Isao Takahata (高畑 勲)
Filed under: People, Director, Producer, Screenwriter, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, 2010s, Anime, Color, Isao Takahata, Japan, Studio Ghibli, Technicolor,
Full Name:Isao Takahata
Occupation / Title:Director, Producer, Screenwriter
Date of birth:10/29/1935
Date of death:04/05/2018
Birthplace:Ise, Japan
Associated studios:List based on Takahata’s employment history in chronological order:
1959-1971 Toei Animation Studio (東映アニメーション株式会社)
1971-1981 A Studio & Zuiyo Enterprise/Nippon Animation (ズイヨー映像 later regrouped as 日本アニメーション株式会社)
1981-1985 Telecom Animation Film Co. (株式会社テレコム・アニメーションフィルム)
1985-2018: Studio Ghibli (株式会社スタジオジブリ)
Biography
Isao Takahata (高畑 勲, 1935-2018) is a Japanese, director, screenwriter and producer. He is the co-founder of Studio Ghibli alongside his lifetime friend Hayao Miyazaki (宮崎駿).
Takahata was born in Ise and grew up in Okayama where his house was blown up by the American bombers in 1945. Childhood trauma concerning the bombing heavily affected Takahata who eventually created his most renowned work Grave of the Fireflies as being partially self-reflexive (“Isao Takahata”). He entered University of Toronto and majored in French Literature, during which the French animation Le roi et l’oiseau (The King and the Mockingbird) sparked his interest in animation (et al.).
After graduation in 1959, Takahata joined Toei Animation Studio, first serving as an assistant director of Little Prince and Eight-Headed Dragon (わんぱく王子の大蛇退治)(1963), and later directed Ken the Wolf Boy (狼少年ケン) from 1963 to 1965 when he met and became friends with Miyazaki (et al.). As Takahata was impressed by Miyazaki’s talent, the two co-worked on Takahata’s feature film directorial debut The Little Norse Prince (太陽の王子 ホルスの大冒険)(1968) (Dudok de Wit 17-18). In the following years, the two engaged in numerous collaborations with either one being the producer and the other being the director.
In 1971, Takahata left Toei and joined A Studio where he directed Panda! Go Panda! (パンダ・コパンダ)(1972), and later joined Zuiyo Enterprises aka Nippon Animation to direct Heidi, a Girl of the Alps (1974) and Anne of Green Gables (1979) (“Isao Takahata”).
In 1981, Takahata joined Telecom Animation Film Co. where he directed Chie the brat (じゃりン子チエ)(1981) and Gauche the Cellist (セロ弾きのゴーシュ)(1982) and helped produce Miyazaki’s Nausicaâ of the Valley of the Wind (風の谷のナウシカ)(1984). Realizing their rising reputation and capability of making animation independently, Takahata and Miyazaki co-founded Studio Ghibli in 1985, although Takahata did not sign his name on the official paperwork due to his belief in artists staying in plain sight (Dudok de Wit 16).
As Takahata and Miyazaki founded their own studio, Takahata produced Miyazaki’s Castle in the Sky (天空の城ラピュタ)(1986), directed his most renown work Grave of the Fireflies (火垂るの墓) in 1988, Only Yesterday (おもひでぽろぽろ)(1991), Pom Poko (平成狸合戦ぽんぽこ)(1994), and The Tale of Princess Kaguya (かぐや姫の物語)(2013), an experimental animation which won nomination as the Best Animated Feature of Academy Award (“Isao Takahata”). Most of his works during this period has a neorealistic outlook of which he addresses seemingly mundane lives of ordinary people with a humanist treatment (Hu 105).
Takahata was diagnosed with lung cancer in 2017 and died in 2018.
References:
Dudok de Wit, Alex. Grave of the Fireflies. British Film Institute, 2021.
Hu, Tze-yue Gigi. “A Towering Presence and Spirit in Japan’s Postwar Animation: Isao Takahata (1935-2018).” The Japanese Journal of Animation Studies, vol. 21, no. 1, 2020, pp. 101–09, https://doi.org/10.34370/jjas.21.1_101.
“Isao Takahata.” Encyclopedia of World Biography Online, 2019.