Studio Ghibli Animation as Adaptations

Dominic J. Nardi is Adjunct Professor of Political Science at George Washington University, USA. He co-edited The Transmedia Franchise of Star Wars TV (2020) and Discovering Dune (2022) and has written about politics in Blade Runner and Lord of the Rings.Keli Fancher is a full-time software engineer and an independent scholar focusing on anime studies, based in the USA.

• List of IllustrationsAcknowledgmentsIntroduction: Studio Ghibli Animation as (Re)creative Adaptations Dominic J. Nardi (George Washington University, USA) and Keli Fancher (Signum University, USA)Part I: Faithfulness and Fidelity 1. Apocalyptic Beauty: Future Boy Conan and How Hayao Miyazaki Adapts Apocalypse River Seager (University of Dundee, UK)2. Hayao Miyazaki as a Magician of Adaptation in Kiki’s Delivery ServiceMiyuki Yonemura (Senshu University, Japan)3. The Balance of Creation and Ruin: A Constituent Reading of Tales From EarthseaAdam McLain (University of Connecticut, USA)Part II: Translating Stories Across Cultures 4. Japan’s Swiss Heimat: How Heidi, Girl of the Alps Satisfies Japanese HomesicknessKeli Fancher (Signum University, USA)5. My Bosom Friend Diana: Female Friendship and School Life in Red-Haired AnnePatrick Carland-Echavarria (University of Pennsylvania, USA)6. From Postmodern Fairy Tale to Ani-Modern Shojo: Adapting Howl’s Moving CastleYosr Dridi (University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, France)7. Western Stories, Japanese Structures: Narratological Reinterpretations of Howl’s Moving Castle and Ponyo Zoe Crombie (Lancaster University, UK)Part III: From Manga to Anime8. Post-Apocalypse and Solarpunk in Hayao Miyazaki’s Two Versions of Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind Dalila Forni (Link University, Italy)9. Adapting Nostalgia in Only Yesterday and My Neighbors the YamadasHsin Hsieh (University of Reading, UK)Part IV: Boundaries and Genres10. Rediscovering Laputa: Literary Form and Technoscience in Castle in the Sky and Gulliver’s Travels Brian Milthorpe (University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA)11. True Stories, Theater Tropes, and Hotaru Mythologies: Adaptation Reconsidered in Grave of the FirefliesKendall Belopavlovich (Michigan Technological University, USA)12. A Kettle of Fish on a Warming Planet: Exploring Liminality in Ponyo and “The Little Mermaid” Colin Wheeler (Independent Scholar, USA)BibliographyFilmographyNotes on ContributorsIndex

I read this book with great enjoyment. With four of twelve chapters devoted to works by Isao Takahata and one to Goro Miyazaki’s Tales from Earthsea, it offers a substantial contribution to scholarship on the best-known works of Ghibli’s three major directors. Miyazaki’s looser late ‘adaptations’ The Wind Rises and The Boy and the Heron do not feature, and his original work Porco Rosso (adapted from his own short manga) is omitted. I was sorry not to see chapters devoted to Takahata’s magnificent Pompoko, or to the work of Ghibli’s junior directors, Hiromasa Yonebayashi, Tomomi Mochizuki, Hiroyuki Morita, and the late Yoshifumi Kondo; but in any publication space and time make demands that editors must accept. It’s still a fascinating collection, and by focussing on the most popular titles from the studio’s catalogue it makes itself widely accessible and attractive to readers beyond academia. Written with commendable clarity, its essays will be useful to the general reader and Ghibli fan as well as to scholars. The scholars involved come from diverse cultural and academic backgrounds, including one independent scholar, one animation practicioner/scholar and one film-maker/scholar. Several are engaged with podcasting, film festivals and film criticism as well as more conventional academic publication. Most of the authors have received their degrees from and currently work in European or American universities. One is a former professor at the University of Tunis in Africa, and one is currently a professor at Tokyo’s Senshu University. Sources listed are primarily in English, with some Japanese and Italian material. This mix of contributors and sources serves the overall topic of Studio Ghibli as a source of (re)-creative adaptations well. All anime is adaptation, and all anime in English is a re-adaptation. From the opening paragraph of the introduction on why we remake work, and what we choose to adapt from format to format, the editors address the lack of critical scholarly attention to Ghibli as re-maker. By directly comparing Disney’s and Ghibli’s recontextualizations, they open the door to fresh critical perspectives. A useful list of pre-Ghibli and Ghibli adaptations from other sources paves the way for a series of dynamic, reflective essays. This is an important and welcome contribution to English-language Ghibli scholarship that will be just as valuable to Ghibli studies worldwide.