- Oona McGeeSep 21, 2020
19-year mystery solved with startling revelations from the person who drew it.
Now that Studio Ghibli has made the unprecedented move of releasing 400 images from its films free for the public to download and use — “within reason” — there’s been an unexpected development. One of the animators who worked on the 2001 film Spirited Away has used the opportunity to share some of the scenes he illustrated online, along with some startling revelations.
The animator divulging Ghibli’s secrets is 47-year-old Hiromasa Yonebayashi, who worked at Studio Ghibli for 18 years beforeleaving in 2014 to found his own animation company, Studio Ponoc. Yonebayashi famously became the studio’s youngest-ever director with the 2010 filmThe Secret World of Arrietty, after cutting his teeth as an animator on a number of Ghibli films, including Spirited Away.
Taking to Twitter on 19 September, a day after the Ghibli images were released, Yonebayashi shared some insider knowledge in a series of tweets that quickly went viral online (translation follows):
ジブリが自由につかっていいということなので、自分が原画をやったところを。
— 米林宏昌 (@MaroYonebayashi) September 18, 2020
千尋は長編の原画初だったので緊張しつつ、いろいろ研究しながら描きました。ハクにダンゴを食べさせるところはみんなで大型犬に触れながら動きを観察したなあ。 pic.twitter.com/Q4MRJpB7hs
“Ghibli says it’s okay to freely use these, so about my key frames: Spirited Away was my first feature film so though I was nervous I researched a variety of things as I drew. For the part where Haku is fed the dango, we all interacted with a large-breed dog and observed the movements.”
▼ So that explains the realistic movements between Chihiro and Haku in his dragon form.
People online revelled in this revelation, sending the tweet viral with over 350,000 likes. That wasn’t the end of the behind-the-scenes information, however, as Yonebayashi went on to say:
お父さんが食べてるブヨブヨした食べ物はシーラカンスの胃袋と絵コンテに書いてありました。
— 米林宏昌 (@MaroYonebayashi) September 19, 2020
ハクはシュッと動いてピタッと止まるので原画が少なくて楽チン。千尋はビクビクしてるので原画が多くて大変。
“It was written on the storyboard that the soft, flabby food the dad eats is the stomach of a coelacanth.
Haku moves quickly and stops suddenly so there aren’t a lot of key frames, making it super simple.
Chihiro is trembling and nervous, so there are a lot of key frames, making it a pain.”
As the main character who becomes separated from her parents and spirited off to a strange world filled with magical spirits, the rendering of Chihiro does require a lot of detailed original frames to help convey her emotions and draw the audience in to her plight.
But hold on, let’s back up for a second and take a look at the more explosive revelation here: the unidentified food eaten by Chihiro’s father is the stomach of a coelacanth?? The strange, pale, bird-like hunk of…well, something (pictured on the dish second from the left in the picture below) has been a topic of speculation amongst eagle-eyed viewers for almost 20 years.
What is that? pic.twitter.com/JOqCwVYSmt
— 🇬🇧Name Your Hero?_ _ _🏴 (@HyruleIsEVIL) May 11, 2020
Some have argued that the mystery food is alamb’s stomach, while others have sworn it’s a Taiwanese street foodcalledba-wan, which is made up of atranslucent dough made from sweet potato starch.
▼ Ba-wan
The ba-wan theory ties in with the popular rumour that the town inSpirited Away was modelled on Jiufen, a popular tourist spot in Taiwan.
However, the mystery food that’s been puzzling viewers for years has finally been revealed to bethe stomach of a coelacanth. While photos of the stomach itself can’t be found on the Internet, coelacanthsare rare types of fish once thought to be “living fossils”.
Yonebayashi goes on to say:
どうやら絵コンテには書いてないようです…宮崎監督が描かれたレイアウトに書いてあったのかなあ？ちなみに原画よりは3倍くらいプルンプルンに修正された。
— 米林宏昌 (@MaroYonebayashi) September 19, 2020
“Apparently it wasn’t written in the storyboard…maybe it was written in the layout drawn by Director Miyazaki? Incidentally, it was retouched to be about three times more jelly-like than the original picture.”
It looks like Yonebayashi was somehow reminded that the direction to draw the coelacanth’s stomach didn’t actually appear in the storyboard but in the original layout sketched by Miyazaki. Either way, it’s a startling revelation that left people reeling.
“What?! I thought this was meant to be ba-wan?”
“I always thought it was some sort of magical onion!”
“Isn’t itan over-steamed quail that turned into gelatin?”
“Well, coelacanths certainly look like they’re from another world, so it’s still mysterious.”
“Does this mean someone at the studio actually ate a coelacanth?”
“A long time ago (over 30 years ago), some manga magazine featured eating coelacanth, so maybe that’s where they got the idea from?”
Given Ghibli’s renowned love of nature and all the flora and fauna found within it — a running theme in a lot of their movies — it’s likely that the team used either a photo or their imagination to draw the fish’s stomach, taking creative liberties with it later on to enhance its odd, flabby texture.
So the secret behind the mystery food that’s baffled viewers for 19 years can finally be laid to rest, thanks to this surprising revelation from the key animator who worked on the film. And as the latest in a string of surprising new fan discoveries revealed years after a Ghibli film release, it looks like there’ll be more surprises to come in future.
Source: Twitter/@MaroYonebayashi via Hachima Kikou
Featured image: Studio Ghibli
Insert images: Studio Ghibli,Wikipedia/IcyNeko, Wikipedia/徐月春, Wikipedia/Alberto Fernandez Fernandez
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