exhibition space. Inside,
Speaker 1: there's a small screening room which rotates through featurettes that
Speaker 1: are difficult to see elsewhere, including twenty eighteen's Borrow the Caterpillar,
Speaker 1: Haiau's first extensively computer animated film. Since early July, it's
Speaker 1: also served as home to a new series of art
Speaker 1: pieces by Haiau, thirty one handcrafted panorama boxes displaying original
Speaker 1: illustrations arranged in layered three D scenes. Despite its pastoral trappings,
Speaker 1: Jibli Park is not entirely uncommercial. Each day, the park
Speaker 1: can accommodate about five thousand paying visitors, and there are
Speaker 1: gift shops with shelves of collectibles. The plush totoros are
Speaker 1: a hot cellar. Fans make the pilgrimage to Jibli Park
Speaker 1: from all over the world, but despite the interest from overseas,
Speaker 1: Jibli executives say they aren't planning to open additional theme
Speaker 1: parks outside Japan. Lately, however, they've been rolling out traveling
Speaker 1: art exhibitions that so far have appeared everywhere from China
Speaker 1: to South Korea, to Singapore to Los Angeles. The attractions
Speaker 1: typically explore one aspect or another of the jibli Ouvre,
Speaker 1: often with tactile displays alongside artifacts from the filmmaking process. Elsewhere,
Speaker 1: Jibli has extended its brand into the theatre world overseeing
Speaker 1: intricate stage adaptations of Spirited Away and Princess Mononoke, along
Speaker 1: with the one of My Neighbor. Totoro Goro says the
Speaker 1: purpose of all this is to ensure people don't forget
Speaker 1: the studio's name. For a long time, he notes the
Speaker 1: Jibli brand wasn't widely recognized even in Japan. That changed
Speaker 1: with the opening of the museum, which helped establish its identity.
Speaker 1: He says, before that audiences loved the films, but weren't
Speaker 1: very aware of who made them. In twenty twenty, the
Speaker 1: studio licensed its movies to HBO Max in the US
Speaker 1: and to Netflix most everywhere else. The resulting fees help
Speaker 1: sustain the studio's coffers while it figures out its next
Speaker 1: theatrical release, and while fans await the next movie they
Speaker 1: can get their Jibli fix via the studio's museum, theme park,
Speaker 1: traveling exhibitions, stage adaptations, and Donguri Republic Stores, a chain
Speaker 1: of dozens of retail outlets in Japan and elsewhere that
Speaker 1: sell all sorts of Jibli merchandise. When it comes to
Speaker 1: Jibli's next move, even its partners are oftentimes left guessing.
Speaker 1: Two years ago, Toho, the Japanese entertainment giant that's home
Speaker 1: to the Godzilla franchise and producer of the Spirited Away
Speaker 1: stage play, acquired g Kids, a boutique animation business based
Speaker 1: in New York known for distributing crafty indie films, often
Speaker 1: from overseas. For years, starting in the nineteen nineties, the
Speaker 1: Walt Disney Company had served as the international distributor of
Speaker 1: Jibli films, but the relationship eventually soured, in part over
Speaker 1: Disney's proposals to alter the studio's movies for non Japanese
Speaker 1: audiences in ways the filmmakers found distasteful, such as cutting
Speaker 1: down the run times or cramming sound effects into the
Speaker 1: film's poignant pockets of silence. In his twenty twenty memoir
Speaker 1: Sharing a House with the Never Ending Man, former Jibli
Speaker 1: executive Steve Albert chronicled the friction. Disney's US marketing team
Speaker 1: had issues with the films we had never considered. Albert writes,
Speaker 1: Castle in the Sky, some one fires a gun at
Speaker 1: a young boy. We can't show that to children in
Speaker 1: the US. My neighbor Totoro, the dad gets naked and
Speaker 1: bathes with his daughters. We can't show that in the US.
Speaker 1: Pom Poco the raccoons used their scrotums to do magic.
Speaker 1: We can't have children looking at animals scrotums. The list
Speaker 1: of stylistic clashes went on as the relationship unwound. Disney
Speaker 1: avoided commenting publicly. Since twenty eleven, G Kids has served
Speaker 1: as the distributor of Jibli films in US theaters. Even so,
Speaker 1: Toho and Gkids executives say they don't have much insight
Speaker 1: into what the studio is planning. We of course await
Speaker 1: and welcome if Jibli is producing any new project, but
Speaker 1: we cannot ask them, we cannot control. We basically await,
Speaker 1: says Toho CEO Hiroyasu Matsuoka. We are discussing many projects
Speaker 1: on a very casual level, and sometimes it becomes realized
Speaker 1: very quickly. Sometimes well that's a great idea. Maybe we
Speaker 1: want to talk about it next time, and it never happens,
Speaker 1: so it's very unpredictable. David Jest, president of j Kids,
Speaker 1: says he's grateful for whatever comes his way from Jibli.
