There’s bother in anime paradise, as studies from Japanese gossip and leisure journal Shukan Josei has confirmed Studio Ghibli President Koji Hoshino is leaving the long-lasting animation home. His exit appears to be tied to an unfolding scandal involving studio co-founder Toshio Suzuki (Spirited Away, The Wind Rises).
As summarized in a sequence of Tweets by French anime journalist Ludovic Gottigny, the producer has stirred discontent at Ghibli for allegedly bestowing skilled favors on a youthful Thai girl. The chastisements towards Suzuki say that he met the girl in 2013 and thereafter gifted her “massive sums of cash” to open a spa and restaurant, each of which have since liquidated. In 2018, Suzuki allegedly put her in control of a Ghibli-backed Bangkok restaurant. Later, he employed her as an official photographer for the studio, regardless of worker complaints about her lack of expertise.
In response to Shukan Josei, Hoshino tried to reprimand Suzuki for his favors to the girl, and hints that the founding exec pressured his successor to resign. Hoshino took over for Suzuki as President in 2008, having beforehand served as President after which Chairman of Walt Disney Japan for the final seven of his 17-year profession with the corporate.
This doubtlessly risqué scandal for the family-focused anime studio follows social media uproar earlier this month, when involved followers flagged pictures shared by visitors on the just lately opened Ghibli Park in Japan posing in an inappropriate, sexually aggressive method with statues of underage characters Marnie (When Marnie Was There) and Therru (Tales from Earthsea).
Equally to the much-criticized lack of response from Bob Chapek’s Disney throughout the “Don’t Say Homosexual” invoice marketing campaign in Florida, Ghibli’s lack of response to the difficulty sparked additional condemnation and even earned a rebuke from the governor of Aichi prefecture, Hideaki Omura. “Ghibli Park is a spot for adults and kids to have enjoyable whereas experiencing Ghibli movies,” Omura mentioned in a mid-March press convention. “I don’t need individuals who do issues that many discover offensive to return to the park.”
Studio Ghibli is busily anticipating the July 14 Japanese launch of its newest characteristic, How Do You Dwell?, written and directed by Oscar-winning studio co-founder Hayao Miyazaki and produced by Suzuki. The movie is an adaptation of the 1937 novel How Do You Dwell? (Kimi-tachi wa Dou Ikuru ka), which relates the up and downs of rising up for a highschool boy referred to as “Koperu” (after the astronomer Nicholas Copernicus), chronicled in his uncle’s diary.
[Source: Shukan Josei via ComicBook.com]
