2010-01-News

Ponyo Airing on NTV

Ponyo makes its TV debut February 5 at 9:00pm on NTV's Friday Roadshow program. Prior to the film at 7:56pm "How Ponyo was born - Live broadcast from Ghibli Museum" will air. Additionally NTV will broadcast footage from "Studio Ghibli's latest film". While the film isn't specified an Arrietty trailer is expected.

Thanks to T. Ishikawa for the news.

--LLin 19:10, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Miyazaki's New Short Film

Toshio Suzuki revealed news of Miyazaki's latest work on Ghibli Asemamire: a 10 minutes short without dialogue for the Studio Ghibli Museum. Google Japan President Kouichiro Tsujino was Suzuki's guest the past two weeks and recommended that the film be available on YouTube. According to Suzuki, Miyazaki said, "Let's do it!" but sometimes hesitates. Due to a shortage of animators caused by work on Arrietty, Miyazaki is personally working on the key animation for the short. It was originally 1 minute in length but ended up over 10 minutes long.

Thanks to T. Ishikawa for the news.

--LLin 17:48, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Hideaki Anno Appears on Ghibli Asemamire

The latest episode of Toshio Suzuki's radio show features an appearance from the director of Evangelion, who also worked on the Nausicaa movie.

http://podcasts.tfm.co.jp/podcasts/tokyo/rg/suzuki_vol119.mp3
http://podcasts.tfm.co.jp/podcasts/tokyo/rg/suzuki_vol120.mp3

Here are some excerpts of the interview:

According to Suzuki, because Anno hoped to make Nausicaa 2, Suzuki often suggested to Miyazaki that they make Nausicaa as a three part film, with Anno directing part 2 and Miyazaki directing part 3. But Miyazaki rejected this idea. Anno says he wants to make a film of Vol. 7 of the Nausicaa manga [note: this is the final volume of the manga, completed several years after the Nausicaa movie itself which covers approximately only volumes 1 and 2].

According to Anno, there was a cool fight scene of an Ohmu and the God Warrior in a cut scene of the story boards. Anno says, "I wanted to watch it. But if those story boards were used, I could not draw it."

Anno still has regrets about the scene of the revival of the God Warrior. He wanted to use seven pieces of animation cels between key flame animations. But Miyazaki did not allow it because there was no time. So, five pieces animation cel were used. And Miyazaki did not allow the use of three colors for a shade. He did not allow two colors either at first, but accepted it. Anno says "There was a memo "If you use three colors, I will kill you" from Miya-san."

Suzuki says, "Your salary (of God Warrior scene) was low, wasn't it?" Anno answers "No, No. I got much. I was surprised because salary then was low. The salary of TV series Macross, I did it as a part-time job when I was a student; it was 1,800 yen per one cut."

Anno says, "I kept to my house after the TV series of Eva. I lost the point of living. That time, Miya-san called me and say "Anyway, take a rest."

Thanks to T. Ishikawa for the translation.

-- Mrgazpacho 10:19, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Arrietty Status Update

The Arrietty blog was updated with the following stats:

• Key animation: 547 cuts (32,000 pieces) completed - 55%
• Animation: 375 cuts (24,000pieces) - 37%
• Painting: 250 cuts - 25%
• Background painting: 350 cuts - 35%
• Completed cuts: 212 cuts - 21% (~19 minutes)

Total running time will be a ~100 minutes.

Production began last May and the blogger comments, "To speak honestly, I think these number show a slight delay of production." Staff members were also announced:

• Chief animator: Akihiko Yamashita, Ai Kagawa
• Animation check: Kaori Fujii
• Art director: Yoji Takeshige, Noboru Yoshida
• Cinematography: Atsushi Okui
• Color designer: Naomi Mori (She debuts with this film)
• Sound effect and Music: Kouji Kasamatsu

The Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo will hold an exhibition titled "Karigurashi no Arrietty and Youhei Taneda" based on Miyazaki's 10 image boards for the film sometime this summer.

Thanks to T. Ishikawa for the news.

--LLin 14:49, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

US DVD Re-release Covers

Covers for the re-release of Castle in the Sky, Kiki's Delivery Service, and My Neighbor Totoro are spreading across the internet. The Disney Rewards site has thumbnails and Amazon.com displays larger images.

The new covers are much less busy and closer in spirit to the original Japanese covers. It'll be true progress if The Cat Returns is re-released without a cat on the cover.

Thanks to Kevin Thomas for the news.

--LLin 17:33, 17 January 2010 (UTC)