Report on Animation Studios From the East to the West by Abdullokh A.

14 Sep. MMXXIII

Studio Ghibli

(Logo used since inception, June 15, 1985)

The studio, Studio Ghibli, is a Japanese based animation company based in Tokyo. Established in 1985 with their first feature film being Castle in the Sky, and started business in April of 2005. Around 200 employees as of 2023. One of the founders, Hayao Miyazaki, who originally started working at Toei Animation during the 1960s. He then moved on to be his own director when starting up “Studio Ghibli”, often regarded as one of the most talented and accomplished filmmakers in the history of animation.

It is often regarded as the most prestigious animation company in the east, as 5 of the top 10 highest grossing anime feature films from Japan are from Studio Ghibli. With Spirited Away being the most popular film from their catalogue, and even regarded as the pinnacle of cinema.

I went around and asked some of my classmates and peers what they thought of Studio Ghibli and their feature films, as one their movie(s) ‘Spirited Away’ had reportedly made $274.9 Million worldwide in the box office in its original release window.

I wanted to know the cultural impact the movie still has, two decades later…

I made a small Google Forms Survey, and asked everyone to fill it out as a way of gathering info. The questions I asked were, do you know “Studio Ghibli” and three chosen films, as well as do you enjoy or not particularly like them.

In the first question, I could have been more specific, as some had asked what I meant by “Feature” Animated Films, but from the small portion of response, no one said no, almost being a split fifty/fifty. Which is good, as not having watched any animated films at all might hinder the person’s ability to be more prosperous when doing animation. But it isn't a huge deciding factor.

Almost everyone has heard of Studio Ghibli, with only one response saying that they don’t recognise it, but only 8 out of 11 respondents have seen Spirited Away. Which gives a bit of insight, as someone might have watched and only preferred an obscure piece of media, rather than the popular film from the same company. From the 8 respondents, 7 of them have enjoyed it by using my own measuring scale:

1 being “Not my taste”, which encompasses “bad”, “didn’t enjoy it”, and even “Not for me” as to group into one point. 2 being “It was alright”, which is self explanatory. 3 is for Great or amazing, but not “perfect”, which is relegated to the 4th option in the linear scale.

Less people have seen “My Neighbour Totoro”, with only 46 percent of the responses answering yes to having seen the film, with only one fifths rating it “perfect”, with the other fifth rating it “meh” Which isn’t surprising, as the first half of the film is mostly slice of life-y. That I didn’t enjoy myself, but I know that someone else would be into this sort of movie.

One statistic that flabbergasted me was that only 18 percent of the responses had watched “Princess Mononoke”, with the same people rating it “Perfect” on the scale. This makes it have a “hidden gem” status within my class room.

Then, the penultimate question of the Studio Ghibli part of the survey. I asked an open-ended question, to get an answer in words, rather than statistics. “Why do you like the particular films?” which was skippable if the responder answered no to seeing any of the films above. Some of the answers I got were:

When asked about if I missed out on any Film from Studio Ghibli’s Catalogue, everyone had asked that I could have put “Ponyo” as an option, and seeing that Ponyo is regarded more favourable than a film like “Princess Mononoke”, and “My Neighbour Totoro”, I could have swapped it for the one or the other options.

Overall, within the confinements of my class group, Studio Ghibli is popular amongst most of my peers. With some films not being sought-after or rather not in the spotlight than the cult classics like “Spirited Away”

Bibliography

Studio Ghibli References:

Cartoon Network/Cartoon Network Studios

(Logo used since May 29, 2010)

Cartoon Network Studios is an American based animation studio, owned by Warner Bros. Entertainment, a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Discovery. This is the studio that covers the production and development of animated programs/shorts for Cartoon Network, and also Cartoonito (Programming block primarily aimed at around two to six year olds), Adult Swim (Programming block aimed at older teenagers and young adults aged 18 to 34, not for kids), as well as Boomerang (Usually where Hanna-Barbera shows are put, for them to slowly die on)

