Lots going on at the house of Totoro this week – first off is an excellent and insightful interview with Ghibli animator and art director Kosaka Kitaro (Royal Space Force: The Wings of Honneamise, Akira, Spirited Away and Ponyo on a Cliff by the Sea among many, many others) over at Ghibli World. Here’s a tasty extract:

In fact, it is evident how Miyazaki’s films, notwithstanding their highly imaginative stories, tend to present characters which are deeply human in their behavior and sensibility…

I believe that the fantasy elements, which are so evident in the latest Ghibli productions, have a meaning which is deeper than what may superficially appear. That is to say, I do not think that Miyazaki’s stories have to be considered as simple flights from the real world of everyday problems. On the contrary, I think that Ghibli fantasies are a form of criticism of the human intellect. A criticism that works in the way of a negation. The contemporary society is something familiar to us, and we are used to its positive or frightening aspects. Ghibli films allow a critical separation from this context, because they show the world we passively live in from a whole new perspective. For example, we may have lost interest in blades of grass: however, I hope that someone, after having seen blades of grass in a Ghibli film, moving and transfigured by the detailed stylization of the drawings, will find a new pleasure in looking carefully when passing by a real meadow.

Also over at Ghibli World, news that VIZ Media is translating and releasing Miyazaki’s book Shuppatsu Ten 1979-1996 (Starting Point: 1979-1996) in the west. From the site:

Shuppatsu Ten includes about 90 essays, talks, lectures, movie plans and texts that were contributed to various newspapers, magazines and other publications from 1979 to 1996. During the last 13 years of those, his most active period, Miyazaki Hayao established Studio Ghibli and directed & produced 10 masterpiece films: Nausicaa, Laputa, Totoro, Kiki, Only Yesterday, Porco, Pompoko, Whisper and Mononoke. Miyazaki tells many episodes around these films and insider anecdotes on Japan’s animation industry. And… every one of them is interesting.

It’s out in June, to coincide with the Ponyo theatrical launch – GW has more details, along with an interview with VIZ editor Nick Mamatas.

And finally, following on from my recent review of the excellent Kazuo Oga Blu-ray, is news of a further documentary release: Ghibli no Fūkei: Miyazaki Sakuhin ga Kaita Nihon/Miyazaki Sakuhin to Deau Europa no Tabi (Ghibli’s Scenery: The Japan Depicted by Miyazaki’s Works/A Trip of the Europe Encountered in Miyazaki’s Works). According to Anime News Network, it features:

..two television documentaries about the real-life locales that inspired the movies of studio co-founder Hayao Miyazaki. In the 2008 Miyazaki Sakuhin ga Kaita Nihon documentary which ran on the BS NTV satellite channel, actress Mayu Tsuruta visited the Japanese sites of yesteryear that informed the artwork in My Neighbor Totoro, Spirited Away, and Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea.

In 2006′s Miyazaki Sakuhin to Deau Europa no Tabi documentary from the same channel and upcoming home video release, actress Yui Natsukawa (Gedo Senki, Onmyoji) visited Stockholm and Gotland, two locales in Sweden which served as the model for the fictional town of Koriko in Miyazaki’s Kiki’s Delivery Service film. In addition, actor Tetta Sugimoto (Higurashi no Naku Koro ni, Mei-chan no Shitsuji) travels to the French region of Alsace to “find” the hometown of the heroine Sophie from Howl’s Moving Castle.

Sounds like yet another essential – though probably expensive – purchase, judging by the quality of the Oga-san BR, and one I might see if I can pick up next time I’m over there. It’s good to see Ghibli taking the format seriously, though still no word on when we can expect releases of their actual back catalog…

Here we go – the final set of art books I picked up in Tokyo, and by far my favourite purchases from there.

