Studio Ghibli

Rayna Denison is Professor of Film and Digital Arts at the University of Bristol, UK. Her research focuses on contemporary Japanese media and she is the author of Anime: A Critical Introduction (2015), the editor of Princess Mononoke: Understanding Studio Ghibli’s Monster Princess (2018) and the co-editor of the Eisner Award-nominated collection Superheroes on World Screens (with Rachel Mizsei-Ward, 2015). Rayna has also co-edited special issues of the Journal of Japanese and Korean Cinema, the East Asian Journal of Popular Culture and Intensitites. Her academic work can also be found in prominent journals such as Cinema Journal, Velvet Light Trap, The International Journal of Cultural Studies, Animation: An Interdisciplinary Journal and Japan Forum.

“As Rayna Denison‘s new book, Studio Ghibli: An Industrial History, outlines, there are all sorts of assumptions made by commentators on Studio Ghibli’s work, including the one that Hayao Miyazaki is the be-all and end-all of its output. … while Ghibli might be the obvious starting point for publishers, authors and readers, Denison’s book will set a standard for many years to come.” (Jonathan Clements, All the Anime, blog.alltheanime.com, February 26, 2023)“... Sind die Erkenntnisse über Studio Ghibli an sich zwar äußerst aufschlussreich, so ist es vielmehr die darüber hinausgehende Art, wie die Autorin ihre in der Einleitung beschriebene Methodologie umsetzt, welche Denisons Monografie lesenswert werden lässt. Sie legt somit einen möglichen Grundstein für fortführende Forschung und für das Schreiben von Industriegeschichten zu weiteren (japanischen) Animationsstudios …” (David Höwelkröger, in: MEDIENwissenschaft, Heft 3, 2023)

• Chapter 1: Introduction: The Industrial World of Studio Ghibli.- Chapter 2: The Myth of Ghibli: The Foundation and Early Industrial History of Studio Ghibli.- Chapter 3: Studio Ghibli from the Ground Up: Early Working Culture and Practices.- Chapter 4: Ghibli’s Worlds of Women: From Women’s Films to the Women Who Shaped the Permanent Studio Ghibli.- Chapter 5: Rendered (In)Visible: Studio Ghibli at Anime’s CG Turning Point.- Chapter 6: Studio Ghibli at the Art Museum: Exhibiting Animation as Art.- Chapter 7: A Hidden History of Studio Ghibli: Short Films, Advertising and the Industrial Reality of Japanese Animation.- Chapter 8: The Long Shadow of Hayao Miyazaki: Studio Ghibli, Home Video and New Directors.- Chapter 9: A Disappearing Kingdom: Studio Ghibli’s Legacy in the Ni no Kuni Franchise.