“When Hayao Miyazaki announced his retirement from Japan’s greatest animation studio in 2013, his young protege Hiromasa Yonebayashi wasn’t worried. The master had already retired five times before. ‘He was always saying, ‘Oh this could be the last film.’’ Yonebayashi shrugs. ‘He’s still in the office.’
He describes Anna as ‘an androgynous character, in the transition between child to adulthood, a very sensitive age’ but offers up an intriguing reason for choosing another female-led story : ‘I’m male myself, and if I had a central character who was male, I’d probably put too much emotion into it, and that would lead to difficulty in telling the story.’
Will Ghibli ever employ a female director? Nishimura fields this question. ‘It depends on what kind of a film it would be. Unlike live action, with animation we have to simplify the real world. Women tend to be more realistic and manage day-to-day lives very well. Men on the other hand tend to be more idealistic – and fantasy films need that idealistic approach. I don’t think it’s a coincidence men are picked.’”
“When every single film the studio has made has been directed by a man, it’s absolutely sexist to claim that the reason is because men are more capable of doing the job. (For the record, over 96% of the members of the Directors Guild of Japan are male, so Japanese women aren’t directing many ‘realistic’ films either, even though according to Nishimura, they’re purportedly better at that sort of thing.)”
You cannot ground DIO 