It seems as though Hayao Miyazaki’s retirement from filmmaking at Studio Ghibli in September of last year may have been slightly premature.
Toshio Suzuki, the current general manager of Studio Ghibli, took to the NHK morning show Asa Ichi on Thursday to clarify some of his earlier statements made during a documentary, when he announced that Ghibli would be taking a break from their feature film production.
Suzuki didn’t get into any specifics, in regard to what their restructuring of the studio may look like, he only said, “we’re changing the way we make [animation.]” He continued on by saying, “We wanted to make a dream company. We thought we would make what suited us and not make what didn’t suit us. We were able to realize [that dream] to some extent and we’re very happy about that. But now we’re at a point where we’ve got to think about what we’ll do next.”
It was during this same appearance on Asa Ichi that Suzuki teased Miyazaki’s potential return to Ghibli, but perhaps not in the way that most fans would hope. “This is my guess, but I’m thinking it will be something short,” Suzuki said, before continuing on to explain that Miyazaki had spoken to him about creating a short film specifically for the Ghibli Museum in Tokyo.
Suzuki’s appearance in a TBS documentary caused quite a stir earlier this week, as some of his comments were mistranslated, leading many to believe that the film department was facing imminent closure. This turned out not to be the case, and Ghibli will instead be taking a hiatus to figure out their next move. We’ll certainly be keeping a close eye on the proceedings of the studio over the coming months. But for the time being, any feature film production will be on a pause.
The Wind Rises, Hayao Miyazaki’s last feature film before he announced his retirement, was released earlier this year by Disney. The movie was a look at the life of Jiro Horikoshi, the man who designed Japanese fighter planes during World War II. There is currently no official release date set for the DVD/Blu-Ray, but you can sign up to be notified when it is available from Amazon.
Source: Variety.
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