Hayao Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli

Hayao Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli: A bibliography of English-language research and scholarship

Editor, Online Bibliography of Anime and Manga Research

Introduction and purpose:

Numerous commentators, both in the popular press and in scholarly literature, have recognized the works of Studio Ghibli, and in particular, the films directed by Hayao Miyazaki, as superb contributions to the world of not just animation, but of cinema in general. As with most topics in anime/manga studies, however, so far, no attempt has been made to systematically bring together the full range of critical responses to these. This has the obvious – and potentially unfortunate – effect of directing any scholars who are intersted in studying it to the several books and articles that may be easily accessible through standard catalogs and databases, but that are in no way representative of thr full range of available scholarship. This bibliography serves to address this shortcoming.

Scope

Contextually, this list covers published English-language scholarship that deals with Hayao Miyazaki or any other Studio Ghibli director, or with their works taken either collectively or individually. The materials included address this topic either entirely, to a significant extent (i.e., a chapter within a book), or comparatively to one or more other films or individuals. The sources included are books, chapters in edited collections, and articles in scholarly/peer reviewed journals and professional magazines. Items in newspapers, general-interest (for example, Newsweek) and entertainment industry (i.e. Variety) magazines are not covered.

Methodology:

The list is assembled based on materials indexed in the Online Bibliography of Anime and Manga Studies, and on suggestions from contributors to the Anime and Manga Research Circle mailing list. Wherever possible, each entry was examined de visu to ensure a correct citation, and to make sure that it was appropriately categorized.

Organization:

The individual entries are grouped into three categories: Full-length, single-author books that discuss Miyazaki either exclusively or extensively; book chapters and journal articles that focus on Studio Ghibli and Miyazaki generally, or that discuss more than one film at a time; close readings of individual films, including comparative readings. An appendix lists the so-far limited published scholarship on Studio Ghibli films that were not directed by Miyazaki, and on Isao Takahata.

Annotation:

Since this is an initial bibliography, no annotation is included beyond an APA-style citation for each entry. This may change, and editor-provided abstracts may be attached. Hyperlinks are provided for all of the included articles that are available online, whether in a subscription-based journal, or in an open access publication.

Books

Cavallaro, D. (2006). The Anime Art of Hayao Miyazaki. Jefferson, NC: McFarland.

McCarthy, H. (1999). Hayao Miyazaki, Master of Japanese Animation: Films, Themes, Artistry. Berkeley, CA: Stone Bridge.

Napier, S. (2005). Anime from Akira to Howl's Moving Castle: Experiencing Contemporary Japanese Animation. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Napier, S. (2001). Anime from Akira to Mononoke: Experiencing Contemporary Japanese Animation. New York: St. Martin's Press.

Odell, C., & Le Blanc, M. (2009). Studio Ghibli: The Films of Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata. Harpenden, United Kingdom: Kamera Books.

General themes and topics

op de Beeck, N. (2009). Anima and anime: Environmental perspectives and new frontiers in Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away. In M. West, (Ed.), The Japanification of Children’s Popular Culture: From Godzilla to Miyazaki (pp. 267-284). Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press.

Bigelow, S. (2009). Technologies of perception: Miyazaki in theory and practice. Animation: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 4(1), 55-75.

Brophy, P. (1997). Mayhem, magic & maelstroms - the animation of Studio Ghibli. In 45th Melbourne International Film Festival Catalog. Melbourne: Melbourne International Film Festival.

Chute, D. (1998). Organic machine: The world of Hayao Miyazaki. Film Comment, 34(6), 62-65.

Denison, R. (2008). Star-spangled Ghibli: Star voices in the American versions of Hayao Miyazaki's films. Animation: An International Journal, 3(2), 129-146.

Freiberg, F. (2006). Miyazaki's heroines. Sense of Cinema, 40.

Gordon, D. (2006, May). Studio Ghibli: Animated magic. Hackwriters: The International Writers Magazine: Film Space.

Goulding, J. (2006). Crossroads of experience: Miyazaki Hayao's global/local nexus. Asian Cinema, 17(2), 114-123.

Hagiwara, T. (2005). Globalism and localism in Hayao Miyazaki's anime. International Journal of the Humanities, 3(9), 7-12.

Looser, T. (2002). From Edogawa to Miyazaki: Cinematic and anime-ic architectures of early and late twentieth-century Japan. Japan Forum, 14(2), 297-327.

Loy, D., & Goodhew, L. (2004). The dharma of nonviolence - Hayao Miyazaki’s Nausicaa of the Valley of the Winds and Princess Mononoke. In The Dharma of Dragons and Daemons: Buddhist Themes in Modern Fantasy (pp. 73-100). Somerville, MA: Wisdom Publications.

Mayumi, K., Solomon, B., & Chang, J. (2005). The ecological and consumption themes of the films of Hayao Miyazaki. Ecological Economics, 54(1), 1-7.

Momma, T. (2002, July/August). Miyazaki Hayao and Japanese animation. Journal of Japanese Trade and Industry.

