Toshio Suzuki – Takarabako

Miyazaki & Takahata’s Work Relationship and How It Ended

In his 2018 biographical book Kanyada from the Southern Country (南の国のカンヤダ), Suzuki doesn’t write much about Ghibli at all. But an addendum is dedicated to the late Isao Takahata and adds some interesting details to the interview I previously translated.

Suzuki repeats that he and Miyazaki still can’t figure out what kind of person Takahata was. According to Suzuki, in the first half of the 55 years Miyazaki and Takahata had spent together, the two of them shared a favorable relationship. Not so much in the second half, though.

Suzuki calls Hols, Panda Kopanda and Heidi their “honeymoon” – in these years, they were the “perfect duo”. They understood each other even without talking.

“But after that, I didn’t get Paku-san anymore,” Miyazaki complained to Suzuki. In 3000 Leagues in Search of My Mother and Anne of Green Gables, their working relationship was more strained already and Miyazaki left the production in the middle of Anne. It continued to be a bumpy road for their other movies.

According to Suzuki, in live-action movies, the cameraman has the most important role – they decide the stage setting, the props, the lighting, the position of the actors and so on. So a good cameraman greatly reduces the workload of the director.

Since Takahata didn’t draw himself, it was Miyazaki’s role to play the “cameraman”.

In regard to Takahata’s pioneering role, Miyazaki said the following:
“It was Paku-san who created Japanese animation. Not only the layout system. He revolutionized animation in many ways.”

In Suzuki’s words, Takahata turned “manga movies” into “movies”.

But why did they part ways?

Miyazaki’s words are pretty clear: “Because I can’t look after him anymore.”

Suzuki goes on to describe Takahata as someone who “doesn’t get up in the morning” and “doesn’t go to the studio”. A group effort like a feature-length movie would end up without a director present. So someone had to drive Takahata from and to the studio everyday since Takahata didn’t drive himself. At first this person was Miyazaki.

The second reason, as Suzuki describes, was that Takahata didn’t do the planning for his projects – ever. For their shared projects, it was always Miyazaki or Suzuki who came up with the plans.

The third reason was that Takahata was so into studying that when something caught his interest, he wouldn’t stop researching until he was fully satisfied. This was a common reason for delays in his works. For example, the famous dyer’s safflower picking scene in Only Yesterday (pictured on the right) took more than a month.

Suzuki speculates that because Takahata was the youngest of seven children, he was a “natural at taking advantage of other’s benevolence”.

Basically, Miyazaki was fed up with having to clean up after Takahata who constantly caused stress and extra work for others: “I gave Isao Takahata 15 years of my youth. I want them back!”

But after losing Miyazaki, Takahata realized that he had no one to fill this gap. This despair “escalated as irritation”. On the other hand, it was also Miyazaki’s biggest wish to work once more on a movie with Takahata as the director.

This movie was My Neighbor Totoro. “Takahata should direct, I will draw the pictures.” This idea elated Miyazaki and he was incredibly disappointed when Takahata turned it down.

It is fascinating to see how much both directors struggled to fill the void left behind after it became clear that they wouldn’t be able to continue to work together.

Translation: Toshio Suzuki Reminisces About Isao Takahata (Part 3)

I kind of forgot that I was already 65 % done with this translation when I went on my bikepacking trip from Okinawa to Nagasaki. But I’m back now, so no excuses for further delays. This the last part of Suzuki’s musings and covers the particularly notorious part about Takahata “killing” Yoshifumi Kondō.

An additional note: I wrote that the original article was posted on bunshun.jp which was not wrong, but it was originally published in the Ghibli Textbook #19: The Tale of Princess Kaguya. I have added this information to the previous articles.

Part 1 | Part 2

The original Japanese article can be found here.

“Even After Takahata-san’s Death, the Tension Does Not Subside” – Toshio Suzuki talks about Isao Takahata (Part 3)

When will this film be completed, when will it be released to the world? I didn‘t even think about that once. Let’s just release it once it’s finished. With that way of thinking, I prepared myself for the worst, including the budget. Having enough of distressing over meeting deadlines was also a reason, and I also felt like I should let Takahata do until he was satisfied. As a result, [the production] took eight years and, with a budget of 50 billion yen, became the most expensive Japanese movie in history, but I decided to not let it bother me at all.

