Familiar voice provides narration for reminder that there’s something special about the in-theater experience.
Studio Ghibli was one of the last anime studios to allow for digital distribution of their creations, and to this day they’re big champions of the in-cinema experience, with both the Ghibli Museum in Tokyo and Ghibli Park in Aichi Prefecture having their own screening rooms on the premises. So with a new movie theater about to open in one of Japan’s biggest anime culture neighborhoods, Ghibli has produced a short video message featuring art from Hayao Miyazaki to celebrate the joy of not just watching movies, but going to the movies.
“Stories have always been born at the movie theater,” says the narrator as a series of charming sketches of iconic Ghibli characters, ranging across the studio’s filmography from Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind through to The Boy and the Heron appear within film strip-framing. “A new movie theater is born in the city of Nagoya,” the narrator continues, announcing the opening of the Toho Cinemas Sakae branch, in the primary anime district of the largest city near Ghibli Park. Toho has served as the theatrical distributor for almost all of Ghibli’s anime in Japan, and all of them since 2001’s Spirited Away.
If you’re a Ghibli fan who’s thinking you’ve heard that voice before, it’s because that’s Noriko Hidaka, the voice of My Neighbor Totoro’s Satsuki, providing the narration. One of the anime industry’s all-time great talents, the 63-year-old Hidaka is still an active member of the industry, currently reprising her role as Akane Tendo in the new Ranma 1/2 anime.
While the video was created to commemorate the opening of the Sakae branch of Toho Cinemas, which is happening on June 11, posters featuring the Miyazaki artwork will be on display in the chain’s theaters nationwide from April 11, and a limited number of leaflet-size versions of it will be given out free to guests starting April 24. The above video will also play at the start of screenings starting April 10.
Source: Toho Cinemas
Top image: YouTube/TOHOシネマズ公式チャンネル
Insert images: YouTube/TOHOシネマズ公式チャンネル, Toho Cinemas
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