In 2013, Disney gave its first pass on a Studio Ghibli film that it coproduced in Japan and the North American rights appropriately went to GKIDS. With an English dub produced by Kennedy/Marshall (who produced the dubs for Ponyo and Arrietty) and a voice cast including Jamie Lee Curtis and Ron Howard, From Up on Poppy Hill hit theaters on March 15th in a limited release. It’s a charming sentimental film about students in 1964 Yokohama fighting to save their school’s clubhouse. Disney has had the most success promoting Ghibli films with a magical element, which this film lacks. This is presumably the reason Disney passed on their option for this film. Studio Ghibli celebrates its 30th anniversary next year. Studio head and acclaimed director Hayao Myazaki retired from directing last year with the release of his final film, The Wind Rises. How fitting that his final film would have the word “wind” in the title, giving everything we now know about the studio’s creation. Disney screened the film in L.A. last November to qualify it for Academy Award nominations, which earned the film a nomination up against Disney’s Frozen. With a PG-13 rating for “some disturbing images and smoking,” Disney has opted to release the film theatrically through its Touchstone Pictures distribution label. It opened in a limited release on February 21st and goes into wide release on February 28th. Whether you’re a fan of Studio Ghibli or not, you are sure to have felt its influence in some way over the past decade. The animation teams at Disney and Pixar are both huge fans of the studio that Nausicaä built, drawing inspiration from many of these films. Studio Ghibli was including nods to previous and upcoming projects within their films long before Pixar and Disney started doing it. They’ve even snuck in a few references to Studio Ghibli in recent years. The most notable is this little (or should I say big?) cameo in Toy Story 3.
An entire generation has had the chance to grow up with these films thanks to Disney. The next time you see a girl running around with a broom between her legs pretending to fly, she may have been inspired to do so by Kiki. The next time you see children running around a forest looking for large beasts, the creature they search for might just be Totoro. And the next time you see a kid with a fish in a bucket trying to talk to it, they may be expecting a big adventure in the style of Ponyo. But more likely than any of these scenarios is seeing an adult dressed in cosplay as any character from a Studio Ghibli film at the next comic or Disney convention you attend.
Alex is currently watching and reviewing all of Disney’s films in chronological order. You can follow along here.