Patlabor has been my mecha franchise of choice ever since I first saw Oshii‘s beautifully paced, politically complex movies, and when I stumbled across this Patlabor 3D Show book in Mandarake Complex I started to silently freak out. It wasn’t until I got it back to the apartment and looked at it properly that I realised it was actually the third of a three volume set, and it suddenly became my primary mission to see if I could track down the other two volumes. I didn’t hold up much hope, considering their age (they were first published between 1990-1993, and were now all out of print), but I shouldn’t have bet against Mandarake Shibuya and their huge achieve of second hand stock.

All three were special editions published by the famous model enthusiasts’ magazine Hobby Japan, and feature dioramas depicting scenes from the films, TV series and manga, built from then widely available (but at times heavily modified) commercial model kits. What makes them special is not just the quality of the kits’ assembly and paint jobs, but also the fantastic photography that’s been employed to capture them. It’s clear that some of Hobby Japan’s best staff have been involved in putting all three volumes together.

While the third volume is in a slightly larger, more expensive feeling, format and is made up almost entirely of photographs, the first two also have extensive articles on modeling/painting tips and instructions for specific kits. Although all of the text is in Japanese, there another diagrams and images to make these books useful to Patlabor fans or mecha kit hobbyists in general.

The fourth book I picked up is more conventional; the This is Animation Patlabor 2: The Movie design book. Entirely printed in black and white, it’s 128 pages of character sketches and designs for everything in the film from weapons and equipment through civilian vehicles up to the labor mechs themselves.

Of particular note are the dozens of pages of storyboards and concept artwork from the film, making this yet another fascinating read for Headgear and Oshii fans, with enough material to ensure hours of fanboy-glee pouring over them. In fact I’ve just decided: I’m going to stop writing this right now and go and pend some quality time with all four of these beautiful books.

• Too many good images to upload here, so go and check out the high-res slideshow over on Flickr.

One thing I knew for sure when I started hitting the shops in Tokyo: there was no way I was coming home without something Denno Coil related. Didn’t see anything in the way of toys, but I did grab this pretty DC artbook in a manga store in Shinjuku.

It’s the standard procedure with these anime artbooks; some nice colour prints, character designs, concept sketches, and towards the back a collection of interviews with Mitsuo Iso and other production staff. Of particular interest are a number of sketches and maps of Daikoku, the series’ fictional city setting. The use of maps in planning anime was something that I only recently came across after reading this and watching the production extras on the Tekkon Kinkreet Blu-ray, and it helps illustrate the amount of work high-quality anime studios put into making the worlds they create so immersive.

I say ‘reading’, but of course 99% of the text here is in Japanese, and given the passion I feel for this show it’s yet another strong incentive to get learning. It’s also slightly embarrassing that on logging in to post this I realised that I never got round to writing the second part of the Denno Coil review from last year. Aside from saying the rest of the show was phenomenal – in fact, possibly the greatest anime series to have aired in the last five years – I’ll see If I can remedy that in the next few days. Stay tuned.

I know a lot of people really dug the Anime Guide to Headphones image I posted up a few months ago, myself included, so I couldn’t resist picking up the book it was meant to promote when I stumbled across it in Mandarake.

Yet again – as with all these Japanese artbooks – it’s beautifully printed. Each double page spread features a page of Japanese text and diagrams about a particular brand and model of headphones opposite a large, full colour illustration of a girl modeling them.

The illustrations are by a variety of mangaka, and of amazing quality throughout. Luckily they are never quite hentai, but they do at times resort to all to familiar manga theme of objectifying, overly-stylising and sexualising teenage girls. It’s the only part of animanga culture that ever makes me feel uncomfortable – but believe me, I saw far, far worse when I was in Tokyo. Far worse.

Towards the end of the book the illustrations give way to pages and pages of Japanese text and photos, which seem to consist of interviews with the artists and some musicians – including the legendary Kenji Kawai, making this an interesting purchase for Oshii fanatics like myself. Shame I can’t understand it. Time to get back to my Japanese practice, I guess…