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It would of been nice to see more of both Michael and Jake's voices individually instead of as one. But other than that, really enjoyed. hotaru 火垂る （ ほたる ）の haka 墓 （ はか ） or Grave of the Fireflies is based on the semi-autobiographical novel by Akiyuki Nosaka. The story is about a brother and sister struggling to survive on their own during World War Two. The book was published in 1967, a time when Japan was experiencing great economic growth. Nosaka was inspired to write the book partly by the contrast he saw with the world he saw around him and the Japan of his childhood, and partly as an apology to his adoptive sister Keiko who had died of malnutrition during the war. I'm inclined to agree. My 13 year old self is pretty darned happy that both the book and the film exist. Tales from Earthsea
Studio Ghibli: The Complete Works - Penguin Random House Studio Ghibli: The Complete Works - Penguin Random House
Tales from Earthsea was the first feature film directed by Gorō Miyazaki, son of animator Hayao Miyazaki. It was loosly based on the Earthsea series by Ursula K. Le Guin. The English name of the adaptation shares the name of a short story collection by Le Guin, but the movie actually draws on plot elements from many different books in the series. In Japanese the film is called ゲド 戦記 （ せんき ）, literally Ged's War Chronicles. This approach has its problems. Anyone who has read books created from a series of newspaper columns or radio pieces will recognise them immediately. There is a huge disjoin between each chapter, and the result is very bitty.
After its publication Nosaka received many offers to turn the book into a movie. He declined them all, claiming that it would be impossible to recreate the blasted landscape of Japan during the war and that he doubted child actors would be able to portray the necessary emotions convincingly. However, when an anime was suggested and Nosaka was shown provisional storyboards, he agreed to it, saying that it was not possible to film the novel any other way. This is a brilliant book. The structure of working through each film chronologically, spelling out the history and development of each creative enterprise, within the narrative arc of the studio itself, then providing a review of the film, works well. It is a book about the history of Studio Ghibli, the people involved, the creative influences of each film, and the highlights and struggles of bringing creative work to fruition. It also touches on how these films came to the West from Japan. The story of the studio, fascinating as it is, becomes almost something to wade through before the review appears. For me, it would have been far better as a separate section of the book. This is the book that inspired me to write this article. It is pretty much my favourite book and definitely my most read one. I have four copies, one signed, one that fell apart because I read it so many times, one to replace that one, and one that I bought in Japan because I regretted not taking a copy with me. When I found out that the movie studio that had made Spirited Away – which had recently blown my then 13 year old mind – was making an adaptation of Howl's Moving Castle, I went into a new world of excitement. To say that I love this book is something of an understatement. Isao Takahata was the director of Studio Ghibli's Grave of the Fireflies. Unlike most animation directors, he had not been an animator before becoming a director. His works are among Ghibli's least known films outside of Japan, including Only Yesterday, Pom Poko, and My Neighbors the Yamadas. Within Japan, though, the movie of Grave of the Fireflies was associated with fan favourite Totoro, as they were originally released together as a double feature.
Book Review: 男鹿和雄画集 (Oga Kazuo Art Collection) | Parka Blogs Book Review: 男鹿和雄画集 (Oga Kazuo Art Collection) | Parka
Featuring 900 original illustrations, sketches, and imageboards from films such as Spirited Away, Howl’s Moving Castle, and The Wind Rises, the two-volume series offers a detailed look into the animation studio’s production processes, from planning to completion. Until now, many of the images have only been seen within the context of the museum itself, such as excerpts from its 2017 exhibition Delicious! Animating Memorable Meals and 2013’s The Lens at Work in The Ghibli Forest.PEDRO ALMODóVAR: INSTALLATION/INSTALACIóN DELMONICO BOOKS/ACADEMY MUSEUM OF MOTION PICTURES ISBN: 9781636810195 Keep in mind, again, this is a children's book. I encountered it at exactly the right age. Older readers coming to it might not get as much out of it as I did, but I still think it holds up and has a lot of interesting things to say about age and self confidence. I'm not sure if I would recommend the movie or the book first. For me the book will always come first, but I still appreciate the film (I saw it four times at the theatre after all.) If nothing else the book will help to explain a little the sudden and slightly bewildering transformation of a minor character at the end of the movie. It makes a lot more sense in the book. Broadly speaking, Oga works from the large details in toward the small, arriving midway through the 2:00 hour to the stage of adding light purple flowers. These are Paulownia, called kiri in Japan, where these “princess trees” (that also appear on the official Government Seal) carry a certain symbolic weight. The final painting, Paulownia Rain (or kiri same), emerges only at 3:40 in the afternoon, after six hours of painting. This evocative forest landscape attests to the truth of an inversion of the Pareto principle, in that the parts of the job that seem smallest require most of the work to achieve — and to the truth of the Ghibli’s apparent artistic principle that every pain is worth taking.
Ghibliotheque: An Unofficial Guide to the Movies of Studio Ghibli Ghibliotheque: An Unofficial Guide to the Movies of Studio Ghibli
The movie was originally scripted by Nobuyuki Isshiki and Sunao Katabuchi was meant to direct it. However, Miyazaki, who was the producer on the project, was unhappy with the script. He rewrote it and finally ended up directing it too. While Kiki is based on a book by a Japanese author, the setting draws on European cities. Miyazaki and his team travelled to Sweden to do research and included elements from Lisbon, Paris, San Francisco, and Milan to create the city of Koriko. While there can be no doubt that Studio Ghibli draws strongly on Japanese material, such as the folk tales of the tanuki in Pom Poko or Shinto gods in Spirited Away, Ghibli is by no means culturally isolated. We may be dazzled by the Japanese elements, the gods, spirits, monsters and settings, but for Japanese audiences some of the movies have elements foreign to them as well. Though stories set explicitly in real foreign countries are often moved to Japan, fantastical mix-ups of European culture remain untouched. In fact, the source material is often not by Japanese authors. If we look at this list of the 50 children's books recommended by Studio Ghibli's acclaimed director Miyazaki, we can see that 48 are by non-Japanese authors from across the world. Several of these books have also been adapted by Studio Ghibli. Kiki's Delivery Service won the 23rd Noma Award for Juvenile Literature, the 34th Shogakukan Award for Children's Literature, and holds a place on the IBBY Honour List for 1986. It is also certainly Eiko Kadono's best well known book outside of Japan, thanks to the film adaptation. As we wait patiently for the UK release of Earwig and the Witch, the Studio Ghibli museum in Mitaka, Japan, has announced the release of a set of art books that highlight Hayao Miyazaki’s expansive works between 2001 and 2020.Good book with the overviews of Ghibli studio films. A lot of lovely illustrations. I don’t like a tiny font of this book; the book is oversized format, why such a tiny font?! Hayao Miyazaki’s Sketches Showing How to Draw Characters Running: From 1980 Edition of Animation Magazine
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