Every human does good and bad things in their lives, and due to their work, movie directors can’t always be good people. There are times when they involuntarily change the lives of others, and sometimes become the target of resentment. In Takahata’s case specifically, making good movies meant everything to him to the point where everything else was secondary. You could very well call it “work supremacism”. But there’s no denying that this destroyed a lot of people.
Kondō Yoshifumi, the animation director of “Grave of the Fireflies”, was one of these people. When he visited Sendai for the promotional campaign of his first and last movie as a director, “Whisper of the Heart”, he talked to me about Takahata-san that night and couldn’t stop. “Takahata-san tried to kill me. When I think of him, even now my body starts to shake.” Talking like that, he cried for two hours. After that, he fell ill and died at the age of 47. While we were waiting for his bones to be burned at the crematory, S-san, an animator and colleague who had worked with Takahata and Miyazaki since their times at Toei Dōga, said the following: “It was Paku-san who killed Kon-chan, wasn’t it?” The air froze instantly. After a little while, Takahata-san silently nodded.
If it was for the sake of a work, he did everything. As a result, he wrecked the people we had pinned our hopes on one by one. Miya-san often said: “The only staff member who survived Takahata-san was me.” This is no exaggeration; it is the truth. You may think working under Takahata will be a good learning experience – but it’s not as simple as that. You have to be prepared to be exploited, overworked until you break. “Paku-san” is the god of thunder.” That’s what Miya-san said a lot recently. When Takahata-san got angry, he was always serious. He doesn’t get angry to discipline someone or change their attitude towards work. And because he’s serious when he gets angry, he knows no mercy. He doesn’t leave a way to escape and doesn’t extend a helping hand afterwards. That’s what makes it so scary.
As Nitta Hiroshi from Shinchōsha who was involved in the production of “Grave of Fireflies” fittingly said: “Matsumoto Seichō, Shibata Renzaburō, Abe Kōbō – I have worked with many writers, but never encountered a person like [Takahata-san]. Compared to Takahata-san, they all seem normal.”
I have also met all kinds of people, but no one else like Takahata-san. No matter what the staff did for him, he never expressed gratitude. According to his way of thinking, since they were working together on something, it would have been strange for him as the director to express his gratitude. That might seem logical, but from an interpersonal perspective, he lacked feelings – his was a destructive way of thinking.
Yeah, I find it ironic that Miyazaki has this terrible reputation for being a grumpy old man yelling at clouds, all while a true evil bastard like Takahata got away with everything.
Kevin Johnson
>don't know how to draw but get to direct animated films anyway >coincidentally pair up with a guy with inhuman drawing ability and energy as your creative partner
he was too autistic to understand that not everyone has the level of skill and energy that miyazaki does
Carson Ortiz
>According to his way of thinking, since they were working together on something, it would have been strange for him as the director to express his gratitude. I also think like that.
Juan Nelson
And he has nothing to show for it. he's living in Miyazaki's shadow
Jace Kelly
Nobody likes you.
Zachary Gutierrez
What have you worked on?
Brody Turner
The Japanese work ethic is poisonous
Christopher Brooks
You don't do a volunteer job. You get paid to do it. Other employees don't need to thank me either because our relationship is defined and quantified by money and by our role in the organization. Same with society. Everyone plays a role for the greater good, so there's no need to thank each other. The ideal world isn't a world full of Good Samaritans, but a world where such person is totally unneeded because everything is working as intended, even when people hate each other's guts.
I'm not a film director. What I'm saying is that he had the right mindset as an employee. I'm a teacher and my family owns a small business.
Jaxson Diaz
rich coming from someone on Any Forums, fucking dipshit
Eli Peterson
>I'm a teacher How many kids have you killed?
Wyatt Gomez
>Same with society. Everyone plays a role for the greater good, so there's no need to thank each other. I don't believe you ever had a job, because you're most likely not older than 16.
Nolan Hall
That's a pretty gross way of thought. Ghibli animators are not even well-paid, and Takahata would be the one deciding how much to overwork them. It's their choice to work there, sure, but that's the place they'd feel compelled to work at if they care about their craft as art. No need to abuse them.
Blake Martinez
Who pays better than Ghibli?
Austin Gutierrez
Even Satan can be a reasonable guy sometimes
Jace Myers
All this autism and suffering just to make shitty movies. How sad.
Gratitude isn't something to be reserved for special occasions. Just because someone gets paid to do a job, that doesn't mean you shouldn't be grateful that it was done.
Justin Smith
Wasn't he a communist? When people argue that Miyazaki isn't a communist they often say he has some of the beliefs but Takahata was the real communist. Really ironic how he treats his employees.
Did you get lost looking for twitter or something? Communism is about everyone giving their all for the common good. It's not about gender affirming interpretive dance or baking cookies for the proletariat or whatever faggot shit you trannies believe.
Jose Garcia
What's good about it?
Isaac Nelson
Human existence is essentially messy in nature.
Humans are basically fundamentally emotional, irrational beings that need emotional support to function correctly. Rational and logical thinking are a series of learned behaviors, but not inherent. Some need less emotional support, some hardly any, some a great deal. It's like the oil in an internal-combustion engine. You need that oil, or the machine will not work at it's highest potential.
You're thinking in an overly mechanistic way. Like humans are interchangeable gears in an art-making machine. Robots.
Well, Some gears are better than others at their jobs. Sometimes a gear is bad for a day or two. Sometimes overclocking a machine for output's sake will destroy a few gears. Don't break your social-system machines user.
Worse, actually. He was an unironic tankie. There are lots of them in the creative industry, especially in the older generations. Even outsiders and people from younger generations like Susumu Hirasawa defended Russia for some reason.