Napier, S. (2001). Confronting master narratives: History as vision in Miyazaki Hayao's cinema of de-assurance. Positions: East Asia Cultures Critique, 9(2), 467-493.

Niskanen, E. (2007, March). Untouched nature: Mediated animals in Japanese anime. Wider Screen.

Ota, C. (2007). Liminal gazes and allegorical quests: Anime of Hayao Miyazaki. In The Relay of Gazes: Representations of Culture in the Japanese Televisual and Cinematic Experience (pp. 24-40). Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.

Schilling, M. (1997). Miyazaki Hayao and Studio Ghibli: The animation hit factory. Japan Quarterly, 44(1), 30-40.

Shimizu, T. (2007). The cultural Cold War and the birth of Studio Ghibli. Proceedings of the Conference “Dynamics of Cold War Culture in East Asia: Cultural Changes in the Region During the Cold War in the 1960’s-1970’s and Cultural Politics of the Nation State” (pp. 114-112). Seoul, Sungkonghoe University.

Sorensen, L-M. (2008). Animated animism - the global ways of Japan's national spirits. Northern Lights: Film and Media Studies Yearbook, 6(1), 181-196.

Thomas, J.B. (2007). Shukyo asobi and Miyazaki Hayao's anime. Nova Religio: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions, 10(3), 73-95.

Wright, L., & Clode, J. (2005). The animated worlds of Hayao Miyazaki: Filmic representations of Shinto. Metro: Australia's Film & Media Magazine, 143, 46-51.

Wright, L. (2005). Forest spirits, giant insects and world trees: The nature vision of Hayao Miyazaki. Journal of Religion and Popular Culture, 10.

Wright, L. (2004). Wonderment and awe - the way of the kami. Refractory: A Journal of Entertainment Media, 5.

Yamanaka, H. (2008). The utopian “power to live: What the Miyazaki phenomenon signifies. In M. MacWilliams, (Ed.), Japanese Visual Culture: Explorations in the World of Manga and Anime (pp. 237-255). Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe.

Yokota, M. (1999). A psychological meaning of creatures in Hayao Miyazaki’s feature animations. Japanese Journal of Animation Studies, 1(1A), 39-44.

Individual films:

Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind

Stokrocki, M., & Delahunt, M. (2008). Empowering elementary students’ ecological thinking through discussing the animé Nausicaa and constructing super bugs. Journal for Learning Through the Arts, 4(1).

Bryce, M., & Stephens, J. (2003). Japanese popular culture and character fashioning: The quest for subjective agency in the animated films, Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind and Perfect Blue. International Journal of the Humanities, 1, 311-321.

Lane, M. (2003, January). A comic book that moveth to tears. Triumph of the Past.

Osmond, A. (1998). Nausicaa and the fantasy of Hayao Miyazaki. Foundations: The International Review of Science Fiction, 72, 57-81.

Inaga, S. (1999). Miyazaki Hayao's epic comic series: Nausicaa in the Valley of the Wind: An attempt at interpretation. Japan Review, 11, 113-128.

Laputa: Castle in the Sky

Johnson, R. (2007). Kawaii and kirei: Navigating the identities of women in Laputa: Castle in the Sky by Hayao Miyazaki and Ghost in the Shell by Mamoru Oshii. Rhizomes: Cultural Studies in Emerging Knowledge, 14.

Lamarre, T. (2002). From animation to anime: Drawing movements and moving drawings. Japan Forum, 14(2), 329-367.

My Neighbor Totoro

McDonald, K. (2005). Animation seminal and influential: Hayao Miyazaki’s My Neighbor Totoro (1998). In Reading a Japanese Film: Cinema in Context (pp. 176-186). Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.

Okuhara, R. (2006). Walking along with nature: A psychological interpretation of My Neighbor Totoro. The Looking Glass: An On-Line Children's Literature Journal, 10(2).

Prunes, M. (2003). Having it both ways: Making childern’s films an adult matter in Miyazaki's My Neighbor Totoro. Asian Cinema, 14(1), 45-55.

Stibbe, A. (2007). Zen and the art of environmental education in the Japanese animated film Tonari no Totoro. Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture, 1(4), 468-488.

Kiki's Delivery Service

Bryce, M. (2006). Fashioning a spiritual self in a rational and technological society: Cultural dichotomies in the Japanese animation Kiki’s Delivery Service. CREArTA: the International Journal of the Centre for Research and Education in the Arts, 6, 45-56.

Elwood, K. (2003). A comparative analysis of requests in Majo no Takkyubin and Kiki’s Delivery Service. The Cultural Review, 22, 77-100.

Lane, M. (2004, March). White moments and Miyazaki's Kiki. Triumph of the Past.

Porco Rosso

Drazen, P. (2007). Sex and the single pig: Desire and flight in Porco Rosso. Mechademia: Annual Forum for Anime, Manga, and the Fan Arts, 2, 189-200.

Moist, K., & Barthalow, M. (2007). When pigs fly: Anime, auteurism, and Miyazaki's Porco Rosso. Animation: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 2(1), 27-42.

