Japanese animation film studio Studio Ghibli was founded in 1985 by prominent animation director Hayao Miyazaki, his mentor Isao Takahata and producer Toshio Suzuki.The studio was founded when, in 1983, the film Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind was turned down by a string of studios until Topcraft agreed to produce the project.The difficulty to get this project off the ground and the success that Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind had in Japan, showing that there was an audience for high quality Japanese animation, led to the birth of Studio Ghibli.Much of the studio's work has been distributed through Japan enjoying massive success but many of the movies have gone unnoticed by a Western audience.But all this changed in 1999 when Princess Mononoke was released by American studio Miramax, which at the time was owned by Bob and Harvey Weinstein.But it was Spirited Away and Howl's Moving Castle, which were released in 2001 and 2004, that really won over the West with Spirited Away winning an Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, the first anime film to win an Academy Award, and the only winner of that award to win among five nominees (in every other year there were three nominees).
However the studio has have to make some changes to break through into this previously untapped audience.
Many of their older movies were re-recorded and re-released on DVD and new pictures making it into Western theatres with the backing of voices of well known actors including Christian Bale, Lauren Bacall and Kirsten Dunst.
Unlike many of the Western animations of recent years in the two decades that Studio Ghibli have been producing these anime movies they have always delivered a strong emotional message.
Miyazaki is famed for using strong female lead characters as well as regularly depicting the horrors and results of war, those trademarks are evident in most of his work.
Over the twenty years that Studio Ghibli have been releasing their movies director Hayao Miyazaki has become a driving force in the world of animation being behind a string of successful pictures including Howl's Moving Castle, Spirited Away, Kiki's Delivery Service and Laputa: Castle in the Sky.
Miyazaki's achievement's in the field of animation were recognised by Venice Film Festival in 2005 when he received a lifetime achievement award.
Despite the studio's last release Tales From Earthsea failing to be a commercial success in the UK Hayao Miyazaki's new project Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea is due for release later this year.
Isao Takahata and Goro Miyazaki are also currently working on unnamed projects.
FemaleFirst Helen Earnshaw