Gedo Senki (Tales from Earthsea)

15th March 2006

Number 54 - Substitute Behaviour for Animation

About two weeks have passed since the trailer came out.
The Ghibli publicity department have received lots of impressions from people who saw the trailer at the cinema or on television.

And most of these impressions have been
"It feels like any other Ghibli film so I'm looking forward to it."
For me, these are really delightful words.

I've made my life decisions consciously trying to walk a different path from my father.
But now when I look around, I feel like everything I have done has been substitute behaviour for the animation world I've avoided.

I entered the faculty of Agriculture at University but I joined the Children's culture research circle[1], and put on puppet shows for children.

After graduation,
one of the reasons I chose to work in landscape design of parks and urban greening[2] was that I wanted to create landscapes that would create a beautiful feeling of delight, enjoyment and relief in the people who came there.

And after that, the reason I took on setting up the Ghibli Museum, was also that I wanted to create a place where people would have a feeling just like coming out of a movie theatre, where they smile and go "Ahh, that was great."

This desire to reproduce the joy and release of watching a Ghibli movie, it wasn't clear to me, but I've always lived in connection with that thought, and finally, I'm working as an animation director doing this editing.

Translator's Notes

[1]: This is a university club, possibly an informal one. There appear to be similar ones at many Japanese Universities and Colleges. The members study children's drama and so on, and put on puppet shows and other events for children in the members' free time and holidays.

[2]: That is, planting more trees in cities to create a more pleasant, and possibly healthier, environment for urban dwellers.