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Animator, Studio Ghibli co-founder Takahata dies at 82
Isao Takahata, a Japanese animated film director who co-founded Studio Ghibli and is known for his award-winning Grave of the Fireflies, has died at a Tokyo hospital.
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This file picture taken on April 7, 2015 shows Japanese animation movie director Isao Takahata as he received the 'Officier of L'Ordre des Arts et des Letters' from the French ambassador to Japan in Tokyo. Takahata, who co-founded the Studio Ghibli and was best known for his work 'Grave of the Fireflies', has died aged 82, the studio said on April 6, 2018. (JIJI PRESS/AFP/-)
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sao Takahata, a Japanese animated film director who co-founded Studio Ghibli and is known for his award-winning Grave of the Fireflies, has died at a Tokyo hospital, people close to him said Friday. He was 82.
Takahata co-founded Ghibli with renowned animator Hayao Miyazaki in 1985 and produced a number of films that earned widespread acclaim.
Grave of the Fireflies, a film based on Akiyuki Nosaka's novel of the same name, depicted the struggles of a young boy and his sister in the final months of World War II and won many accolades, including the Animation Jury Award and Rights of the Child Award at the 1994 Chicago International Children's Film Festival.
Read also: Ghibli Museum to screen new Miyazaki film ‘Boro the Caterpillar’
A native of Mie Prefecture, Takahata is also known for having produced Miyazaki's film Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind in 1984, a story about a princess involved in a war on a post-apocalyptic Earth where humankind is threatened by environmental disaster.
Takahata's animated films also include Only Yesterday, Pom Poko and My Neighbors the Yamadas.
In 2014, a year after he released The Tale of the Princess Kaguya, Takahata received an honorary award at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival in France. The following year, he was made an Officer of the French Order of Arts and Letters for his filmmaking as well as his translations of French poems into Japanese.
After graduating from the University of Tokyo, Takahata began his career at what is now called Toei Animation Co. and directed his first animated film in 1968.
