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Comment by Aidevah | Hacker News Reader

Ghibli has always been synonymous with Miyazaki and Takahata. I think it's fine for the studio to fade away or disband after the two founders exit the stage, their legacy will endure.

Goro's story is tragic. By all accounts Miyazaki is far from the perfect father, to put it mildly, and it's difficult enough to live up to the reputation of someone like Miyazaki even under the best circumstances. The only example I can think of where a son matches the reputation of a 1st rate artist father is the Scarlatti family. Although I think Goro has redeemed some of his reputation with Poppy hill.

Speaking of Shinkai, his Children who Chase Lost Voices is the finest Miyazaki/Ghibli pastiche I have ever seen, and very underrated. It may lack the emotional depth of Miyazaki's best works, but then that's something Miyazaki himself sometimes failed to do. As a homage it certainly is more than adequate.

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It reminds me of Jiro Dreams of Sushi in a way, where Jiro, as masterful at making sushi as Miyazaki is at making movies, has two sons. The older son is expected to live up to his father's name. Not surpass his father, not put his twist on things, but to do everything in just the same way so that one day he can take over the restaurant. As such, he is treated very much like a 50-something trainee and will likely never step out of his father's shadow (Jiro's younger son already has his own successful sushi restaurant). I feel like Goro is in the same situation. He's expected to do everything like his father, even if he doesn't want to or if his talents are better suited to something else. I don't know if this is a universal thing for successful, controlling people, or if there is something particular about Japanese culture at play here (I know, 2 points don't necessarily make a trend).

As far as artistic families where a child matches or succeeds their first rate father, I'd have to say Andrew Wyeth is a more impressive artist than N. C.

In this case, the elder Miyazaki did not want his son to go into the business at all, and after Earthsea, also wanted him to stop. It's a different but similarly difficult dynamic.

The "problem" is that, in Japan, Ghibli is much more than a studio movie. It's a profit machine for merchandise, books, and theme parks. You can't just let that fade away.

Disney itself went through rough patches, where the new generations either defected (Don Bluth) or disappointed. Ghibli started going through that; Gorō Miyazaki can keep the flame alive for the time being, but nobody is under the impression that he can take it to new and sunny uplands. The question is whether they can find somebody who can, in the way Disney got Michael Eisner. What they really need now is a successor to Toshio Suzuki who can attract new talent the way Suzuki used to do.

Shifting from being a movie studio to an IP management company might make sense.

Yeah but they don't really have a leadership that can countenance that at the moment. Everyone, from Suzuki and old man Hayao down, is fundamentally a creative, not an admin.

Yes. Nintendo spent decades as an also-ran novelty company before Hiroshi Yamauchi had the foresight to go all-in on video games. Ghibli is obviously a very different company, but with Goro's continued involvement, it seems like it will follow the example of many Japanese firms of essentially being a legal business entity that represents the founding family until - and even after - it happens upon an application that can be sustained by personnel outside the family. In other words, what Ghibli makes doesn't necessarily matter to its continued existence, I think.

While Eisner was great at keeping the lights on, Lassiter was the one who brought back the magic. I didn’t care much of any of Bluth’s work either, but you are absolutely right about a long “rough patch” and it’s existence does not mean the end.

I don't know man, Aladdin was a masterpiece. Lasseter is cool but some of the '90s stuff is <chef kiss>

> You can't just let that fade away.

A westerner would say that, but it's far more appropriate for Disney than Ghibli. Ghibli will fade away. Miyazaki is an auteur. You won't recreate him.

That's rose-tinted glasses speaking. Ghibli today is not just Hayao and Gorō Miyazaki like it wasn't just Hayao and Isao Takahata before. Everyone likes money, even (or rather, especially) Japanese animators; the Japanese have a very prosaic approach to their IP. All the moves from Toshio Suzuki over the last decade indicate that he is trying to negotiate a creative transition to keep the show going. Whether he can do it in his lifetime or not, that's another question, but IMHO there is no doubt that he's trying hard.

> Ghibli has always been synonymous with Miyazaki and Takahata. I think it's fine for the studio to fade away or disband after the two founders exit the stage, their legacy will endure.

Perhaps Disney should have as well. Would have spared the world "The Love Bug", "The Apple Dumpling Gang", etc.

> of a 1st rate artist fathe

Going on a tangent here, but I'd say Jean Renoir was as good at making movies as his father was at being a painter, imo he was even more important for the history of the art of cinema than his father was the history of painting as an art.

The question of "how do academic families arise?" is an interesting one. Off the top of my head, the Huxley, Darwin, and Witten families. Perhaps it's the irrational, human desire to map meaning where there is none?

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