The Power of Studio Ghibli

STARTING FEB 1, Netflix will showcase the expansive catalogue of animation films by Studio Ghibli, the revered Japanese art house co-founded by Hayao Mizayaki. For Netflix, it's a smart move to help counter Disney's withdrawal of all its shows from Netflix to start its own streaming service Disney+. Though the canons of Disney (which now include Pixar) and Ghibli are each monumental in their own right, the current zeitgeist may well favour Ghibli's creations over anything Disney has ever made.

To start with, Miyazaki empowers his female characters beyond anything we've ever seen in animation. In the last decade, Hollywood cinema finally put women front and center of action blockbusters, with tentpoles such as The Hunger Games (2012), Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015), Wonder Woman (2017) and Captain Marvel (2019). But Miyazaki has been conjuring women as fearless heroines saving the world as early as 1984 with his first film, Nausicaa Of The Valley Of The Wind.

Nausicaa is a princess of a clan that lives in a safe sunny valley surrounded by dangerously toxic jungles. Not only is she a trained pilot and fighter, she's also a brilliant scientist determined to cure Mother Nature of her ailments. Like in other Miyazaki films, previous human generations have made a mess of the world - and it's up to the current generation to reverse it. Simultaneously, Nausicaa must lead her clan in battling dangerous and powerful enemies with more firepower than they have.