“The Idea of Releasing ’Princess Kaguya’ and ’The Wind Rises’ Simultaneously”

But still, when I heard that the completion was in sight, I felt excitement – because Nishimura talked about summer 2013, the same timing as “The Wind Rises”. That’s when I came up with the idea of a simultaneous release. Two maestros with a teacher-student relationship and a lifelong rivalry, pitting their works against each other 25 years after “My Neighbor Totoro” and “Grave of the Fireflies” – if that came to be, making big headlines would be easy. And personally, I was also interested which film would attract more visitors and how different the critical reception would be if released at the same time.

That’s when I went to Takahata-san and explained my plan to him. But Takahata-san was not thrilled. “You want to release this film by stirring up a fire like that?” “Exactly. You see, the film cost a lot of money, and recovering the money by getting people to see the movie is one of my reasons,” I replied, but Takahata-san said he would not agree to that. At one point, Takahata-san likened my way of promotion to propaganda and become quite critical.

As a result, progress on “Kaguya” got delayed once more, and the release was stretched out until November. Admittedly, my dreams of a simultaneous release were shattered, but I thought, if it’s not meant to be, that’s also fine. In that way, I countered his stubbornness with my own stubbornness. I decided to take this contest of endurance to the limit.

Dispute Over a Tagline

When it came to the promotion, we also argued over the tagline. The line I came up with was “The sin of a princess and her punishment”. That was also written in the project proposal Takahata-san had submitted at the beginning, and anyway, it was the theme of the original story. I thought this was the only fitting line. But when I showed it to Takahata-san, his face changed colors again. Seemingly not pleased, he told me: “It’s true, initially I also thought like that. But I decided to drop that theme.”

In regard to the tagline, Takahata maintained a peculiarly consistent stance. “We shouldn’t evoke a wrong impression of the work,” he said. To explain this further, he wanted to make “sin and punishment” the theme of the work, but was unable to realize it in practice, which was why that tagline was wrong.

After he told me this, I had no choice but to think of a new tagline proposal. He acknowledged that this time, the content wasn’t misleading, but the uneasy feeling I had did not subside. “I very well understand that this tagline would be less problematic, but the ’sin and punishment’ tagline was much better received by the [production committee] [lit.: parties involved],” it slipped out of my mouth. It was then that Takahata-san sullenly retorted: “I see. I don’t care anymore. Do what you want.”

“Shouting Over a Poster”

We then used “sin and punishment” and made the first poster, but that lead to yet another clash. For the test print run, we made one version with colors true to the actual key frames, and one version with a fluorescent pink that was a little flashier. I took those to Takahata who looked at the flashy one and lost his temper. “You seriously want to sell this work like that?!” While he was shouting furiously, I remained silent and Kazuo Oga-san who had drawn that picture happened to pass by. Surely Takahata thought he would be on his side. “Oga-san, what do you think?” I asked him. At that moment, our eyes met for a second. Thereupon, Oga-san replied: “I think this one is better” while pointing at the flashier one. I’m sure that must have been bitter for Takahata-san.

But that issue had an even more lasting effect. After that, when the production was in a late stage, Takahata-san said: “Because of your tagline, I don’t know what to do.” Nowadays, even the promotional tagline is subconsciously influencing the viewers who visit the cinema. Based on that, the tagline “The sin of a princess and her punishment” shouldn’t be mentioned in regard to the movie. I felt it was inevitable, so I decided to add a quote [from the movie]. “Please remember that,” he emphasized. Then, every time when he was giving interviews, he kept saying: “This tagline is wrong.”

In other words, the movie “The Tale of Princess Kaguya” was a struggle between Takahata-san and me. That’s why I couldn’t just calmly watch the movie. But when it was completed, the one thing that I frankly must admit was amazing was how he captured Princess Kaguya as a woman. Including the scene of her first menstruation, she was portrayed as a woman perfectly. There are no other directors who can do that. I’ve got to hand that to him. I really think the movie turned out well.

