Wonderful article! I honestly only knew the broad strokes about how Rankin-Bass operated, and I appreciate knowing the context to what made this film hit so different. I'm so glad Beagle liked the film in the end.
Also fascinating to know this is what Topcraft did right before Nausicaa. Who knows what they'd have gone on to make if Miyazaki and his gang hadn't swooped in...
Wonderful article! I honestly only knew the broad strokes about how Rankin-Bass operated, and I appreciate knowing the context to what made this film hit so different. I'm so glad Beagle liked the film in the end.
Also fascinating to know this is what Topcraft did right before Nausicaa. Who knows what they'd have gone on to make if Miyazaki and his gang hadn't swooped in...
Thank you so much! This piece was a serious challenge (one of the biggest of 2023 for us) and it's awesome to hear that it turned out.
Regarding the Topcraft/Miyazaki connection, we found a surprisingly tangled story there during the research phase. Most histories treat Topcraft and Ghibli as basically the same company, but it really seems like Topcraft went bankrupt and dissolved after Nausica├д, and Ghibli only had a minor amount of continuity with it. Nausica├д was Topcraft's big break, a watershed for the industry and one of the very few Topcraft projects to actually screen in Japan. Hidekazu Ohara, for one, had fond memories of animating for Miyazaki and was disappointed with the less-ambitious projects he was stuck on afterward.
We're still not clear on how or why the bankruptcy happened. Theoretically it was tied to the Rankin/Bass service work drying up, since it seems like The Flight of Dragons, produced from 1981 to 1982, may have been the last of those. Not sure, though. It's something we hope to uncover in the future.
Wonderful article! I honestly only knew the broad strokes about how Rankin-Bass operated, and I appreciate knowing the context to what made this film hit so different. I'm so glad Beagle liked the film in the end.
Also fascinating to know this is what Topcraft did right before Nausicaa. Who knows what they'd have gone on to make if Miyazaki and his gang hadn't swooped in...
Thank you so much! This piece was a serious challenge (one of the biggest of 2023 for us) and it's awesome to hear that it turned out.
Regarding the Topcraft/Miyazaki connection, we found a surprisingly tangled story there during the research phase. Most histories treat Topcraft and Ghibli as basically the same company, but it really seems like Topcraft went bankrupt and dissolved after Nausica├д, and Ghibli only had a minor amount of continuity with it. Nausica├д was Topcraft's big break, a watershed for the industry and one of the very few Topcraft projects to actually screen in Japan. Hidekazu Ohara, for one, had fond memories of animating for Miyazaki and was disappointed with the less-ambitious projects he was stuck on afterward.
We're still not clear on how or why the bankruptcy happened. Theoretically it was tied to the Rankin/Bass service work drying up, since it seems like The Flight of Dragons, produced from 1981 to 1982, may have been the last of those. Not sure, though. It's something we hope to uncover in the future.