Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!
“Whispers of the imminent demise of highly influential Japanese animation production company Studio Ghibli have now been validated, with the studio’s general manager, Toshio Suzuki, announcing on Japanese television this morning that the studio will officially shut down and use its scaled back human resources to manage trademarks tied to its existing back catalogue of films and cease making new ones.
“The team behind some of the most inspired animated films of all time including Spirited Away, My Neighbour Totoro, Princess Mononoke and Howl’s Moving Castle were forced to make the decision after its more recent films struggled to turn a profit at the box office.
“The studio’s lacklustre recent performance inextricably tied to the retirement of studio co-founder, creative lifeblood and amateur ramen chef, Hayao Miyazaki, who officially retired last year.
