This weekend we heard the sad news that Studio Ghibli may be shutting down — or at the very least pausing production and reorganizing — in light of Hayao Miyazaki’s retirement. Now Japanese news site ZakZak (via Kotaku) is reporting entertainment company Dwango is set to purchase Studio Ghibli and keep the animators on staff. Says Kotaku:
Nobuo Kawakami, Dwango’s chairman, previously worked at Studio Ghibli. What’s more. Studio Ghibli is teaming up with Dwango for Ronja the Robber’s Daughter, its upcoming television anime.
Several sources tell ZakZak that under the plan, Dwango will take over Studio Ghibli, including the studio’s staff. This apparently doesn’t include only Studio Ghibli animators, but also its copyright business.
Dwango runs a popular video-sharing site in Japan and owns the game developer Spike Chunsoft. In October, they’ll also be merging with Kadokawa, owners of the Dark Souls game franchise among other things.
Would it be completely unethical to start saying this means we’ll be getting another video game like Ni no Kuni? Because we want that to happen.
Those are GIFs taken from a video game, by the way. So pretty.