Made as a Japanese TV movie back in 2016, taking 3 years before getting a commercial release at the TIFF Lightbox, one can understand the limited attraction of this documentary.  Though Studio Ghibli films are the bread and butter of Japanese animation features, still the studio’s film and director’s names are still unknown to many Americans who will never see anything not North American.  Unless one is a Studio Ghibli fan, fascinated by the films and an admirer of Hayao Miyazaki, the studio’s founder and the Academy Award winning director (for PRINCESS MONONOKE) of more than a dozen world wide successes, the target audience is limited.

The film begins with the camera panning an empty animation studio following Miyazaki’s announcement to the press…

Made as a Japanese TV movie back in 2016, taking 3 years before getting a commercial release at the TIFF Lightbox, one can understand the limited attraction of this documentary.  Though Studio Ghibli films are the bread and butter of Japanese animation features, still the studio’s film and director’s names are still unknown to many Americans who will never see anything not North American.  Unless one is a Studio Ghibli fan, fascinated by the films and an admirer of Hayao Miyazaki, the studio’s founder and the Academy Award winning director (for PRINCESS MONONOKE) of more than a dozen world wide successes, the target audience is limited.

The film begins with the camera panning an empty animation studio following Miyazaki’s announcement to the press…