Many thanks to Roland Kelts for gifting the link to this interesting Bloomberg piece on the future of Studio Ghibli. It’s paywalled, like all their content, but Ghibliophiles like us might consider it worth the subscription. It’s an interview with Goro Miyazaki and Ghibli’s new president and CEO Kenichi Yoda, in which they discuss the studio’s future. Short take: no new films in progress. Ghibli’s most recent work Goro’s own short film for the cinemas in Ghibli’s Tokyo museum and Nagakute theme park. This is followed by an illustrated summary of the studio’s history.
I was asked about what the future held for Studio Ghibli at my talks in Yorkshire earlier this month. My reply in brief was that at present Ghibli the brand is more significant than Ghibli the studio in terms of activity and earnings, and that this is a not uncommon situation for a major international IP. The concept of Dracula, or Sherlock Holmes, or Pride and Prejudice, transcends the original and eventually opens the door to the non-canonical (Pride and Prejudice and Zombies,) the enchantingly frivolous (Bridgerton) and a whole slew of other homages. The original is there, but for all but a few devoted fans, it recedes behind veils of distance like a half-forgotten deity, ageless yet remote and increasingly worshipped (and monetised) far more in the breach than the observance.
It isn’t, and never has been, about the money. Every film the studio has made has been based on money scraped together by Toshio Suzuki based on a combination of faith, hope and brilliant PR. In the early days Miyazaki senior mortgaged his house. Even now, their mighty global reputation doesn’t rest on their bottom line. “According to public records, as of March 31, 2025, Ghibli had ¥44 billion ($279 million) in assets and brought in ¥6 billion in net profit over the past year. “Ghibli is not a company focused primarily on profit,” Yoda says.”
EVerything in the piece supports my own view that there are directors who could work superbly with the Ghibli team, but for one major obstacle, the one that prevented Sunao Katabuchi and Mamoru Hosoda from completing their films at Ghibli. Hayao Miyazaki has pitch and director approval for as long as he lives. “I trained successors, but I couldn’t let go,” he says in the documentary, Never-Ending Man: Hayao Miyazaki. “I devoured them. I devoured their talent. There was no one left to take over.”
“(Goro) Miyazaki says he’s not planning to pitch any movies to his dad anytime soon. Were the executives considering ideas from aspirational filmmakers outside their ranks? Yoda replies: “If there’s someone willing to do the film, yes, we would love to.” But doing so, Miyazaki points out, wouldn’t be easy under the current circumstances. “As long as … Hayao is around,” he says, “it’d be absolutely impossible.” Yoda nods and chuckles: “Any sane animation director would not come close to this castle.””
Bloomberg feature by Sohee Kim and Felix Gillette. Photographs by Kentaro Takahashi.