“Takahata-san Was Trying to Kill Me”

Every human does good and bad things in their lives, and due to their work, movie directors can’t always be good people. There are times when they involuntarily change the lives of others, and sometimes become the target of resentment. In Takahata’s case specifically, making good movies meant everything to him to the point where everything else was secondary. You could very well call it “work supremacism”. But there’s no denying that this destroyed a lot of people.

Kondō Yoshifumi, the animation director of “Grave of the Fireflies”, was one of these people. When he visited Sendai for the promotional campaign of his first and last movie as a director, “Whisper of the Heart”, he talked to me about Takahata-san that night and couldn’t stop. “Takahata-san tried to kill me. When I think of him, even now my body starts to shake.” Talking like that, he cried for two hours. After that, he fell ill and died at the age of 47. While we were waiting for his bones to be burned at the crematory, S-san, an animator and colleague who had worked with Takahata and Miyazaki since their times at Toei Dōga, said the following: “It was Paku-san who killed Kon-chan, wasn’t it?” The air froze instantly. After a little while, Takahata-san silently nodded.

“The Man Isao Takahata” as Told by Hayao Miyazaki

If it was for the sake of a work, he did everything. As a result, he wrecked the people we had pinned our hopes on one by one. Miya-san often said: “The only staff member who survived Takahata-san was me.” This is no exaggeration; it is the truth. You may think working under Takahata will be a good learning experience – but it’s not as simple as that. You have to be prepared to be exploited, overworked until you break.

“Paku-san” is the god of thunder.” That’s what Miya-san said a lot recently. When Takahata-san got angry, he was always serious. He doesn’t get angry to discipline someone or change their attitude towards work. And because he’s serious when he gets angry, he knows no mercy. He doesn’t leave a way to escape and doesn’t extend a helping hand afterwards. That’s what makes it so scary.

As Nitta Hiroshi from Shinchōsha who was involved in the production of “Grave of Fireflies” fittingly said: “Matsumoto Seichō, Shibata Renzaburō, Abe Kōbō – I have worked with many writers, but never encountered a person like [Takahata-san]. Compared to Takahata-san, they all seem normal.”

I have also met all kinds of people, but no one else like Takahata-san. No matter what the staff did for him, he never expressed gratitude. According to his way of thinking, since they were working together on something, it would have been strange for him as the director to express his gratitude. That might seem logical, but from an interpersonal perspective, he lacked feelings – his was a destructive way of thinking.

“You alone tried to bring Paku-san to make movies. No one wanted that,” Miya-san once said to me. But during the production of “Heidi, Girl of the Alps”, Miya-san himself went all the way to Takahata-san’s place every day to urge him, who had no intention to so, to work. Going even further back in time, during the times of Toei Dōga, animation director Ōtsuka Yasuo-san insisted: “If you don’t let Takahata direct, I’m not doing it,” which let to Takahata’s directorial debut on “Hols, Prince of the Sun”.

“Even After His Death, the Tension Does Not Subside”

Looking back, there was no work Takahata said he really wanted to make on his own accord. But still, myself included, the people flocked around him and pushed him to make [movies]. Was that the reason for his talent? I don’t really understand it myself.

To begin with, no matter if writer or movie director, people who want to create something to show it to others usually have a strong desire for recognition, right? I believe Takahata also had this desire. But at the same time, in accordance with his destructionalism (destructive principles / 破滅主義), I have the feeling he was also tormented by self-destructive desires. I think the person Takahata Isao can be described as in a rift between these two tendencies.

There is this word called “charisma” – people are deeply shocked [by someone], think that there is something to that person and start following them. This is neither good nor bad. But once captivated by this charm, it doesn’t let them go until that person dies. No, even then it doesn’t end.

That’s why even after working with Takahata-san for 40 years, I couldn’t let my guard down even once. Even after his death, this tension does not subside. That’s how I feel. Expressed in more beautiful words, you could say he still lives on in my heart. But that’s not what it is. I want him to peacefully leave this world behind, but he simply won’t do that. What is this feeling? What was there to this person? Me and Miya-san, we want to find this answer, and continue our wake together even after his death.

