Category: Japan

Here is some more of Ged War Journal director Goro Miyazaki’s blog, in which he rather obtusely outlines the history of Studio Ghibli. As you can see from this and the last post, he’s still being vague about why his father didn’t want him to direct the film (my guess is because he’s not qualified?):

December 27 – My Father and Producer Suzuki are my Forerunners in [living] “lives that do”

The “life that does” is a life in which one has a goal and tries to achieve it.
The motivation for such a life varies from those who want fortune or fame to those who want to move people emotionally.

On the other hand, “the life that is” is a life that is not one lived having an ambition, be it for the sake of oneself or others, but a life lived satisfied with daily work.

Recently, I have gone and chosen to “do” the directing of “Ged War Journal,” but those who first come to mind as my forerunners in “lives that do” are my father, Hayao Miyazaki, and Producer (of Ged War Journal) Suzuki.

I doubt either man thought that their company would grow to encompass 170 employees when they started Ghibli Studios in 1985.
In any case, they most likely only thought “I want to make Castle in the Sky, Laputa!” (the film they were planning at the time).

However, once you makes a movie once, you are then tied by that movie’s results.

While making movies, [Ghibli] became involved with various people, the movies it made garnered social praise, and finally in April of this year the company became independent from Tokuma Shoten and the joint-stock company Studio Ghibli was born.

The president of that company did not necessarily wish for that. It came to be that Producer Suzuki was to assume that role [of president].

Following up on my previous effort, here is another entry in which the Ged War Journal (Gedo Senki in Japanese) director Goro Miyazaki (son of Hayao Miyazaki) talks about why he chose to go into animation:

12/26/2005 – I went and chose a “life that does”

I got some free time due to the long vacation, so I will write a little more on “lives that do and lives that are.”

Ged’s words, which explain the importance of “a life that is,” had an impact on me because I, just at that time, was trying to throw my hat into the world of animation that I had previously avoided.

What Ged was saying was not the importance of stopping where you are and thinking, but the more fundamental issue of what type of life one should choose.

Seen one way, “doing” can seem to be the verification that you are free.
However, isn’t that, in fact, making you unfree?
Ged poses that question.

Up to now I as well had thought “to do” something meant “to be free.”
However, to do something produces results and people are bound by those results.
Then, based on those results, people are to do something new.
No, they must do it.

When I considered going on to college when it came time for my high school graduation, while I had an interest in animation, I concluded that if I devoted myself to that world I could never in my life surpass my father.
So, I entered the agricultural department of Shinshu University in an attempt to enter a field as far from animation as I could.

After graduation I was employed full time at an architectural firm. After working there for almost 8 years, I suddenly got an invitation from Producer Suzuki: “Won’t you be involved in the opening of the Ghibli Museum?”
It is here that I made a big decision “to do,” but at that time I felt that a museum and animation were separate things and this would not mean that I am entering the world of animation.
However, the result of that is as you can see.

So, the lines that I quoted from Ged in my previous post, far from skipping them, I felt them as if they had happened to me. Ironically, I chose a “life that does” after being enchanted by the charms of Ged War Journal, which preaches the importance of “a life that is.”