Speaker 1: I'm not pushing for live action remakes, he says. A
Speaker 1: lot of the kinds of things that studios typically do
Speaker 1: to quote unquote refresh ip is not really something that's
Speaker 1: available to us or of interest to the studio for
Speaker 1: the time being. Anyone hoping to decipher Jibli's creative direction
Speaker 1: is left to pour over the esthetic and narrative decisions
Speaker 1: in Goro's films for clues. As in his father's movies,
Speaker 1: Goro's young characters must endure the bludgeoning of fate, but
Speaker 1: the threats besieging them typically feel narrower by comparison. Dysfunctional families,
Speaker 1: more so than clashing civilizations, take center stage in Goro's work.
Speaker 1: His most recent feature film, twenty twenty's Earwig and the
Speaker 1: Witch tells the story of an orphaned girl who's adopted
Speaker 1: into a wicked, demanding family and struggles to learn the
Speaker 1: art of magic under adverse conditions. Billed as Jibli's first
Speaker 1: fully three D computer generated theatrical movie. It looked radically
Speaker 1: different from the studio's typical house style, and by and large,
Speaker 1: fans and critics did not get on board with the changes.
Speaker 1: The movie, which landed during the COVID nineteen disruptions, struggled
Speaker 1: at the box office. How its chilly reception might Shapejebli's
Speaker 1: willingness to experiment stylistically in the long term remains to
Speaker 1: be seen. Back at Jibli, the executives are happy to
Speaker 1: continue cultivating an air of strategic uncertain According to Yoda.
Speaker 1: Suzuki often says that one of Jibli's strengths is that
Speaker 1: it doesn't have a long term master plan. Outside the
Speaker 1: studio Gjibli windows, a patch of blooming rhododendrons was dancing
Speaker 1: in a balmy, gusty breeze. From the street below, the
Speaker 1: faint voices of passing children drifted in, singing the theme
Speaker 1: song from My Neighbor Totoro. Days earlier, with multiple wars
Speaker 1: smoldering across the planet, the Japanese government had done away
Speaker 1: with the ban on arms exports that dated to World
Speaker 1: War II. According to local newspaper reports, the military was
Speaker 1: already receiving strong interest in partnering on lethal AI driven weaponry.
Speaker 1: On the home front, a robotic AI powered ping pong
Speaker 1: player nicknamed Ace was routinely defeating top level human competitors
Speaker 1: as spring rolled toward summer. Such was the prevailing vibe
Speaker 1: in Japan and beyond. It was one aggressive AI swing
Speaker 1: after another. As in many creative fields, the pressure on
Speaker 1: the animation industry is mounting. AI software is already capable
Speaker 1: of rendering elaborate animated sequences from brief prompts. What that
Speaker 1: means for the profession is still unclear, but recently there's
Speaker 1: been a collective embrace of Gjibli as a standard bearer
Speaker 1: for the growing AI resistance. In March twenty twenty five,
Speaker 1: when OpenAI released a new version of its text to
Speaker 1: video AI model, users started refining Theirjibli style knockoffs. Before long,
Speaker 1: people were inundating the Internet with jiblified selfies, family photos,
Speaker 1: and famous movie scenes. Mike Tyson posted a Gibli like
Speaker 1: rendering of himself. Sam Altman, the CEO of open Ai,
Speaker 1: updated his ex profile pick in Gibli style. Not everyone
Speaker 1: was amused by the spectacle of a rich American tech
Speaker 1: company offering the capability to appropriate the style of revered
Speaker 1: Japanese artists without compensation or consent. Amid the ensuing backlash,
Speaker 1: a particular clip from Never Ending Man about Jibli began
Speaker 1: recirculating on social media. In the documentary, a brazen Japanese
Speaker 1: tech executive tell Haiau that soon Deep Learning AI will
Speaker 1: let computers paint like humans. Inside the GIBLI headquarters, he
Speaker 1: plays a demonstration. Together, they watch an AI clip of
Speaker 1: a misshapen, unclothed humanoid clumsily squirming across the ground. In
Speaker 1: response to the creepy video, Hayau tells a story about
Speaker 1: the sensation of greeting a physically disabled friend. Whoever made
Speaker 1: this video, Hiau says, gave no thought to human suffering.
Speaker 1: It's an awful insult to life, he says. The clip
Speaker 1: snowballed into a global creed core against AI's slop. In Japan,
Speaker 1: the GJIBLI executives watched the open a saga play out unbothered.
Speaker 1: There has long been a tradition, Goro says, of fans
Speaker 1: making amateur art derived from their favorite manga, anime, or
Speaker 1: video game characters, so the jiblification craze didn't seem like
Speaker 1: a big deal for amusement. One of the company's executives
Speaker 1: even dabbled in the trend himself. We didn't think much
Speaker 1: of it, to be honest, Goro says, if someone started
Speaker 1: making a lot of money out of it, then it
Speaker 1: would be problem. Anyone positioning Geebli in the vanguard of
Speaker 1: the AI backlash, Goro says, was twisting events for their
Speaker 1: own purposes. The studio itself was essentially AI agnostic. If
Speaker 1: the late co founder, Izau Takahata were still alive he
Speaker 1: died in twenty eighteen, Goro says he'd probably be the
Speaker 1: first in line to give it a whirl. He was
Speaker 1: someone who was very interested in the latest technology. He says,
Speaker 1: we're not denying or feeling negative about AI technology itself.