By the way, in the movie Miya-san is currently working on, “How Do You Live?” (Kimitachi wa Dō Ikiru ka), there is a character modelled after Takahata-san. I’m interested in how Miya-san will handle this character. After Takahata-san’s death, the progress on the storyboards that went smoothly has halted now for two months. That’s why even now I don’t feel like praying for Takahata’s happiness in the next world. That might be difficult to understand for outsiders. But these are my genuine feelings right now.

That’s it for now, thank you for reading. I personally find Suzuki’s stories very fascinating. Studio Ghibli is not bound by any higher entity trying to protect a brand image or anything, so Suzuki, Miyazaki and Takahata were always talking very freely about basically anything – quite unlike what Japanese usually do. The amount of documentation of Studio Ghibli works, their productions and the people involved is insane. For me that is a big part of the fascination, and the deeper I delve into it, the more engrossing it becomes. Miyazaki, Takahata, Suzuki – it’s not only their works, I also find their personalities highly interesting.

There are other magazine article translations I’m planning to do – one very recent article in the same style where Suzuki talks about Miyazaki (references by ANN here), the work on Spirited Away and the footprint Miyazaki left on the Heisei era. Another very interesting article from 1963 was re-published yesterday – it’s about legendary animator Reiko Okuyama who was one of the first woman to enter the animation industry in Japan. She is the model for the current NHK morning drama (asadora), Natsuzora, that tells the story of a girl growing up after World War II and eventually entering the animation industry. In the article, she talks about her experiences as a woman in a work environment dominated by men and why she decided to become an animator.

If you have any interesting suggestions for articles that still need translation, feel free to mention them in the comments.

Translation: Toshio Suzuki Reminisces About Isao Takahata (Part 2)

I am sorry for the long, long wait, but here’s part 2. A lot of fascinating details about the production of Princess Kaguya. I’ve also started adding tooltips (I may go back and add some to part 1 at some point). ~~I plan to finish the third and last part by tomorrow~~.

You can read part 1 here.

The original Japanese article can be found here. Originally published in the Ghibli Textbook #19: The Tale of Princess Kaguya.

“When I Proposed Dismissing Director Isao Takahata” – Toshio Suzuki talks about Isao Takahata (Part 2)

At that time, Takahata-san was eager to adapt “The Tale of the Heike“. A concept that sounded interesting, but there was one problem: Who would do the key animation? “When it comes to drawing the Heike battle scene, no one but me could do that,” Hayao Miyazaki boasted and I understood how immensely difficult it would be on a technical level. Takahata tried to ask Osamu Tanabe who had worked on “The Yamadas” to do it, but Tanabe in his stubbornness retorted: “I don’t want to draw pictures of people killing each other.”

I then proposed “Tale of the Bamboo Cutter”. As everyone knows, this is Japan’s oldest story and I remembered that Takahata himself had said once that “it should be turned properly into a movie by someone.” When I brought that up again, he replied: “I did say that someone should make it, but I never said I was the one.”

“Why Did Princess Kaguya Choose the Earth?”

I told Takahata how Ujiie-san told me he wanted to see one more of his works at all cost before his death. Since there were no other good proposals, and “Tale of the Bamboo Cutter” had no scenes of people killing each other, Tanabe-kun would also agree to help, I told him. While trying to convince him with these words, Takahata-san suddenly asked: “Okay, please tell me one thing. Why did the princess, among all the stars, choose the Earth? If we don’t understand this, we can’t make this movie, right?” “Please think about that yourself,” I was about to retort, but he would continue this question-and-answer game with the producer forever because he was someone who needed this input at certain intervals to move forward. When such a discussion got going, he wouldn’t stop and continue talking throughout the entire night, even until the next morning without batting an eyelid.

Especially during the planning stage, we had to do these talks for at least 10 hours every day. Honestly speaking, I got fed up with this and it also left me with no time to attend to my other work. That’s when I sent the young Yoshiaki Nishimura and Taku Kishimoto in as Takahata’s discussion partners. Because they were so young, they were able to stand their ground as his conversation partners, and my hope was also that having new conversation partners would prove to be stimulating for him. And when it actually began, those two young guys listened enthusiastically to what he had to say which also seemed to make him happy.

