Japan’s Studio Ghibli has confirmed they will not release a trailer for Hayao Miyazaki’s final film, “How Do You Live?” It will also not receive any promotional materials outside of a cryptic poster they put out in December 2022. While this may seem like a ballsy move considering this is by far the most anticipated movie coming to Japanese theaters in years. But it’s also really on brand with Ghibli’s philosophy of putting art above commercial appeal.
“As part of company operations, over the years Ghibli has wanted people to come see the movies we’ve made,” Ghibli’s lead producer Toshio Suzuki said. “So we’ve thought about that and done a lot of different things for that purpose — but this time we were like, ‘Eh, we don’t need to do that.’ Doing the same thing you’ve done before, over and over, you get tired of it. So we wanted to do something different.”
He then contrasted their approach for “How Do You Live?” with most major studios marketing plans. “There’s an American movie — ah, I almost said the title out loud! — coming out this summer around the same time [as How Do You Live?],” he said. “They’ve made three trailers for it, and released them one at a time. If you watch all three, you know everything that’s going to happen in that movie. So how do moviegoers feel about that? There must be people, who, after watching all the trailers, don’t want to actually go see the movie. So, I wanted to do the opposite of that.”
This type of complaint has become increasingly common over the past decade or so. There is a fine line between giving people a sense of the movie and telling them every little detail. Many cinephiles have even given up on trailers altogether, due to giving away too many plot points. Clearly, that won’t be an issue with “How Do You Live?” since very little is known about the film.
And by that we mean not only is there no trailer, or barrage of posters. There is also no plot summary, no voice cast, and nothing about the film’s setting or characters. All we really know is it is described by Ghibli as “a grand fantasy.” The film is also confirmed to be loosely inspired by Genzaburo Yoshino’s 1937 novel of the same name. The book is a coming-of-age story about the development of a young boy after the death of his father, from an emotional and philosophical standpoint. But the word loosely is also subjective and that storyline may have little to nothing to do with the film itself.
But this is also far from the first time Ghibli has done something this out of the norm. For years the studio has restricted the amount of licensed merchandise from its characters due to fear of overexposure. When the company launched its theme park last year, it limited advanced media access to the park. For fear that widespread coverage could make the attraction too popular. Which would undercut the experience of the gentle appreciation of nature it was designed to give visitors.
This marketing plan also was partially the idea of Miyazaki, himself. “I’ve been involved with our movies since Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1984), but this was the first time Hayao Miyazaki genuinely praised me,” said Suzuki. “‘Suzuki-san, this is amazing. This is the best poster you’ve ever made,’ he said. I felt like that was a hint, so I decided ‘Let’s go with just this one poster for the marketing.’ So, no trailers or TV commercials at all… No newspaper ads either. Deep down, I think this is what moviegoers latently desire.”
“How Do You Live?” opens in theaters in Japan on July 14th, 2023. Currently, there is no date set for an international release, but we’ll keep you posted on when one becomes available.
