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Free London Talk on Ni no Kuni and Ghibli on October 9
posted on by Andrew Osmond
There will be a talk entitled "A Disappearing Kingdom: Studio Ghibli's Legacy in the Ni no Kuni Franchise" at the SOAS Japan Research Centre (the College Buildings in Russell Square, room TBC) on Wednesday October 9. The talk will be given by Dr Rayna Denison, author of Anime: A Critical Introduction and it will run from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. The talk is free but must be booked at the above link.
The Japan Research Centre website describes the talk:
"When video game Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch (Level 5, 2011) was first released, it was to great fanfare concerning the involvement of Studio Ghibli. The game was praised internationally for its character design and fantasy worlds, and reviewers went to great lengths to suggest how involved Hayao Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli were in the creation of the game.
"However, by the time the second film in the franchise, Ni no Kuni: Revanant Kingdom went into production, Miyazaki and his co-founders Isao Takahata and Toshio Suzuki had retired, placing the entire studio on hiatus. This led to claims that Ghibli had not been involved in the making of this second franchise text.
"With a brand new Ni no Kuni film being released in Japan this summer (pictured), there has been consternation about the fact that the film was not made at Studio Ghibli, despite the studio's return to production in recent years. This talk unpacks the production of the Ni no Kuni franchise by considering how its animators are made invisible in such discourses.
"By focusing on Yoshiyuki Momose – a long-time animator and CG expert at Ghibli – and Jo Hisaishi – Ghibli's frequent musical collaborator – as key individuals in the creation of this franchise, I argue that studios in Japan have important legacy functions that need to be attended to within wider discussions of media production. In doing so, I show how such overlooked individuals as Momose and Hisaishi have been under-regarded in the success of Ghibli itself, as well as in the ‘kingdoms’ of media production it has expanded into over the course of its near-forty year history."