I periodically had the two report to me, at which point they told me that Takahata-san wanted to completely change the project plan in the middle of the way. He was thinking about making a drama with Norio Akasaka’s book “Birth of the Lullaby” as an original concept. But he himself understood that this would be difficult. So after many twists and turns, he returned to the initial “Kaguya” plan and the production began formally.

“That Man Still Has the Scent of a Marxist”

I believe that as a producer, I must run a three-legged race with the director, so to speak. Looking at it from that perspective, I couldn’t be called producer this time. That’s why I appointed Nishimura as the producer and left everything to him. By the way, the other producer, Kishimoto, quit Ghibli in between and is now a popular scriptwriter.

As the preparations for “Kaguya” progressed, Ujiie-san invited Takahata-san, Miya-san and me on a trip to visit art museums in Europe. Beginning in 2008, we would visit [museums in] France, Italia and Spain for the next three years, but I think Miya-san and I were just extras – Ujiie-san really wanted to go with Takahata-san.

At that point I tried to ask him why he was so fixated on Takahata-san.

“Takahata’s movies have a poetic side. I fell in love with that. That man still has the scent of a Marxist.” That was Ujiie-san’s answer. In the end, the movie could not be completed in Ujiie-sans lifetime. But at the end of 2010, he was able to take a look at some of the storyboards that were already completed. He took his time to read through them, and then uttered: “Princess Kaguya sure is a selfish girl. But that’s just the type of girl I like.” Three months later, Ujiie-san left this world at the age of 84.

“Hayao Miyazaki’s Unassuming Cooperation”

In the early stage of the production, at one side of the floor, the “Kaguya” team would work, and Miyazaki’s team on the other side.Tanabe-kun, one of the artists from the Kaguya team, would come early and diligently draw the key animation by himself. Takahata always came in the afternoon. Then right after arriving, he would look at Tanabe-kun’s drawings and angrily complain “not like this, this is wrong.”

Observing this every day, I noticed something amusing. When Takahata-san got angry, Miya-san would casually stand behind the Kaguya team and strain his ears to hear what was going on. Then on the next morning, he’d visit Tanabe at his desk. “What Paku-san meant is this. That’s why you have to draw it like that,” he would explain while drawing what he meant. “But don’t tell Paku-san that I told you this.” That’s what he’d do every day, all while neglecting his own work.

But Tanabe is a stubborn guy, so he refused to draw like that. Miya-san really has a soft heart, it was touching to see… After “The Yamadas”, he saw the terrible state of the studio. “We can’t let him make another movie,” he exclaimed furiously, but in the end he himself wanted to see Takahata’s works more than anyone.

“If You Want This Work to Be Completed, Dismiss Takahata”

When the preparations had reached a certain point, the progress suddenly slowed down. When I asked Nishimura, I learned that in short, Takahata tried to make Tanabe single-handedly draw all the scenes. The already steep demands from “The Yamadas” were escalating further.

In the past decades, the level of detail in animation has gradually increased. For example, during “My Neighbor Totoro”, one person drew about ten minutes worth of key animation of a feature-length movie, but nowadays no more than 3 minutes are possible. In a time of strong work segmentation where more and more animators are needed, Takahata tried to make one single person draw everything.

If he’d leave it to a select few, I could understand it, but it just wasn’t realistic to leave it to one person. I then took a middle position and suggested Nishimura to have about three people draw the pictures. As a result, Masashi Andō returned to Ghibli for the first time in a long while. Under Miyazaki, he’d worked as the animation director for “Princess Mononoke” and “Spirited Away”. Furthermore, Ken’ichi Konishi and Shinji Hashimoto, who had worked on “The Yamadas”, joined in and things finally progressed on the key animation side.

It was when the production was maybe halfway done when Nishimura came to me and said with a serious expression: “We won’t be able to complete it at this rate.” At that time, I told him: “If you really want this work to be completed, dismiss Takahata. Just leave the rest to Tanabe or Andō.” Takahata was someone who had studied the French language and learned to think in an European style of rationalism. I won’t go as far as to say he would have quit by himself, but if a producer dismissed him from his post, he would think about it logically and obey. That was an especially troublesome time for Nishimura. In the end, after a 3-month standstill on the key animation side, he was able to get Takahata-san to devote himself to finishing the storyboard.

