Some of you may have heard about this already. Studio Ghibli will be releasing Miyazaki’s next and last film this year. And that is exciting news for any fan of the studio or legendary director. But I’m not here to talk about this movie. I’m more interested in the business. That’s not even the right word, let me try to explain.
This upcoming movie is going to be titled How Do You Live? And considering that there is a fairly popular Japanese novel of the same name, it’s safe to assume that it will be an adaptation. That’s what most news outlets are going with. I’m not sure there’s been official confirmation yet but that doesn’t really matter.
How Do You Live the novel is a quiet and introspective coming-of-age story told from the point of view of a 15-year-old boy. It’s definitely the type of story that would be a good match for both Ghibli and Miyazaki and I am interested to see his take on a boy protagonist for a change.
And that’s all we know. I’m not even sure that the title of the anime and the book aren’t a coincidence. It would be surprising but still. And the reason I’m not sure and can’t tell you more is because Miyazaki declared that he would not be promoting this film in any way beyond the announcement of the title.
That’s right! That means no posters, no trailers, no commercials, and no merch. Well at least not ahead of the release. I guess there might be some commemorative t-shorts you can buy at the Ghibli museum at some point. I own so many official Totoro-branded products that it would be laughable to say the studio is against merchandising.
But still, not promoting a feature film in any way seems almost unthinkable these days, and yet… it sort of makes sense, doesn’t it?
The official reason given by Miyazaki is that he was watching a trailer for some movie and it gave away the entire plot and he thought to himself that it’s actually ruining the experience for moviegoers. He said it better and a bit more sarcastically. Miyazaki has quite a bit of bite. And I get it, totally. I understand exactly what he’s saying and this is a 100% Miyazaki move. It’s so in line with his character that when I was talking about it with a friend that hadn’t heard the news yet, she said, Of course, he would do that!
Now., I doubt my personal opinion on this matter much but for the record, I disagree a little. Yes, I do think promotional campaigns are occasionally so overbearing that I get sick of a movie before even seeing it but those are usually movies I wasn’t all that likely to go see anyways. On top of that, I’m one of those people who think that a good plot cannot be spoiled. If the execution and artistry are there, there’s no need for surprise.
(Except maybe for Chainsaw Man. Those twists and reveals are just so powerful…)
But regardless of whether extensive trailers can spoil of a movie or not, one thing is for sure, the mystery is a powerful advertisement. I have not been this excited about a new Miyazaki film in a long time. Now I need to see it even just to see what the character models are going to be like… And I’m not the only one!
Don’t go all conspiracy theorists on me, I’m not trying to insinuate that this was the ultimate goal of the promotional moratorium, and no publicity is the ultimate publicity. I’m just saying that telling people you’re not going to tell them about something is going to make them curious. The simple people like me at least.
And I do know that marketing can in fact ruin a movie-going experience but usually in my experience it’s because of unrealistic expectations rather than spoilers. You know, when a trailer makes a movie seem like a completely different genre than it actually is for instance. Jennifer’s Body was famously kneecapped by its own advertising as the studio failed to understand the messaging and intended audience.
But I don’t think that’s what Miyazaki is trying to get at here. And I haven’t read enough in-depth interviews to do any more than venture a guess. I’m thinking the issues he’s trying to resolve here are two-fold.
Rather than spoilers being the problem, I think it might be one of attention span. It’s no secret that we have gotten more impatient in general. I use to wait minutes for a single image to load on a website and I was excited about it. Now a few-second delay for a whole page to load has me sighing in annoyance. For something to hold my attention for any considerable amount of time, something has to be happening. At least a little.
And with an increasingly crowded entertainment landscape, that means any individual work is likely to get drowned in a sea of dozens of other trailers, viral tik toks, YouTube vids, or even snapchats, what a world we live in! And that kind of sucks.
It’s all well for a studio like Ghibli and a director like Miyazaki to say that they are bowing out of the rat race and simply abstaining from promoting their movie. These names are both renowned and acclaimed throughout the entire anime industry across the world. They literally don’t need any publicity. But what of the tiny little animation studios just starting out and trying to make a name for themselves in such a deeply competitive industry? Can they really take the same route? Will they end up having to hype the fact that they’re not promoting their movies or shows nonstop to make up for it?
It seems like this would be a solution not so much for the betterment of the industry in general but rather for Studio Ghibli in particular.
I’m being a little dismissive here. Sure, in an ideal world where everyone would cut back on advertisements and simply recenter the values of the industry that would most likely be a huge improvement. But I’m just not sure how realistic that is.
The second point which touches on what I just said about the values of the industry, is that a huge amount of the budget of any given movie or show goes to advertising. And this isn’t unique to anime. In fact, I would guess that anime is more reasonable than other media in that regard but I haven’t actually researched it. I just know that to promote a second season of a particular show, the production team ended up spending 2x the money they had spent on actually filming the season. And that’s including big star salaries.
The advertising didn’t double the budget it tripled it! And by the way, doubling the budget to account for marketing is the standard now…
Can you imagine what your favourite anime would have been like if it had twice the budget? Heck, imagine what a standard run-of-the-mill anime would be like with twice the budget! I’m not saying money solves everything but it rarely hurts!
I have to admit, I’m both extrapolating and projecting quite a bit here. I’m not sure Miyazaki even thought about advertising budgets when he made this decision. But I did and I have to agree, there’s something exciting about the idea of going back to simple plot synopsis and maybe a poster as your guide for choosing movies. I bet we would pay way more attention and decide more carefully! Maybe I,m wrong but in any case, it’s an exciting idea and of course, it would come from a visionary!
