Studio Ghibli is arguably the most famous anime studio of all time and with the announcement of a new movie of theirs coming out next season, it seems like a fitting time to talk about something I’ve wanted to discuss for a while now. Everyone knows the Ghibli movies by Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata. Even if you don’t know their names, which I highly doubt considering you’re watching this video, you definitely know their work. Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke, My Neighbor Totoro and Grave of the Fireflies are not only some of the most critically acclaimed anime of all time, but some of the most critically acclaimed films in general. However, Studio Ghibli’s other directors have made some amazing films that I rarely hear people talk about when they bring up the studio. Enter Hirosama Yonebayashi, Yoshifumi Kondou, Hiroyuki Morita and Tomomi Mochizuki. We’ll get to Gorou later. Kondou’s first work as a director was on the pilot for a proposed TV show based on the Little Nemo series, which wasn’t picked up. However, this short is still wildly impressive, especially for a pilot. The first films he worked on at Ghibli were Animation Director on Grave of the Fireflies and Kiki’s Delivery Service. Not to mention his character design role on Fireflies. After his work on Kiki, he directed the phenomenal Only Yesterday, followed up by the even more incredible Whisper of the Heart. Kondou’s designs are characterized as much less cute than Miyazaki’s or Takahata’s, especially in Only Yesterday. Whereas Miyazaki’s designs are much more anime-like and exaggerated, Kondou’s designs have a lot more human details; the most noteable of these being wrinkles on the vast majority of characters in Only Yesterday. It would not be an overstatement to say that Kondou likely would have been on the same level as someone like Takahata or possibly even Miyazaki, if it weren’t for his unfortunate death in 1998. His final work was as an animation director and character designer on the Anne of Green Gables film Road to Green Gables, which wasn’t released until 2010. Mochizuki’s first directing role was on the OVA Creamy Mami: Long Goodbye and the stealth pilot of Shounen Jump adaptation Kimagure Orange Road. The former of which being a fairly standard Shoujo manga adaptation, and the latter being absolutely beautiful. It’s one of the most artfully crafted Shounen Jump adaptations I’ve ever seen, and is far better than the actual series, which while decent, is the generic Shounen Jump adaptation I was afraid of going into the pilot. He followed these two up with the shockingly bad Hikari no Densetsu. While maybe I got my hopes up too high after reading the description of this show and seeing there was a show about rhythmic gymnastics directed by Tomomi Mochizuki, but I was not a fan of this at all. My main issue with this show is the animation; BUT INSSSSIGGGHHHHTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT- ALL OLD ANIME LOOK LIKE GARBAGE. THAT’S JUST WHAT OLD ANIME LOOK LIKE YOU STUPID DUMB IDIOT. I hear this sentiment echoed everywhere and I find it incredibly disrespectful and just outright incorrect to say all old anime have bad animation, ESPECIALLY in the 80s. In the 80s you had shows like Urusei Yatsura and Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam, and even shows that weren’t based on massive pre-existing franchises such as Gunbuster and R20 or really anything by Studio Gainax from this decade. Hell, even some shows I’ve mentioned previously in this video like the Kimagure Orange Road pilot, while not flawless and completely fluid, are still extremely visually appealing and are animated pretty nicely. This show is just extroardinarily stilted, even for a weird obscure 80s show about gymnastics. Also, I swear to god I watched every episode of this show and I could not tell you a single thing that happened. It is actually the most forgettable anime I’ve ever seen. After working as an episode director on a few more shows, Mochizuki directed the 1988 film Maison Ikkou: Kanketsu-hen. This is the first full-length feature film Mochizuki directed and how did he do? It’s really bad, but the direction’s pretty. I don’t know if I need to watch the Maison Ikkou show to get it but I was not a fan of this. While yes, the direction is above average, that doesn’t stop this movie from being an absolute slog from front to back. Even though it’s just over an hour long it felt longer than the 19-episode television series I just talked about. I’m not going to say nothing ever happens because that would be stupid. Things do indeed happen in this movie; we just take a little while to get there. After this, although I was a fan of the pilot he did for Kimagure Orange Road, I was not excited to watch the movie adaptation he directed the same year as Maison Ikkou; but I’m happy to report, it’s not bad. Kimagure Orange Road: I Want to Return to That Day is a decent high school melodrama with fun characters and gorgeous directing. Now while I wouldn’t say this movie is exactly amazing or anything, it’s very entertaining and I had a pretty fun time watching it. Pretty much the definition of a 7/10. After this he directed a promotional OVA for the Licca doll in Japan. This show is a commercial but I’m not gonna lie, it makes me very happy. After the extremely boring Welcome to Green Wood and Ai Monogatari OVAs, we finally get to the reason we’re talking about this man in the first place, that