Trouble like this came and went, but this time I didn’t have to deal with it directly, so I was able to take it relatively easy. Nishimura-san, who continued to work with Takahata-san, on the other hand, got thinner and thinner. I appointed him when he was 28, but when the work was finished, he was 36. During this time, he had married and become a father. He devoted most of his youth to one film. I think he really, persistently did his best.

Translation: Toshio Suzuki Reminisces About Isao Takahata (Part 1)

Last August, the severe working conditions under Isao Takahata made headlines on many websites after Ghibli producer and long-time colleague Toshio Suzuki openly talked about Takahata’s incredibly demanding work practices and how he “destroyed” the staff that worked on his films. In a three-part article for the Japanese website Bunshin, Suzuki reminisces about Takahata and why Takahata is still on his mind even months after his passing.

Some key points and quotes were already mentioned in said articles, but the whole thing is much, much longer and contains many more insightful comments by Suzuki that help us understand what kind of man and creator Takahata was, for the better or worse.

This is my first Japanese-to-English translation of a text this long, so I apologize for any wonky English you might encounter. I will try to translate part 2 and 3 as soon as possible.

“Why I Stopped Wanting to Make Movies with Takahata Isao-san” – Toshio Suzuki talks about Isao Takahata (Part 1)

Ｐublished on August 10, 2018 here. Originally published in the Ghibli Textbook #19: The Tale of Princess Kaguya.

When Takahata-san died, and even now after the memorial meeting, my feelings show no signs of settling down. After the death of Tokuma Yasuyoshi, Ujiie Seiichirō-san, my mother and my father, I was able to sort out my feelings after the funeral. But this time I’m just unable to calm down. Constantly Takahata-san comes to my mind. I’m experiencing this for the first time in my life. Maybe this shows what a strong presence he had, and honestly speaking, it bothers me.

I’ve already said this at the “Farewell Party”, but in the end, my relationship with Takahata-san was that of a producer and a director. There was always some kind of tension in the air.

– Toshio Suzuki (Studio Ghibli Representative Producer)

The first time I had a long talk with Takahata-san was when he was working on “Chie the Brat”. At that time, I was an editor for the “Animage” magazine and was supposed to interview Takahata-san in a cafe in Kōenji, where the production company Telecom [Animation Film] was stationed. Right when we sat down, he already fired the first bullets. “I’m sure you want to hear me talking about nonsense like what part of the original work inspired me to make this movie.”

I already knew from my phone calls prior to the meeting that he was a difficult person, so I fired back by confronting him with the questions I had carefully prepared beforehand. His replies were endlessly long and before I knew it, three hours had passed. Just when he was about to leave, Takahata-san said: “You can’t use this, right? You can’t make this into an article, right?” I accepted this challenge and wrote an article.

From this day until the end of the production of the movie, I met up with Takahata-san in Kōenji every day and we continued our talk. Then, at the screening party after the movie’s completion, Takahata-san told me: “Thanks to you, I was able sort out my own thoughts.” That might have been the first time tasting the joys of making movies and being a producer.

Working with Takahata-san Was No Cakewalk

The movies I worked on at Ghibli with Takahata-san include five titles, “Grave of the Fireflies”, “Only Yesterday”, “Pom Poko”, “My Neighbors the Yamadas” and “The Tale of Princess Kaguya”. To make a movie, the director and the producer form a joint venture-like relationship. No good works are created just by getting along. It’s no overstatement to say that we argued continuously each time and that those days were like fighting a war. You often hear that you should keep a proper distance, but it’s not that easy. We just clashed time and time again.

My position demanded me to point out the uncomfortable facts to Takahata-san. When we fell behind schedule more and more during the work on “Grave of the Fireflies”, I had no choice but to get into a serious argument with him to have the film ready for the opening day. After a discussion with Murase Takuo who was in charge of Shinchōsha back then, I decided to trim the 107-minute long storyboard down to 88 minutes. I still painfully remember that even that was not enough, and the movie had to be screened with some parts still unpolished.

