Production
After the success of Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, attention immediately turned to another collaboration between Miyazaki as director and Takahata and Suzuki as producers. Tokuma Shoten, the production company behind Nausicaä, had originally pushed for a sequel to the film but Miyazaki resisted, citing tiredness and frustration with the project.[4] Miyazaki was inspired to work on another project by an old childhood visit to Minamata Bay on the west coast of Kyushu, whose waters had been polluted by various chemical toxins and resulted in the local population feeling unwell.
Miyazaki traveled to Yanagawa – the “Venice of the East” - in order to find inspiration for his next animated feature film along with lifelong collaborator Takahata. Miyazaki had considered the tranquil setting of Yanagawa suitable for a story about young school children and man's relationship with the natural world, similar to his previous work.[3]
Takahata was enlisted to serve as a location scout for the project and spent the months following his arrival exploring not only the waterways themselves via donkobune (narrow riverboats) but also the surrounding areas and people to whom the canal was a sense of unity and civic pride. When Takahata met Tsutae Hiromatsu, the head of water supply in the region, he decided to focus his attention on making a documentary about the community's efforts to preserve the waterways, dropping the animated aspects almost entirely.
Returning to Tokyo, Takahata agreed with Miyazaki and Suzuki on a budget of ¥30 million (half the profits of Nausicaä) to make the film. The film was produced by Hayao Miyazaki's personal office Nibariki,[5] with Miyazaki himself contributing to the film's animated sequences depicting life prior to the modern age.[6] The film used a combination of stop motion, aerial photography and traditional animation.[7] Takahata went over the film's budget, and it had to be completed using Miyazaki's personal savings.[8]
A deadline of one year was agreed upon, however, the production took three years to complete, going both over budget and over the agreed deadline. Takahata felt it necessary to return to Yanagawa multiple times in order to authentically portray both the living culture of the canal and the struggle of the people to fight against the efforts of the local authority to abandon the canal and waterways to pollution and disuse.
The film going over budget and the increasing prospect of it not making a return on investment prompted Miyazaki to begin working on what would eventually become Laputa: Castle in the Sky in order to cover the cost of Takahata's production, a mutually beneficial relationship which would continue throughout the rest of their time together. As Studio Ghibli producer Toshio Suzuki later remarked, "If Takahata had made his movie on schedule, Laputa wouldn't have been born."[6]
