This collection, the first English-language volume to focus on Studio Ghibli films as adaptations, investigates how Hayao Miyazaki, Isao Takahata, and other Ghibli storytellers have approached the process of reimagining literary sources for animation.

Japanese animation powerhouse Studio Ghibli is renowned for its original storytelling in films such as My Neighbour Totoro (1988). However, much of the studio’s output has its origins in pre-existing novels or manga. Ghibli’s adaptation efforts have involved reinterpreting and recontextualizing Western stories for Japanese audiences, as Ponyo (2008) did for Hans Christian Andersen’s The Little Mermaid. Ghibli’s adaptations have seldom directly translated source material to animation, but instead transformed the works to incorporate themes or imagery central to the studio’s sensibilities.

The first section of the book focuses on Hayao Miyazaki’s tendency to make significant story changes to character arcs or key themes when adapting literature to animation, sometimes contradicting the original stories themselves. The second section of the book discusses Studio Ghibli cofounder Isao Takahata, whose work has received less scholarly attention than Miyazaki’s. The final part of this book explores films adapted from famous novels by European authors: Howl’s Moving Castle (2004), Ponyo (2008), and Tales from Earthsea (2006). Much Studio Ghibli’s creative output had its origins in Western texts, and the adaptation process has involved reinterpreting and recontextualizing those stories for Japanese audiences.