Legendary animator Hayao Miyazaki has a process. He spends years developing stories. He painstakingly illustrates frame by hand. He resists the booming soundscapes of most modern blockbusters in favor of mono mixes and Joe Hisaishi’s elegiac scores.
And for now, his and Studio Ghibli’s films aren’t available at the click of a button, staving off streaming services in favor of perpetual theatrical play.
According to GKids, which currently owns the North American distribution rights to Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli’s films, there are no plans to place the collection on Netflix, Disney Plus, Hulu, or the like. Fans won’t even find titles like My Neighbor Totoro and Spirited Away available to rent on digital platforms like Apple Movies or Amazon. For now, the physical media releases and touring Ghibli Fest screenings remain the only ways for fans to see these films.
“Studio Ghibli does not make their films available digitally, whether for download or streaming, anywhere in the world,” a GKids representative told Polygon over email. “They continue to believe that presentation is vital and particularly appreciate opportunities for audiences to experience the films together in a theatrical setting.”
(GKids was unable to provide a comment from a Studio Ghibli representation for further clarification.)
The choice recalls a moment in The Kingdom of Dreams and Madness, the fly-on-the-wall documentary that chronicled the making of The Wind Rises, comes to mind.
“I’m a man of the 20th century,” Miyazaki says to camera. “I don’t want to deal with the 21st.”
The late 20th century was troublesome enough for Miyazaki. His breakout film, Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, first hit American shores as a remixed, 95-minute English dub aimed at kids. Miyazaki later fought Harvey Weinstein over major edits to the American release of Princess Mononoke in 1999, leading Ghibli associate to send the fallen producer a samurai sword with the note “no cuts.” (“I defeated him,” Miyazaki later said in an interview.)
The Miramax snafu was the result of a 1996 distribution deal between Walt Disney Corporation and Tokuma Publishing, which had some shining moments, too. In the aftermath of Weinstein’s Mononoke cut, disgraced Pixar CEO John Lassetter oversaw the dub of Spirited Away, which won Miyazaki the 2003 Oscar for Best Animated Film. Disney would go on to redub Miyazaki’s classics and release theatrical versions of Howl’s Moving Castle, Ponyo, The Secret World of Arrietty, From Up on Poppy Hill, The Tale of Princess Kaguya, and The Wind Rises, which was supervised by Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park and Indiana Jones producer Frank Marshall.
“You really have to maintain the integrity of what the director and writer — in this case, Miyazaki-san — wrote and have it make sense to an American audience,” Marshall said in 2014.
In an alternate timeline, Disney re-upped the Tokuma deal and boasted the arrival of the Studio Ghibli back catalogue to Disney Plus on the November 12 launch date. But here in reality, Disney offloaded theatrical and home video distribution rights to GKids in 2017, after working with the company on several of the final Ghibli releases. Today, GKids “Studio Ghibli Fest” screenings continue to tour America thanks to Fathom Events; the next theatrical run will see Spirited Away back in theaters on Oct. 27, 28, and 30.
The days of Toonami randomly booking a month of Miyazaki movies are over, though Ghibli’s footprint might be bigger than ever, despite the company winding down theatrical productions and Miyazaki “retiring.” Studio Ponoc spawned out of Ghibli to produce last year’s Mary and the Witch’s Flower. A Ghibli theme park is currently under construction, with plans to open the gates in 2022. Miyazaki has a new movie in the works.
But the Ghibli movies aren’t coming to Netflix or Disney Plus or a streaming service near you. Fans have to, like, go see them. (And if you’re a real purest, you need to trek to the Studio Ghibli museum in Tokyo, where a handful of unreleased Miyazaki short films play in rotation.)
Seems fair: As Miyazaki once said, “The notion that one’s goal in life is to be happy, that your own happiness is the goal... I just don’t buy it.” He dedicated his life to making his films, to wowing audiences in a decidedly 20th century fashion. For now, we’ll have to pay him the respect of catching his works of art in theaters.
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