Wood, C. (2009). The European fantasy space and identity construction in Porco Rosso. Post Script: Essays in Film and the Humanities, 28(2), 112-120.

Princess Mononoke

Denison, R. (2008). The language of the blockbuster: Promotion, Princess Mononoke and the daihitto in Japanese film culture. In L. Hunt & W. Leung (Eds.), East Asian Cinemas: Exploring Transnational Connections on Film (pp. 103-122). London: I. B. Tauris.

Denison, R. (2005). Disembodied stars and the cultural meaning of Princess Mononoke's soundscape. Scope: An Online Journal of Film Studies, 3.

Kim, E., & Jarman, M. (2008). Modernity’s rescue mission: Postcolonial transactions of disability and sexuality. Canadian Journal of Film Studies, 17(1), 52-68.

Kraemer, C.H. (2004). Between the worlds: Liminality and sacrifice in Princess Mononoke. Journal of Religion and Film, 8(1).

Lane, M. (2003, April). Princess Mononoke. Triumph of the Past.

Napier, S. (2000). Mononokehime: A Japanese phenomenon goes global. Persimmon: Asian Literature, Arts, and Culture, 1(1), 90-93.

Ortabasi, M.S. (2000). Fictional fantasy or historical fact? The search for Japanese identity in Miyazaki Hayao's Mononokehime. In D. Slaymaker, (Ed.), A Century of Popular Culture in Japan (pp. 199-228). New York: Edwin Mellen.

Pike, S. (2009). Why Prince Charles instead of ‘Princess Mononoke?’: A response to the Encyclopedia of Religion and Nature. Journal of the American Academy of Religion, 77(1), 66-72.

Than, T. (2008). Nature & man reflected in animation. Animatrix Magazine, 15, 55-62.

Spirited Away

Ando, S. (2008). Regaining continuity with the past: "Spirited Away" and "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland." Bookbird: A Journal of International Children's Literature, 46(1), 23-29.

Boyd, J., & Nishimura, T. (2004). Shinto perspectives in Miyazaki's anime film "Spirited Away." Journal of Religion and Film, 8(2).

Broderick, M. (2003). Spirited away by Miyazaki's fantasy. Intersections: Gender, History & Culture in the Asian Context, 9.

Denison, R. (2007). Global markets for Japanese film: Miyazaki Hayao's Spirited Away (2001). In A. Phillips & J. Stringer (Eds.), Japanese Cinema: Texts and Contexts (pp. 308-321). London: Routledge.

Matthew, K. (2006). Logic and narrative in Spirited Away. Screen Education, 43, 135-140.

Morgan, J. (2003). Flying with Miyazaki: Flight as a metaphor for power in "Spirited Away". Animatrix Magazine, 12, 14-22.

Napier, S. (2006). Matter out of place: Carnival, containment, and cultural recovery in Miyazaki's Spirited Away. The Journal of Asian Studies, 32(2), 287-310.

Osmond, D. (2007). Spirited Away (BFI Film Classics). New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Reider, N. (2005). Spirited Away: Film of the fantastic and evolving Japanese film symbols. Film Criticism, 29(3), 4-27.

Suzuki, A. (2009). A nightmare of capitalist Japan: Spirited Away. Jump Cut: A Review of Contemporary Media, 51.

Thill, S. (2002). The wizard of awe: Hayao Miyazaki's Spirited Away. Bright Lights Film Journal, 38.

Tucker, J. (2003). Anime and historical inversion in Miyazaki Hayao's Spirited Away. Japan Studies Review, 7, 65-103.

Yoshioka, S. (2008). Heart of Japaneseness: History and nostalgia in Hayao Miyazaki’s Spirited Away. In M. MacWilliams, (Ed.), Japanese Visual Culture: Explorations in the World of Manga and Anime (pp. 256-273). Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe.

Howl's Moving Castle

Kimmich, M. (2007). Animating the fantastic: Hayao Miyazaki’s adaptation of Diana Wynne-Jones’s Howl’s Moving Castle. In L. Strayner & J. Keller, (Eds.), Fantasy Fiction Into Films (pp. 124-139). Jefferson, NC: McFarland.

Osmond, A. (2005). Castles in the sky. Sight and Sound: The International Film Magazine, 15(10), 28-31.

Other Ghibli directors and their films

Yokota, M. (2000). Isao Takahata: The animation director who worries about the mental health of the young generation. The Japanese Journal of Animation Studies, 2(1A), 13-18.

Grave of the Fireflies

Freiberg, F. (2001). Tombstone for Fireflies. Sense of Cinema, 14.

Goldberg, W. (2009). Transcending the victim’s history: Takahata Isao’s Grave of the Fireflies. Mechademia: Annual Forum for Anime, Manga, and the Fan Arts, 4, 39-52.

Mousulis, B. (2000). Physicality in Tombstone for Fireflies. Sense of Cinema, 5.

Pon Poko

Yamamoto, F. (1998). Heisei Tanuki-Gassen: Pon Poko. Post Script: Essays in Film and the Humanities, 18(1), 59-67.