“The people that have worked at Ghibli leave quite fast”: The Dark Side of Working With Hayao Miyazaki That No One Really Told You

Studio Ghibli is often idolized as the best anime studio in Japan. Ghibli fans hero-worship Hayao Miyazaki and cannot tolerate any kind of criticism regarding the popular director. However, very few of them know the reality of Studio Ghibli.

Ghibli might be better than the average anime studio in Japan and has continued to wow audiences with its quality, animation, and capturing storylines. But what lies underneath the revered name, is a cruel work environment, take it from an ex-Ghibli staff and an industry veteran, Hirokatsu Kihara.

Those who work at Ghibli leave soon, never to return

In an interview with Dazed, Hirokatsu Kihara expressed some of his spicy opinions regarding Studio Ghibli. Kihara was the production coordinator of Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind and quickly joined Ghibli to play integral roles for Castle in the Sky, My Neighbor Totoro, and Kiki’s Delivery Service.

According to Kihara, all the works that came after Kiki’s Delivery Service have only been the works of Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata, and each of them has become less and less surprising due to the lack of ideas. Unlike Disney and Pixar, where everyone gets to throw in ideas, the responsibility is dumped onto the director. Those at Ghibli Studio are apparently overworked and don’t have the time for new ideas or to develop the ones they have.

People aren’t necessarily looked after or cherished. There’s a sense that everyone is replaceable – even Miyazaki… the people who have worked at Ghibli leave quite fast – and never come back.

-Hirokatsu Kihara

Kihara then talked about the female discrimination that goes on in the studio. Additionally, the studio hires creatives who will please the producers and not those with great ideas. According to the anime veteran, Ghibli wants followers, not leaders, and that is the primary reason behind the gradual reduction in work quality. When asked why this toxic culture existed, Kihara pointed at one anonymous person:

There’s one person there who I won’t name. I find it very scary. He speaks like a Yakuza (Japanese mafioso) and rules it like a politician. However, it should be recognised that he is the one who made the company rich and survive this long.

-Hirokatsu Kihara

While a few names might come to mind, Kihara has not confirmed who is the person he is talking about. But judging from the history of the studio, it could be either Miyazaki or Isao Takahata.

Ghibli’s co-founder, Isao Takahata, is notorious for the toxic work culture he created

The Ghibli Textbook #19: The Tale of the Princess Kaguya delves into the production of Isao Takahata’s last film and his legacy. However, in an interview published in the book. Ghibli producer, Toshio Suzuki revealed that Isao Takahata was actually extremely difficult to work with and was notorious for it.

Takahata would lash out at his subordinates in anger, and his impossible work demands indirectly contributed to the death of Yoshifumi Kondo, a character designer and animation director who worked on Grave of the Fireflies, Kiki’s Delivery Service, and plenty of other Ghibli movies.

Kondo is one of the people who was destroyed by Takahata’s nature of letting work trump above everything else. After finishing Whisper of the Heart, Suzuki visited Kondo in Sendai, where they had a long conversation. Kondo reportedly told Suzuki that Takahata had tried to kill him, and even thinking of him caused Kondo to tremble.

Kondo died in 1998 at the age of 47, and Suzuki, accompanied by Miyazaki, Takahata, and another animator, attended his creation. During the cremation, the anonymous animator blurted out:

It was Paku-san that killed Kon-chan, wasn’t it?

-Anonymous animator (according to Toshio Suzuki)

Paku-san is the nickname of Isao Takahata. The air in the room had reportedly frozen until Takahata had quietly nodded. Miyazaki is the only person who has claimed to survive Takahata, and his unrealistic work expectations cost the company many potential artistic successors. Suzuki even admitted that the staff were overworked and exhausted and had to be prepared to break.

This post belongs to FandomWire and first appeared on FandomWire