Japan’s leading anime producer Studio Ghibli has found itself in the middle of a controversial debate this week, after former employee Yoshiaki Nishimura, who co-produced “When Marnie Was There,” which is getting its UK release two years after opening in Japan.Nishimura gave an interview to The Guardian, responding to the question “Will Ghibli ever employ a female director?” by seeming to imply that women are less capable than men of directing animated films.“It depends on what kind of a film it would be. Unlike live action, with animation we have to simplify the real world. Women tend to be more realistic and manage day-to-day lives very well. Men on the other hand tend to be more idealistic – and fantasy films need that idealistic approach. I don’t think it’s a coincidence men are picked,” said Nishimura.Now an employee of Studio Ponoc, Nishimura has sought to absolve Studio Ghibli by tweeting that his comments come long after he left them in 2014, so are not the views of the company. In a statement the producer has gone on to say that his views have changed after receiving a backlash on social media, his reconsidering that “gender has nothing to do with making movies. I definitely had the sexist belief that men had a strong tendency to be idealistic and that women were better at living reality. I am reflecting and learning.”The influence of women on Studio Ghibli though, isn’t to be disregarded. While none of its 21 films have been directed by women (13 were directed by co-founders Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Tahahata, and two more by Miyazaki’s son Goro), eight of those features were adapted from anime or novels written by women, including “Kiki’s Delivery Service,” “Only Yesterday,” “Whisper of the Heart,” “Howl’s Moving Castle,” “Tales from Earthsea,” “Arrietty,” “When Marnie Was There” and “Ocean Waves.”Those choices mostly reflected the director’s penchant for having a female protagonist, and “When Marnie Was There” director Hiromasa Yonebayashi explained the reasoning as; “I’m male myself, and if I had a central character who was male, I’d probably put too much emotion into it, and that would lead to difficulty in telling the story.”Since Hayao Miyazaki retired in 2013, reports have suggested that the studio has struggled. In August 2014 it was announced the studio would be taking a break, to which Miyazaki himself commented “That was not my intention, though. All I did was announce that I would be retiring and not making any more features.”Perhaps the studio should consider completing a film Miyazaky and Takahata planned back in 1971 – an anime version of another female-authored classic, Pippi Longstocking. Click to see images of the “Hayao Miyazaki’s Unfinished “Pippi Longstocking, The Strongest Girl in the World.”
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