Studio Ghibli & Kenji Miyazawa: Viewing Hayao Miyazaki’s animated films through the works of Kenji Miyazawa

This event will relate two Studio Ghibli films, “My Neighbor Totoro” and “From Up On Poppy Hill”, to the works of Kenji Miyazawa, a well-known Japanese children’s literature writer. “My Neighbor Totoro” has been described as “one of the most beloved of all family films without ever having been much promoted or advertised” by film critic, Roger Ebert. However, it is not well known that this movie depicts environmental issues. On the other hand, “From Up On Poppy Hill,” written by Hayao Miyazaki, is generally accepted as a romantic movie, but actually it is considered to support pacifism. This event will show how Hayao Miyazaki’s movies deal with issues that are shared globally while depicting Japanese culture and society.

Registration is now closed. We thank everyone for their interest. Rush seating MAY be available on the day of the event.

Miyuki Yonemura is a professor in the School of Letters at Senshu University, in the Department of Japanese Literature and Culture, a vice chairperson of the Japan Society for Animation Studies (JSAS), and a director of the Japan Society for Children’s Literature. Her major fields of study are the culture of animation and Japanese modern literature.

Koji Okuda was born in Hiroshima, Japan in 1959. He completed his PhD at the University of Nagoya in 2014 and is now a professor in the Faculty of Education at Aichi University of Education. His current research project is on the acceptance of Japanese culture in the colonial era for which he received a Grant-in Aid for Scientific Research.

In conjunction with these two lectures, The Japan Foundation, Toronto is co-presenting with The Revue Cinema the two anime films featured in the talks. Both films will be screening at The Revue Cinema theatre, as part of the ongoing Anime! At the Revue series sponsored by The Beguiling.

More details about the August 25th, 4:00 PM screening of My Neighbor Totoro here >

More details about the August 26th 4:00 PM screening of From Up on Poppy Hill here >