Speaker 1: One of the central themes in Haiau's films is whether
Speaker 1: humankind will harness technology for the protection and enrichment of
Speaker 1: the natural world, or alternatively, for its destruction. Susan Napier,
Speaker 1: a professor at Tuff's University, says the roots of this
Speaker 1: fascination likely can be traced back to the nuclear horrors
Speaker 1: endured by Japan during and after World War II, but
Speaker 1: at a time when much of the planet is grappling
Speaker 1: once again with existential questions about a powerful new technology
Speaker 1: and its impact. She says, Haiau's work is more relevant
Speaker 1: than ever. Heiau's films team with robots and other forms
Speaker 1: of sentient technology, some good, some evil. His film's perspective
Speaker 1: on the topic, she says, is always complex. What are
Speaker 1: the pleasures technology can bring, she asks, along with the perils.
Speaker 1: It's streaming technology, more so than AI that continues to
Speaker 1: raise strategic questions for the company. Since twenty twenty, global
Speaker 1: audiences have been able to stream the studio's movies on
Speaker 1: demand thanks to those licensing deals with HBO Max and Netflix,
Speaker 1: but audiences in Japan can't stream anything from the canon.
Speaker 1: To watch a film, they either have to buy a DVD,
Speaker 1: wait until it airs on nip On TV, or go
Speaker 1: to see a remastered version at an Imax theater. It's
Speaker 1: a dynamic that frustrates many Japanese fans. Even so, JIBLI
Speaker 1: executives say they're in no rush to sell the streaming
Speaker 1: rights locally. I work for a TV network and we
Speaker 1: know that linear TV is losing its viewership, Yoda says.
Speaker 1: But at the same time, with the JIBLI films, when
Speaker 1: they go on TV, it becomes this whole event. Everybody
Speaker 1: is watching that film at the same time wherever they
Speaker 1: are in Japan, and it becomes this whole celebration, this
Speaker 1: big festival. Almost internally, the executives say there's been plenty
Speaker 1: of discussion about the topic, but for the time being,
Speaker 1: they'll continue to defer to the studio elders. Suzuki believes
Speaker 1: streaming services will soon become no good. Goro says he
Speaker 1: believes they will fail, and then he's kind of excited
Speaker 1: waiting for that to happen. Roland Celt's, author of Japan America,
Speaker 1: How Japanese pop culture has Invaded the US, says Jibli's
Speaker 1: resistance to the commercial exploitation of its stories so strong
Speaker 1: that the studio's inception has been declining for years. Along
Speaker 1: the way, all sorts of things the founders once opposed
Speaker 1: have come to pass. The walls kept falling down over
Speaker 1: the past twenty years. Celts says, I didn't think they
Speaker 1: would push into the DVD market. I didn't think they
Speaker 1: would ever say yes to streaming. I didn't think there
Speaker 1: would be a theme park, and it's all happened. When
Speaker 1: the day inevitably comes and the remaining DJIBLI founders are
Speaker 1: no longer in the picture, whatever resistance remains, Keelt says
Speaker 1: could erode even further. I could see some clever, creative
Speaker 1: people getting their hands on JIBLI property after Miyazaki dies
Speaker 1: or Suzuki dies and saying, oh my god, I love
Speaker 1: this Totoro character, but I don't want to sit through
Speaker 1: ninety minutes. We could remix it. Eventually, the interviews with
Speaker 1: Yoda and the younger Miyazaki wind down. It's been hours
Speaker 1: since the morning screening of A Night in the Valley
Speaker 1: of the Witches. But even as his long shadow hangs
Speaker 1: over everything, the group discusses there is still no sign
Speaker 1: of Goro's father in the flesh. A pair of reporters
Speaker 1: asks if they can see the house near by where
Speaker 1: Hayau often rests in between punishing work sessions at the studio.
Speaker 1: A member of the staff volunteers to lead the expedition
Speaker 1: around the corner. A few steps back from the quiet,
Speaker 1: tree lined street sits a wide, gray shingled house designed
Speaker 1: years ago by Hayou. It's nicknamed the Pig House. Sometimes
Speaker 1: worker says he'll sit on its front porch and have
Speaker 1: tea with colleagues or well wishers. But to day the
Speaker 1: front of the house is empty. The curtain's drawn. A
Speaker 1: minute later, a shadow appears at the window. It seems
Speaker 1: Hoyau might appear, but the silhouette remains inside, just out
Speaker 1: of reach. The minutes pass and the weekend beckons. In
Speaker 1: all likelihood, Haiau will be back in the studio on
Speaker 1: Monday morning, if not sooner, creating what precisely? Who could say,
Speaker 1: Not his son, not the studio's new CEO, not even
Speaker 1: his long time producing partner, or his investors. For now,
Speaker 1: Jebli's future remains inseparable from Haiau and his staunch insistence
Speaker 1: on the singular and the Handmaid. He comes to the
Speaker 1: studio every day, Yoda says, only he knows exactly what
Speaker 1: he's working on.