Isao Takahata

Isao Takahata was a Japanese director, screenwriter, producer and one of the founders of Studio Ghibli. Takahata earned international critical acclaim for his work as a director of anime films such as, Grave of the Fireflies, Only Yesterday, Pom Poko, My Neighbors the Yamadas and The Tale of the Princess Kaguya.

Takahata graduated from the University of Tokyo in 1959 with a degree in French literature. Around this time he had seen the French film The King and the Mockingbird, which led him to become interested in animation as a medium. A friend suggested for him to apply for a directing job at Toei Animation; Takahata passed their entrance exam, and was hired as an assistant director for several of Toei's works, including Wolf Boy Ken, on which he was mentored by Yasuo Ootsuka. Ootsuka eventually asked Takahata to direct a film of his own, thus he made his directorial debut in 1968 with the film The Great Adventure of Horus, Prince of the Sun. A Toei employee named Hayao Miyazaki served as a key animator in the film. Though it would later be recognized as one of the first defining works of modern Japanese animation, the film was a commercial failure, and Takahata was demoted.

Unable to further improve his standing at Toei, Takahata left the studio in 1971, along with Miyazaki and Youichi Kotabe. Takahata and Miyazaki came up with the idea of creating an animated feature film based on the stories of Pippi Longstocking, and the duo had developed a number of storyboards and had flown out to Sweden for location shots and to meet with the books' author, Astrid Lindgren, and secure the rights for the character. However, they could not reach an agreement and were forced to drop the project. Takahata and Miyazaki remained collaborators in several other animation projects through the 1970s, including taking over production of the anime series Lupin the Third.

Not long afterwards, Takahata, Kotabe, and Miyazaki were approached by the studio Zuiyo to create an animated series based on the novel Heidi, which resulted in Heidi, Girl of the Alps. Zuiyo later became Nippon Animation, which Takahata and Miyazaki joined. Takahata's work there included a World Masterpiece Theater adaptation of Anne of Green Gables. Nearly a decade later around 1981, Takahata left Nippon to join Telecom Animation Film.

Concurrent to these events, Miyazaki had made his own directorial debut in the Lupin III feature film The Castle of Cagliostro in 1979, which was a critical success. Inspired by this, Miyazaki then began developing his own manga, Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, and directing its 1984 film adaption, which also was commercially and critically successful. Miyazaki then approached Takahata with the idea of co-founding their own animation studio based on the success of Nausicaä. And thus, Studio Ghibli was formed in 1985 by Miyazaki, Takahata, and Miyazaki's collaborators Toshio Suzuki and Yasuyoshi Tokuma.

The studio primarily released animated feature films that were directed by Miyazaki, with Takahata serving as producer or in other roles. Takahata also directed several Studio Ghibli films himself. His first, Grave of the Fireflies, released in 1988, was based on the semi-autobiographical short story of the same name written by Akiyuki Nosaka. Takahata was also partially inspired by his own experiences from the bombing of Okayama City, which he and his family had survived through back in 1945. The film received critical acclaim for its emotional impact and anti-war themes and is considered the film that established the international esteem of Studio Ghibli. Takahata went on to direct four more Ghibli films throughout his career. He was nominated for an Oscar in the category of Best Animated Feature Film at the 87th Academy Awards for The Tale of the Princess Kaguya.

Takahata had been diagnosed with lung cancer, and died on April 5, 2018, at a hospital in Tokyo, at the age of 82. On May 15, 2018, a farewell ceremony for Takahata was held at the Ghibli Museum in Tokyo. Hayao Miyazaki publicly spoke for the first time about Takahata's death, saying "I was convinced that Paku-san [Takahata's nickname] would live to be 95 years old, but he unfortunately passed away. It makes me think my time is also limited... Thank you, Paku-san."

(Source: Wikipedia)