The Borrower Arrietty is more than just the latest animated feature film from Studio Ghibli, the Japanese animation house that has been compared to Disney at its best.
It could also be the last.
This from founder Hayao Miyazaki himself, who says that if the adaptation of Mary Norton’s Borrowers series of children’s fantasy novels doesn’t do well at box offices in the West, Ghibli could close up shop as a production studio and live on with a skeleton crew as a mere copyright management company. The film opened in Japan this past July.
It would be a shame if this happened and there was no more magic from the studio that brought us Castle in the Sky, Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, Kiki’s Delivery Service, My Neighbor Totoro, Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away, Howl’s Moving Castle and Ponyo. There has been a strong following of Miyazaki’s films in America, and it’s only grown more mainstream since Disney facilitated their release and superb dubbing with actors who are well known in the U.S. (Spirited Away even won an Academy Award for best animated film.)
So support The Borrower Arrietty when it eventually makes it to these shores!
Source: Cut magazine (Japanese), via Geekosystem
