Studio Ghibli to take on the works of Yoshie Hotta?

by Chris MaGee

Okay, I hear you now, "Yoshie who???" I'm with you on this one, folks, that's why I didn't write something up about this sooner. A couple of days ago when I read the speculation over at Ghibli World about whether or not Studio Ghibli and Goro Miyazaki were going to tackle the works of Japanese novelist Yoshie Hotta I had to do a bit of research. Currently the home studio of Hayao and son Goro Miyazaki are involved in running an exhibition marking the tenth anniversary of the death of prize-winning author at the Kanagawa Museum of Modern Literature in Yokohama called "Yoshie Hotta: Troubled Times Drawn by Ghibli," which is what got all these rumours started... but who's Yoshie Hotta?

While he may not be a household name in North America like a Haruki Murakami, Yukio Mishima or even Yasunari Kawabata, Hatto (1918-1998) is one of the most respected voices of the 20th century in his home country. He was the recipient of the Akutagawa Prize, the most prestigious literary award in Japan and his 1963 novel "Judgment", the story of the friendship between a guilt-ridden American pilot who took part in the bombing of both Hiroshima and Nagasaki and a Japanese soldier responsible for atrocities in Manchuria, was translated into many languages, including English. Hayao Miyazaki has been quoted as saying that, "Hotta was like a rock towering in the ocean for me. When I was drifted by tide and lost my location, I was saved by him many times."

The exhibit at the Kanagawa Museum of Modern Literature features drawings both by Hayao and Goro Miyazaki, the latter having considered adapting Hatto's stories "Hojoki Shiki" and "Teika Meigetsuki Shisho" into an animated feature (the drawing above by Goro gives us an idea of what this might look like), but again he's just considered this. It's a bit premature to say that this will be a new project for Studio Ghibli.

Just as an interesting aside, fans of kaiju monster films may have heard the name Yoshie Hotta before. Along with authors Shinichiro Nakamura and Takehiko Fukunaga he co-wrote a serialized novel titled "The Luminous Fairies and Mothra" that appeared in Weekly Asahi magazine in 1961. That novel went on to be adapted by director Ishiro Honda into... you've got it... "Mothra".