How we launched Stu­dio Ponoc by Yoshi­a­ki Nishimu­ra and Hiro­masa Yonebayashi

How do you fol­low Stu­dio Ghi­b­li? It’s a ques­tion that has dogged the Japan­ese ani­ma­tion indus­try for decades, ever since Hayao Miyaza­ki first con­tem­plat­ed retire­ment in the late 1990s. In 2014, this ques­tion became all too real for pro­duc­er Yoshi­a­ki Nishimu­ra, when Ghi­b­li offi­cial­ly wound down pro­duc­tion after the release of When Marnie Was There. One of the Studio’s ris­ing stars, Nishimu­ra had pro­duced both Marnie and The Tale of the Princess Kaguya, the long-ges­tat­ing final film from Ghi­b­li co-founder Isao Taka­ha­ta. Now he was set adrift.

The solu­tion? Start anew, albeit with an acute aware­ness of Ghibli’s endur­ing influ­ence. Nishimu­ra found­ed Stu­dio Ponoc – the Ser­bo-Croat word for ​‘mid­night’ sig­ni­fy­ing a new day for Japan­ese ani­ma­tion, much in the way that Ghi­b­li, refer­ring to the Siroc­co winds of the Mediter­ranean, hint­ed at a fresh breeze whistling through the industry.

For the studio’s first film, Nishimu­ra tapped Marnie and Arri­et­ty direc­tor Hiro­masa Yonebayashi, and togeth­er with a sta­ble of ani­ma­tors left at a loose end by Ghibli’s clo­sure, they cre­at­ed Mary and the Witch’s Flower, a mag­i­cal, colour­ful ani­mat­ed adven­ture based on the kids’ fan­ta­sy nov­el by Mary Stew­art. A spec­tac­u­lar trib­ute to Miyazaki’s great­est hits, rang­ing from Ponyo and Spir­it­ed Away to Howl’s Mov­ing Cas­tle and Kiki’s Deliv­ery Ser­vice, that also serves as an impres­sive call­ing-card for this new out­fit of sea­soned pros.

Over the phone from Japan, Nishimu­ra and Yonebayashi share their vision for Stu­dio Ponoc, recount the chal­lenges start­ing up their new oper­a­tions, and remem­ber the late, leg­endary Stu­dio Ghi­b­li direc­tor, Isao Takahata.

LWLies: What was the vision behind set­ting up Stu­dio Ponoc?

Yoshi­a­ki Nishimu­ra: At the end of 2014, Stu­dio Ghi­b­li closed down its ani­ma­tion oper­a­tions, and Mr Yonebayashi and I, and lots of the staff who worked togeth­er at Ghi­b­li, want­ed to car­ry on cre­at­ing ani­ma­tion. Just like how Stu­dio Ghi­b­li had been cre­at­ing and pro­duc­ing work that could be enjoyed by small chil­dren and grown-up adults, we want­ed to car­ry on bring­ing that sig­nif­i­cant, mean­ing­ful work into the world. That was our vision.

As both pro­duc­er and direc­tor, what were the biggest chal­lenges in set­ting up the new studio?

YN: The biggest chal­lenge with launch­ing Stu­dio Ponoc was cre­at­ing some­thing from scratch. In order to cre­ate an ani­mat­ed work, you need a stu­dio envi­ron­ment, and you need hun­dreds of artists. With Stu­dio Ghi­b­li, these envi­ron­ments were already there, so we were very for­tu­nate. But when launch­ing Stu­dio Ponoc our­selves, we had to start every­thing from scratch, includ­ing cre­at­ing the stu­dio envi­ron­ment and gath­er­ing pro­duc­tion costs. We also had to explain to every sin­gle cre­ator and team our val­ues and vision for mak­ing animation.

Hiro­masa Yonebayashi: As Mr Nishimu­ra says, it was very, very dif­fi­cult. It was a tough move. At the new stu­dio, every­body was work­ing towards the same qual­i­ty as Stu­dio Ghi­b­li, but with­out Stu­dio Ghi­b­li. We were very con­cerned about whether we’d be able to cre­ate a sim­i­lar qual­i­ty of work to Stu­dio Ghi­b­li. But, we decid­ed that shouldn’t be afraid, and we should just go ahead and do what­ev­er we can. It’s just like with Mary, when she los­es her mag­i­cal pow­ers and she is lost in the for­est – she still wants to get up and go for­ward. That applies to us as well.

While you were at Stu­dio Ghi­b­li, you both worked along­side the influ­en­tial direc­tor and Ghi­b­li co-founder Isao Taka­ha­ta, who passed away recent­ly. What are your mem­o­ries of him, and has he had any influ­ence on your work now you’re at Stu­dio Ponoc?

YN: I worked with Mr Taka­ha­ta for 15 years. I’m now 40, so one third of my life was informed by Mr Taka­ha­ta. I was extreme­ly sad, as if I’d lost my own par­ent. On the sound­track for Mary and the Witch’s Flower, we used a very spe­cial musi­cal instru­ment, the ham­mered dul­cimer. This was sug­gest­ed by Mr Taka­ha­ta, actu­al­ly. He also gave us some very impor­tant and mem­o­rable advice when we launched Stu­dio Ponoc. There are so many ani­ma­tion stu­dios out there, but Stu­dio Ponoc inher­its the her­itage of Stu­dio Ghi­b­li. We would like to car­ry on using what we’ve learned from Mr Taka­ha­ta, and we’re deter­mined that we’re going to cre­ate ani­ma­tion for the rest of our lives.

HY: I’m deeply sad­dened to have lost a very impor­tant per­son in my life. When I joined Stu­dio Ghi­b­li, Mr Taka­ha­ta was already a revered direc­tor. When he was work­ing on The Tale of the Princess Kaguya, I was work­ing on When Marnie Was There, so we didn’t work togeth­er, but Mr Taka­ha­ta would always say that if the films were made for chil­dren, and if they were made to a very high stan­dard, they would also be enjoyed by adults. I don’t know if we’ve achieved that yet, but that’s our objective.

Mary and the Witch’s Flower is released 4 May. Read our review.