being Ocean Waves. This movie is shockingly horrible. Nothing about this movie is even of somewhat acceptable quality. This film has by far, not even close, the worst art style of anything I’ve discussed in this video so far. It is so ugly I had to stop the movie 10 minutes in the first time I watched it. I’d also like to add how shockingly terrible the score of this film is. This was the last thing I expected as Studio Ghibli has some of the most consistently incredible scores of any studio in film in general, not just anime, but this is just awful. It is actually one of the most distracting elements of the film and a huge part of why I initially dropped it back in 2021. After Ocean Waves Mochizuki continued directing relatively obscure anime that very little people know about, with some pop hits sprinkled throughout such as Studio Manglobe’s House of Five Leaves. However, you would be hard-pressed to find a show directed by him after House of Five Leaves with a score above a 6 on MAL. Hiroyuki Morita started out like both of the other people we’ve covered so far, by key animating and doing in-betweens on an absurd amount of classic anime, such as Akira, Kiki’s Delivery Service and Perfect Blue. Much like Kondou, he got his directing role on a Ghibli film via rising up the ranks as one of the best people working at the studio. Unlike Kondou however, the only thing he had done before his first Ghibli film was key animation, in-betweens and storyboards in the case of the second film in the In Love offshoot of the Tenchi Muyou series. His first feature film, The Cat Returns, is my personal favorite Ghibli film. It’s really hard for me to describe why I like this film so much without diving into the context of when I watched it, which I don’t think anyone is here for, so I’ll just focus on the most relevant aspect considering what we’re talking about, that being the direction. The main characteristic of this film regarding the direction is how pulled-back and big-picture it feels. It makes the movie feel a lot larger scale than it would be if it were directed in the same style as Miyazaki’s films. Morita followed this up with his second and final anime (unless you count this weird commercial thing that I can’t seem to find anywhere) Bokurano. I don’t like this show at all. This may set some people off as from what I’ve seen everyone except me loves this show. While the premise is very intriguing, the shockingly ugly art style as well as the stilted animation and sub-par direction make the show pretty hard for me to watch, which is why I dropped it 13 episodes in. It seems Morita’s just kinda been hanging out the past fifteen years, mainly just doing key animation on stuff. Hiromasa Yonebayashi released his first Ghibli film, as well as his first film in general, When Marnie Was There on July 19, 2014. While this movie is fairly uninteresting in terms of direction, its narrative emphasis on both mental and physical illness as well as self-hatred make it one of the most interesting films I’ve covered in this video. His second film however, Mary & The Witch’s Flower, is much much worse. This movie was essentially marketed as the first film by the second coming of Ghibli, Studio Ponoc. Unfortunately, this film plays it so incredibly safe that it’s just boring. It’s essentially the dryest, milquetoast Ghibli rip-off I’ve ever seen, that also happens to have a lot of Ghibli people working on it. Since Witch’s Flower, unless you count the phenomenal With All Our Hearts ONA, Yonebayashi has not directed anything, his latest role being key animator on Spirited Away assistant director Masayuki Miyaji’s The Deer King. Yonebayashi doesn’t really have a super defined directing style. He has a few running plot elements such as depression and being an artist, but generally his direction isn’t too much of note. While these four directors may not be as good as Miyazaki, I still think it's kind of insulting how much they’re undermined as “the other ones.” Ghibli is not the Miyazaki studio. Studio Ghibli is internationally famous, not because they make palatable entertainment suitable for a wide audience, but because of their boldness, versatility and ability to take risks; and if you left Miyazaki exclusively, I think the studio would lose a lot of that. Gorou on the other hand, is a different story. The only reason Gorou Miyazaki has been able to direct any anime movies as high profile as Tales from Earthsea and From Up on Poppy Hill is directly due to nepotism. I feel like a lot of people might misinterpret my message as we should hire random people to do Ghibli because otherwise it'll be boring. I think it is absolutely essential to make sure every director at Studio Ghibli has at least a decent amount of talent. While I am personally not a fan of Mochizuki at all, I can’t deny the massive talent he displayed through the Kimagure Orange Road OVA and Movie; and in turn recognize that it was completely warranted for him to be allowed to direct his own Ghibli movie. As much as movies like Earwig and the Witch scare me regarding Studio Ghibli’s future, I’m still excited to see where they go next. If you liked this video, check out my other anime videos, and if you like those too maybe consider subscribing to the channel. I also have a second channel called Insight Zoidberg’s Hangout Hut where I post lets-plays and vlogs and other stuff that doesn’t fit on the main channel. Thanks again for watching and I’ll see you next video.