When working on “Pom Poko”, I already anticipated that we would fall behind schedule and went so far as to put up an altered promotional poster reading “Opening This Spring” instead of the real “Opening This Summer” poster next to Takahata’s workplace. But it had no use at all. (laughs bitterly) In the end, I had to make cuts again, something Takahata-san held against me forever.

This process continued to repeat itself and after the production of “The Yamadas”, I decided to put an end to Takahata’s works. “The Tale of Princess Kaguya” wouldn’t have happened without the involvement of [former] Nippon TV chairman Ujiie Sei’ichirō-san.

I Want to See One More of Takahata’s Works Before I Die

Ujiie-san and Tokuma Shoten’s president, Yasuyoshi Tokuma, both had a Yomiuri Shimbun background. We also got along well as managers, so I had the honor to hold the memorial address at Tokuma’s funeral. To express his gratitude for that, Ujiie-san visited me and said in an earnest voice: “Toku-san was an incredible person. From a company to movies, he made so many different things. That guy was a real producer. Looking back on my life now, I’ve done nothing. Do you understand the sadness a 70-something year-old guy feels when he has done nothing in his life?”

I didn’t know how to reply to that, so I trivially said: “But you’ve held a high position in the mass media. You were the one who rebuilt Nippon TV, Ujiie-san” to what Ujiie-san shouted angrily: “Idiot! Everything in the Yomiuri Group was built by Shōriki [Matsutarō]-san. We only have built upon that. I want to try to make something by myself at least once. I cannot die before I do that.” He looked very serious.

Ujiie-san made me the board chairman of the Ghibli Museum at some point. After that, once a month, under the pretext of wanting a “report”, he came to meet me. On that occasion, he would ask me “What’s Takahata doing at the moment? Of all Ghibli works, I love ‘My Neighbors, the Yamadas’ the most. That might not be the most popular work. But before I die, I want to see one more of Takahata’s works at all costs. As my farewell present. Come on.”

Even after he said that much, I can’t say I was very eager. But each time I met him, he would ask me: “So, have you decided?” and I would always reply “I’m examining the possibility” to dodge the issue. But one time, he got furious. “I know the reason why Takahata can’t do another movie. That reason is you!”

The Entire Staff Gets Completely Worn-Out

This had to be said at this point, so I defiantly explained what a movie by Takahata would entail. “It costs money, of course, and not meeting deadlines is also an issue, but that’s not all. The real problem is his way of making [films]. Because he shows no consideration for the people around him, the entire staff gets completely worn out. To make matters worse, by doing that, he violates what Ghibli has built up that way, the work environment that was fostered. The company becomes a complete mess.”

The storyboards are drawn, and based on that, the layout work is done, and the key animators draw the key frames. Then the in-betweeners draw the pictures between the key frames. This is the basic principle of the Japanese animation system Takahata and his peers have established. But when he made “The Yamadas”, Takahata said he wanted to scrap that system. He said he wanted an approach where one person draws all lines. He denied the methodology he himself created and rebuilt it from scratch. Creation, destruction and regeneration. Describing it like this may sound cool, but it effectively eliminated the work of 50+ in-betweeners, and the animators who had to do the entire process were worn out to the verge of collapse. But when Takahata wants to do something, he listens to no one. One by one, he wore the staff out until they left. Miya-san knew that and exasperatedly exclaimed: “Suzuki-san, what’s happening here? I want to protect this studio.” I could understand his feeling very well.

What Takahata was trying to achieve far exceeded the frame of a normal animation movie meant for entertainment. Because he employed the same methods as someone creating works of art, the results were so impressive. If an impressionist painting would be created as animation – well, that’s what “The Yamadas” became. Later, when a retrospective exhibition of Ghibli works was hosted in the MoMA (Museum of Modern Art in New York) and the person in charge came and said: “There is one wonderful work that stands above all others. I want to add that to our permanent collection,” I was not surprised. That was the mindset this work was created with.

But Ujiie-san didn’t give up, even after I explained all these things to him, and insisted on a Takahata movie. At that point I resigned and began to discuss the plan for the project with Takahata-san.

Part 2, Part 3.