My sentimental nerd heart fluttered wildly when I came across this Article and video on JapanProbe and Japanator.
I knew John Lasseter and Hayao Miyazaki were good homies but I didn’t know how good of friends they are. For a little history background John Lasseter (Founder of Pixar) was the first to suggest bringing Ghibli’s Spirited Away to American shores under Disney as well as countless other Ghibli films. A lot of Pixar’s staff are fans of Miyazaki’s work and have a lot of merchandise of his films around the office, as shown in the video. Miyazaki has even sent Lasseter 50 plush makkuro kurosuke (The little soot character that appears in miyazaki’s films) for Lasseter’s birthday.
The video below was to market the Japan release of “Up”, saying how Ghibli has influence Pixar’s work. A very cool little documentary!
Pixar’s and Ghibli’s friendship indeed is a very interesting one since they work under different systems of creating. Pixar works as a collaborative with their staff while Ghibli is solely created by Miyazaki.
To read the other articles on this click the link!
http://www.japanator.com/studio-ghibli-and-pixar-animation-giants-best-friends-12861.phtml#ext
http://www.japanprobe.com/2009/12/26/the-pixar-ghibli-connection/