Category: Other

It has been 6 years since the release of the last film from Studio Ghibli “When Marnie Was There”. You’d think the announcement of a new film from the legendary studio would be cause for celebration. However, when I heard the announcement of “Earwig and the Witch“, my excitement was tempered once I saw the screenshots. Earwig and the Witch is going to be Studio Ghibli’s first CG film and I couldn’t help but feel disappointed. I’ve spoken before of the anime industry’s effort to create CG animation but I think another important question is “Why are CG animated films so prevalent now?”

It wasn’t too long ago when it seemed that American animation was close to dying. Disney’s animation division had been struggling throughout the late 70s and early 80s with the loss of Don Bluth who left Disney to set up his own animation studio. Even Ralph Bakshi was suffering as his 1983 film “Fire and Ice” was a box office flop which pretty much ended his career.

I recently started watching a series called Gankutsuou, an anime series that adapts Alexandre Dumas’ The Count of Monte Cristo and features a bizarre but wonderful mix of classical and rock music as well as a very distinct art style. However, while I knew beforehand that it was an adaptation of The Count of Monte Cristo, I did not know until I started watching the show that it was set in the far future and incorporates sci-fi themes. This fascinated me and made me think of other adaptations of classic literature with a twist.

One of my first thoughts while thinking about the subject was the anime Romeo x Juliet, an adaptation of William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. Rather than tell the same story like so many other adaptations have, Romeo x Juliet is set on a floating island called “Neo Verona” and actually begins with a massacre of the Capulet family by the Montagues. This setting and bold reimagining of the beginning made me wonder how the story would progress and gave the series a refreshing feel.