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Founded in June 1985, Studio Ghibli is headed by the directors Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata and the producer Toshio Suzuki. Prior to the formation of the studio, Miyazaki and Takahata had already had long careers in Japanese film and television animation and had worked together on Hols: Prince of the Sun and Panda! Go, Panda!; and Suzuki was an editor at Tokuma Shoten's Animage magazine.

The studio was founded after the success of the 1984 film Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, written and directed by Miyazaki for Topcraft and distributed by Toei Company. The origins of the film lie in the first two volumes of a serialized manga written by Miyazaki for publication in Animage as a way of generating interest in an anime version. Suzuki was part of the production team on the film and founded Studio Ghibli with Miyazaki, who also invited Takahata to join the new studio.

The studio has mainly produced films by Miyazaki, with the second most prolific director being Takahata (most notably with Grave of the Fireflies). Other directors who have worked with Studio Ghibli include Yoshifumi Kondo, Hiroyuki Morita, Gorō Miyazaki, and Hiromasa Yonebayashi. Composer Joe Hisaishi has provided the soundtracks for most of Miyazaki's Studio Ghibli films. In their book Anime Classics Zettai!, Brian Camp and Julie Davis made note of Michiyo Yasuda as "a mainstay of Studio Ghibli’s extraordinary design and production team".

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Katsuya Kondō (近藤 勝也, Kondō Katsuya, born June 2, 1963 in Ehime Prefecture, Japan) is a Japanese manga artist, character designer, animator and animation director. He is best known for his character design work on the Studio Ghibli films Kiki's Delivery Service and Ocean Waves, as well as the PlayStation game Jade Cocoon. His character designs are considered the epitome of the Studio Ghibli style.

After graduating from high school, he began working for Osamu Dezaki and Akio Sugino at their Studio Annapuru. Under the direction of Shinji Ōtsuka, Kondō worked as a key animator of the TV anime series Cat's Eye. He then worked as a free agent on such shows as The Mighty Orbots, Rainbow Brite and Disney's Adventures of the Gummi Bears. His first work with Studio Ghibli was as a key animator on Castle in the Sky. After working on the Gainax film The Wings of Honneamise and the OVAs Devilman and Meikyū Bukken File 538, Kondō began to be known for the high quality of his work.

Kondō collaborated with Ken'ichi Sakemi on a manga retelling of the Joan of Arc story, as well as doing the character designs for the Jade Cocoon video game series. He also collaborated with Sakemi by creating the character designs for the 1990 NTV TV movie Like the Clouds, Like the Wind (based on Sakemi's novel Kōkyū Monogatari), which tells the story of a young country girl who is chosen to become one of the Emperor's concubines. He also worked with Tomomi Mochizuki on the NHK Minna no Uta music video titled Kaze no Tōri Michi, produced by Ajia-do Animation Works for Sayuri Horishita. In 2007, he was announced as the supervising animator of the Studio Ghibli film Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea. He also wrote the lyrics for the film's theme song.

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Title of film in Japanese
Kiki's Delivery Service (魔女の宅急便, Majo no Takkyūbin, "Witch's Delivery Service") is a 1989 Japanese animated fantasy film produced by Studio Ghibli. It was written, produced and directed by Hayao Miyazaki as an adaptation of the 1985 novel of the same name by Eiko Kadono. The film features the voices of Minami Takayama, Rei Sakuma and Kappei Yamaguchi, and tells the story of a young witch, Kiki (Takayama), as she moves to a town with her talking black cat, using her flying ability to earn a living. According to Miyazaki, the movie touches on the gulf between independence and reliance in teenage Japanese girls.

Kiki's Delivery Service was released in Japan on July 29, 1989, and won the Animage Anime Grand Prix prize. It was the first Studio Ghibli film released under the distribution partnership between The Walt Disney Company and Studio Ghibli; Walt Disney Pictures recorded an English dub in 1997, which premiered theatrically in the United States at the Seattle International Film Festival on May 23, 1998. The film was released on home video in the U.S. and Canada on September 1, 1998. It received very positive reviews from critics worldwide.

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Ni no Kuni (二ノ国, literally Second Country, also called The Another World) is a role-playing video game, developed by Level-5 for the Nintendo DS and later the PlayStation 3. The Nintendo DS version, titled Ni no Kuni: Dominion of the Dark Djinn (二ノ国 漆黒の魔導士, Ni no Kuni: Shikkoku no Madōshi, literally Second Country: The Jet-Black Mage), was released on December 9, 2010, while the PlayStation 3 version, titled Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch (二ノ国 白き聖灰の女王, Ni no Kuni: Shiroki Seihai no Joō, literally Second Country: The Queen of White Sacred Ash), was released in Japan on November 17, 2011, with a Western release on January 22, 2013.

Both versions of the game (DS and PS3) were critically acclaimed, with many critics praising its graphic design and its unique gameplay which combines traditional Japanese RPG combat with more fast-paced Western RPG combat. The game won multiple "Best RPG" awards, with the DS version getting slightly better reviews than its PlayStation 3 counterpart.

The North American and European PlayStation 3 versions are published by Namco Bandai Games and include both English and Japanese voice tracks. Due to problems in translating and distributing the magic book outside of Japan, the Nintendo DS version was not localized. Despite this, a collector's edition of the PlayStation 3 version that contains the translated book was released alongside the standard edition.

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Photo showing Aeon Cinema Rinkū Sennan. The interior shows large panels displaying the history of Studio Ghibli works.
Photo showing Aeon Cinema Rinkū Sennan. The interior shows large panels displaying the history of Studio Ghibli works.
Credit: Tokumeigakarinoaoshima

Photo showing Aeon Cinema Rinkū Sennan. The interior shows large panels displaying the history of Studio Ghibli works.

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