Nissan Seminar: “Animation, Animism and Auras: How Disney and Ghibli Changed the World” (2022年2月10日)

© Disney/Hasbro

It began and ended with a mass-marked plastic toy: Elsa, queen-turned-goddess, and a kelpie-like avatar of water called Brokk, as featured in the Disney-Pixar Frozen 2.

Held online, Dr. Linda Forrest introduced the speaker, Dr. Susan Napier, an academic with an impressive collection of accolades. According to the event page, she is ‘Goldthwaite Professor of Rhetoric and Japanese at Tufts University. Previously she held the Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Chair at the University of Texas. She has also taught at the University of London and been a visiting professor at Harvard, University of Pennsylvania, the University of Sydney and a visiting scholar at Keio University in Tokyo. At Tufts she teaches a variety of courses including a seminar on Miyazaki Hayao, a cross cultural examination of apocalyptic and post- apocalyptic films, and a cross cultural comparison of Walt Disney Studios and Studio Ghibli. She is the author of many articles and five books, the most recent of which is Miyazakiworld: A Life in Art, published in 2018 by Yale University Press. The book has been translated into ten languages.’

Entitled ‘Animation, Animism and Auras: How Disney and Ghibli Changed the World’, Dr. Napier began the lecture with a demonstration. She showed a figurine of a horse and a girl, revealed to be Queen Elsa from Frozen 2 with the horse-like ice elemental, Nokk. She explained it was based on a creature found in Scandinavian myth, as well as in the Scottish kelpie, who could be both malevolent or benevolent.

She began by explaining the concept of an ‘aura’, which in this context was giving meaning to an object, be they custom or mass-produced. This included photography, film and, of course, animation. She examined the ideas of anthropomorphism and animism.

Explaining this concept, she quoted the Cambridge Encyclopedia of Anthropology. She then explained that animism sometimes has darker undertones but is often applied in relation to Shinto, but with slight implications that it is lesser in terms of other belief systems.

Dr. Napier examined Disney briefly, then Studio Ghibli, arguing that Disney is a distinctly American utopian example with a binary vision of good and evil. Ghibli , on the other hand, is distinctly Japanese but also has an awareness of culture and didactic vision of worlds which are morally and emotionally complicated.

She then moved onto the environmental aspects as seen through the lens of both studios. She began with the belief that Disney was x and Ghibli was y. She cited Disney’s 1991 movie Beauty and the Beast as well as exploring the limits of humanity, the transformation of people into other, such as cyborgs or inhuman items, like the characters in the movie.

Dr. Napier then examined Ghibli, citing the tanuki-centric Pom Poko (1994). She explained they take various forms to cause chaos and hijinks, even death. However the film itself has two endings, either the tanuki vanish into a state similar to death or they take on human form, only to meet kin who are also pretending to belong in a human world.

She then moved on to discuss Bambi and his forest friends and Nausicaä and the Ohmu before shifting the focus to Ghibli.

Focusing on silence, she discussed Princess Mononoke and Ashitaka’s meeting with the Shishigami, the daytime form of a kami which, at night, becomes the Daitarabochi. Dr. Napier then concluded with a discussion of fan-favourite Totoro, who is the ‘adult’ form of the last kodama to appear in Princess Mononoke. Totoro is an alien creature who cannot speak, other than to make vocalisations, however Totoro also suggests, thanks to his ‘fuzzy allusion’, comfort and protection.

Dr. Napier took the example of a Totoro plush toy, something mass-produced and owned by most fans of Studio Ghibli, and how it is an example of aura, as well as an item of transition and healing. The otherness of Totoro is part of his connection and allure; he offers glimpse to a more in-connected world.

Finally, she returned back to Disney with Frozen 2, and Elsa’s encounter with Nokk in the final act of the film, suggesting that as Totoro became a talisman, so perhaps it is possible for Disney’s creations, such as the elementals of Frozen lore, to also garner this particular honor as well.

Following the lecture there was a short Q and A. Unfortunately, the talk is not available online.