These Animators Fly High Over the Bottom Line

Created in 1985 by directors Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata and Tokuma Shoten Publishing Ltd., Studio Ghibli has become a major force, not only in Japanese animation and popular culture, but also in world animation. “Studio Ghibli: The Magic of Miyazaki, Takahata and Kondo,” a retrospective of the studio’s animated features that begins Thursday at the UCLA Film and Television Archive, confirms the excellence and importance of the work of this exceptional group of artists.

“Ghibli” (pronounced JI-bu-ri) was the name Italian pilots at the beginning of World War II gave to both a hot Saharan wind and their new scouting planes. Miyazaki, who is an aviation buff, chose the name, saying he wanted to “blow a hot wind into the world of Japanese animation.” He and Takahata had grown impatient with the limits of television animation in Japan; they wanted to make films with more original stories and better animation. They also chafed at the time limits television imposed on their films. The Ghibli artists have the freedom to tell longer, more complicated stories than their American counterparts, whose films usually are 90 minutes or less. For example, “Tarzan” is 88 minutes long; “The Iron Giant,” 90 minutes. Takahata’s “Pom Poko” runs 119 minutes; Miyazaki’s celebrated “Princess Mononoke,” 135 minutes.

In Japan, animation for the major studios is largely done by subcontractors and freelancers, who are paid by the number of drawings they produce: The system rewards animators for speed and quantity, rather than quality. Ghibli artists have long-term contracts, higher salaries and a training program designed to polish their skills. The Ghibli philosophy of “3 Hs: High Cost, High Risk, High Return” has yielded impressive results. Although more limited than the work of Disney and other top American studios, the animation in the Ghibli films is noticeably smoother and more fluid than in most Japanese features. This devotion to quality, rather than efficient business practices, recalls the attitude of Walt Disney, who rarely worried about what his animated films cost, as long as they were better than everyone else’s.

This expensive philosophy has been underwritten by an unexpected bonanza: the profits from toys of the title character in Miyazaki’s “My Neighbor Totoro” (1988). Two years after the film’s release, the Ghibli artists--who hadn’t been particularly interested in merchandising--yielded to persistent requests and granted licenses. Totoro quickly became one of the most popular animated characters in Japanese history, and the Totoro items that reach the U.S. are snatched up by animation connoisseurs. The return from these products pays the overhead--and has enabled Ghibli to build a comfortable new studio in the Tokyo suburb of Koganei.

The UCLA retrospective begins Thursday with a sneak preview of the new, English-dubbed version of “Princess Mononoke” (1997), which Miramax will release theatrically in the U.S. later this fall. An epic parable of environmental destruction, “Mononoke” is the No. 2 all-time box-office hit in Japan, second only to “Titanic.” It’s paired with “Grave of the Fireflies” (1988, in Japanese with English subtitles), Takahata’s critically acclaimed depiction of two abandoned children struggling to survive the fire bombing of Tokyo. “Grave” is a somber portrait of the suffering inflicted on the innocent in any war, although Takahata carefully avoids mentioning Japan’s role as an aggressor in World War II.

Screening Saturday is “Nausica of the Valley of the Wind” (1984, in Japanese with English subtitles), Miyazaki’s second feature, and the first one based on his own story. An ecological fable that anticipates some elements in “Mononoke,” “Nausica” has been available in America only in a shortened, mutilated version Miyazaki dismisses as “horrible.” On the same program is Takahata’s curious “Pom Poko” (1994, in Japanese with English subtitles), which caused a stir when it was submitted as the Japanese entry for the Academy Award for foreign-language film--a first for an animated feature. In Japanese folk tales, raccoons are wily shape-shifters. When encroaching development threatens their forest home, a tribe of raccoons turns themselves into humans and ghosts to scare off the builders.

A gentler tone marks the program next Sunday. Yoshifumi Kondo’s “Whisper of the Heart” (1995, in Japanese with English subtitles) depicts the wistful romance that develops between Yuuko, a girl who dreams of becoming a writer, and Seiji, an aspiring violin maker. Kondo, Ghibli’s promising young director, died of an aneurysm after completing this single film. It screens with Takahata’s nostalgic “Only Yesterday” (1991, in Japanese with English subtitles), in which a modern “office lady” revisits her childhood as she debates whether to continue her career in the city or marry and settle in the country.

Miyazaki’s love of aviation figures prominently in the two films showing Oct. 9. Inspired by Jonathan Swift’s “Gulliver’s Travels,” “Castle in the Sky” (1986, in Japanese with English subtitles) offers an intriguing vision of steam-powered rocket travel in the late 19th century. Sheeta and Pazu, an orphan girl and boy, outwit a government official and sky pirates to reach Laputa, the last of the floating islands that once orbited Earth. A bittersweet romance set in Italy during the 1930s, “Porco Rosso” (“The Crimson Pig,” 1992, in Japanese with English subtitles) ranks as Miyazaki’s oddest feature. The plight of the title character, a dashing pilot who has somehow been turned into a pig, proves touching.

The retrospective concludes with a 2 p.m. matinee Oct. 10 of Miyazaki’s previously reviewed “My Neighbor Totoro” and “Kiki’s Delivery Service” (1989), both in English. Parents should plan on seeing these charming features with their children: At a time when “fun for the whole family” too often means a film no one enjoys very much, “Totoro” and “Kiki” will delight viewers of every age. *

* The programs in “Studio Ghibli: The Magic of Miyazaki, Takahata and Kondo” screen at 7 p.m., except for the 2 p.m. Oct. 10 matinee, at the James Bridges Theater, Melnitz Hall, UCLA. Admission: $6 general; $4 students with ID and seniors. Information: (310) 206-8013 or https://www.cinema.ucla.edu.