Founded by Ted Turner in 1992, in addition to launching both Turner Network Television (TNT), and Turner Classic Movies (TCM). He appointed Betty Cohen as the first president. The channel was finally launched on October 1st of that year. Mainly showing reruns of older Hanna-Barbera shows, but introduced “What a Cartoon!” as a way to get pilots of original programming or just for the cartoonists to mess around and have fun, with zero studio intervention as to hopefully “create cartoons”

Moving along to the 2000s and 2010s, Cartoon Network was competing with Nickelodeon, and Disney in the animated Television department. Cult classics like, “Ed, Edd, & Eddy”, “Ben 10 Series”, “Samurai Jack”, “Regular show”, and so on… CN cemented itself to be an industry giant next to its peers. (Except for that small period where they only made Live-Action programmes in the early 2010s).

In terms of movies and films, it isn’t the Studio’s main priority, as the first Theatrical release was “The Powerpuff Girls Movie” which was considered a commercial failure at Sixteen million at the box office, with a budget of Eleven million dollars. So they shifted focus away from doing any sort of big releases, and stuck with “Television premieres” instead.

Onto the second part of the Google Forms survey I made. I asked “Do you watch a lot of Animated shows?”, which is different to “Feature Animated Films” as shows can be picked up and watched at any time with the small run times of each episode of either 11 or 22 mins each.

Only one answered no to watching any sort of animated shows, which could be summed up to be their preference, as they could have watched a lot of shows in their childhood, but not right now…

Not surprising at all, is that everyone had answered yes to knowing what Cartoon Network is. As that is one of my hypotheses for this section of the report. Look at that big blue blob

I was a bit biassed with the selection of Television programmes I put on it, as these are the shows I remember more of, than the other programmes which I only watched when I was around eight to ten years old. I put “Adventure Time”, “Regular Show”, and of course “We Bare Bears”

Shocker, as both “Adventure Time” and “Regular Show”, also got blue blobs of 100 percent saying “yes”. Which could be explained by how Cartoon Network constantly re runs them, and due to the “cult classic” status of both the shows, amplified by the nostalgia both these shows still hold in audiences to this day.

Comparing these shows, we can see that “Regular show” is often regarded as more favourable, and preferred than “Adventure Time”. This could be contributed to the latter show being more simpler to view, without needing much investment into the characters and the lore of the show, as “Adventure Time”, the more it ran, the more the story complicated, with entire seasons having separate arcs that can be difficult to watch as standalone episodes, but still really good. “Regular show” only became story focused, around seasons seven to eight, with a tie-in movie.

“Adventure Time” may be more critically acclaimed, “Regular Show” was more relatable for the audiences, as it was targeting a more older teen audience while still being sort of for children.

“We Bare Bears”, a fairly new show, being more similar in tone to “Steven Universe”, the filler, down to earth episodes, rather than the “end of the world” episodes. As it follows around a cast of three bears, with side characters coming in and out frequently. Only 9/11 of the responses said “yes” to watching the show…

It also has the most varied ratings out of all the shows and films prior to this. With half of the responses enjoying it, but the other half not clicking well with it. As it is at times, too mellow of a show, with low stakes, and someone might prefer a lot of action and drama with complex storylines, but hey, everyone has different preferences.

Similar to the first part of the report, I again asked an open-ended question, to get an answer in words, rather than statistics. “Why do you like the particular shows/films?” Some of the response I got were:

From the responses, “Regular Show” being pointed out as good, reinforces my points made earlier.

When asked of any shows or films I missed out or could have added, I got an immense variety of shows, with differing genres, target audiences, and so on. Some of the listed shows that could have been a part of the survey were:

Overall, Western Animation is more well-known here, from this arbitrary comparison-based survey and report on two animation studios from the west, and another from the east. More or less, Cartoon Network is more marketable, than Studio Ghibli, as it's easier to find “Teen Titans GO!” Toys and merchandise, then a “Spirited Away” action figure.

Bibliography