Japan’s Studio Ghibli to stop producing films: Reports

TOKYO — Best known for hits like My Neighbour Totoro, Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away, Studio Ghibli’s animation studio is taking a break, according to various online reports.

It was reported that the Japanese animation company’s general manager, Toshio Suzuki, made the announcement on a Japanese news programme. Suzuki said that the studio “would take a short break”. It is said that Ghibli would, for now, focus on licensing and managing the trademarks and copyrights of its back catalogue, and also the management of the Ghibli Museum.

The comments come slightly less than a year after Studio Ghibli co-founder and filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki announced that he was retiring. Miyazaki, who won an Oscar in 2003 for Spirited Away, said that he would stop making feature films after he was done with last year’s The Wind Rises. Studio Ghibli was founded in 1985.

Miyazaki had previously spoken about dissolving the studio in 2010, when he said that Suzuki was “making a dissolution plan”.

“Ghibli should be able to continue with about five staff members as a copyright management company even if we smash the studio,” Miyazaki told Cut Magazine. “So, Ghibli can say ‘We stop film production. Goodbye’.”

“I do not have to be there,” Miyazaki added.

Studio Ghibli’s last film, When Marnie Was There, was released on July 19 in Japan. Based on a novel with the same name by Joan G Robinson, the film has yet to see a worldwide release.