After reading Jason Thompson’s excellent review of Hayao Miyazaki’s Nausicaä manga, I was inspired to watch this YouTube video on “The Birth of Studio Ghibli,” which was apparently a feature on the Nausicaä DVD. It’s definitely a must-watch for anyone interested in Studio Ghibli, not least because it explains how the name “Studio Ghibli” (mistakenly) came about, shows how Hideaki Anno became involved in Princess Mononoke, and also reveals why Hayao Miyazaki once spent a day in the field looking at women’s skirts.

In this documentary, Studio Ghibli Producer Toshio Suzuki explained how the Nausicaä manga came to be. Apparently when Suzuki had tried to pitch the concept of Nausicaä to different studios, he was flat out rejected as the producers couldn’t see the point of making a feature film without a manga to support the promotion. Suzuki then decided that if the producers wouldn’t let Miyazaki make the film without a source manga, Miyazaki would have to create that manga. As a result, the Nausicaä manga was published in 1982 and became the most popular feature in Animage one year later. The success of the Nausicaä manga paved the way for the production of the Nausicaä film that so many know and love, and the film was released in 1984. This sequence starts at the 5:50 mark in part 1 of the documentary on YouTube, and is definitely worth checking out in tandem with Jason Thompson’s column on the Nausicaä manga!