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Carter, Laz. "Marketing Mononoke: The Daihitto Becoming Disney." Princess Mononoke: Understanding Studio Ghibli’s Monster Princess. By Rayna Denison. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2017. 151–172. Bloomsbury Collections. Web. 25 Sep. 2021. <http:// dx.doi.org/10.5040/9781501329753.ch-008>. Downloaded from Bloomsbury Collections, www.bloomsburycollections.com, 25 September 2021, 12:09 UTC. Copyright © Rayna Denison 2018. You may share this work for non-commercial purposes only, provided you give attribution to the copyright holder and the publisher, and provide a link to the Creative Commons licence. 1 51 Chapter 8 M ARKETING MONONOKE : THE DAIHITTO BECOMING DISNEY Laz Carter Th e very existence of this monograph, and indeed the existence of other vol- umes concerning Studio Ghibli penned in the English language, accords with the fact that a sizable Anglophone audience exists for the studio’s canon of fi lms. Th is market did not simply appear overnight; it has grown organically over time. While other valuable scholarly probes delve into a myriad of com- plexities, such as the studio’s relationship with Japan or a growing international fan base, 1 it is worth taking a moment to refl ect upon the infl uence of an active (and sometimes academic) Anglophone audience as a stimulus for both the craft smanship of the animators and the Anglophonic marketing strategy sus- tained over the course of numerous promotional campaigns. On this notable anniversary of one of the true classics of Japanese animation – Mononokehime ( Princess Mononoke , Hayao Miyazaki, 1997) – it is a fi tting occasion to cast one’s gaze back to where this marketing strategy truly began to take shape. Th is chapter focuses on Princess Mononoke ’s ‘paratexts’, which is to say certain promotional content such as ‘posters, videogames, podcasts, reviews, or mer- chandise’ that function ‘not simply [as] add- ons, spinoff s, and also- rans: they create texts, they manage them, and they fi ll them with many of the meanings that we associate with them’.2 By deconstructing four such paratexts – a fi lm poster, a theatrical trailer, a DVD featurette and an offi cial website – presented to the Western audience by the then Disney subsidiary, Miramax, this analysis is able to not only track the elements emphasized during marketing, but also draw attention to the marketing practices themselves – including the creation of ‘brand- networks’3 comprised of ‘star- images’4 and authorial ‘brand names’ 5 – that are intended to elide the cultural divide that lies betwixt the domestic and Anglophone marketplaces. Princess Mononoke is a particularly apt case- study for examining this phenomenon as it marks the beginning of the relationship between Ghibli and Disney, and thus provides a unique insight into the US rec- reation of Ghibli as a ‘branded- subgenre ’ of animation.6 99781501329760_pi-220.indd781501329760_pi-220.indd 115151 111/1/20171/1/2017 44:21:09:21:09 PPMM 152 152 Laz Carter Before plunging into an analysis of Princess Mononoke ’s marketing materi- als, it is worth noting how the paratextuality of this fi lm diff ers from some of the Ghibli fi lms both preceding and succeeding it. As alluded to earlier, Princess Mononoke marks the beginning of the relationship between Ghibli and Disney through the advent of the so- called ‘Disney- Tokuma deal’ of 1996. 7 Prior to this arrangement, Ghibli fi lms were advertised and distributed in the West on an ad hoc basis, with each text being released through diff erent channels. To give some examples prior to 1996, Kaze no tani no Naushika ( Nausica ä of the Valley of the Wind , Hayao Miyazaki, 1984) was infamously recut and released as Warriors of the Wind by New World Pictures on VHS in 1985 and Tonari no Totoro ( My Neighbor Totoro , Hayao Miyazaki, 1988) received a later release through Fox Video in 1993. Understandably then, one can read undertones of caution and wariness into the distribution of Princess Mononoke in the USA, if only because this distribution of Ghibli fi lms represented a relatively new pathway for US entertainment conglomerates at that time. Near- contemporary successes such as K ō kaku kid ō tai (Ghost in the Shell , Mamoru Oshii, 1995) and Akira (Katsuhiro Ō tomo, 1988) had already proved that an Anglophone market for anime was available, but these were primarily targeted at specialist, niche consumers and distribution of Japanese animation had yet to reach the main- stream family demographic. In the US marketplace, Studio Ghibli anime are able to access this main- stream family demographic through their partnership with the multinational giant Walt Disney Studios. Although it was updated over time due to the neces- sity of addressing various digital and home media rights and although the rights to distribute Ghibli fi lms has now passed to GKids in the United States, 8 the Disney- Tokuma Deal was fi rst crystallized immediately prior to the pro- motion of Princess Mononoke . Yet it is also worth pointing out that this prin- ciple of brand- network unifi cation within the stable of Disney- held companies only became commonplace subsequent to the release of Princess Mononoke . While Studio Ghibli remains corporately independent of Disney, there remains a strong comparison between their formalized relationship and the fates of the Star Wars, Marvel and Pixar franchises, which have all since become subject to a restructuring process under the ‘unifi ed corporate footprint of [the] conglom- erate . Disney’.9 Th at is to say, the brand names of Star Wars , Marvel , Pixar , and, to a lesser extent, Studio Ghibli , have had to adapt from being the primary brand name applied to products to, at least in certain marketplaces, merely contributing to the wider brand- network of Disney. Yet back in 1997, during the production and marketing of Princess Mononoke , the process of housing and re- distributing content produced by another studio formed a nexus of uncertainty for Disney, especially so given the cultural and linguistic transla- tion challenges present in converting a foreign fi lm for an Anglophone context (see Chapter 7 ). Th ere existed no straightforward re- marketing strategy to fol- low and as such the Western promotional campaign for Princess Mononoke was inherently bespoke and experimental. 99781501329760_pi-220.indd781501329760_pi-220.indd 115252 111/1/20171/1/2017 44:21:09:21:09 PPMM 1 53 Marketing Mononoke 153 At this juncture I should acknowledge that much of the paratextuality for Princess Mononoke refers consumers not directly to the Disney brand name but rather to the brand names of Miramax and Buena Vista International, both of which were Disney subsidiaries at that time. Later in this analysis I will be exploring precisely why I believe this decision was made, but for now it is worth addressing the implications this industrial context has for this study. Writing specifi cally about Miramax, Alisa Perren states that such ‘studio- based subsidiaries . operated relatively autonomously from the studio in terms of production and distribution’. 10 Yet in the case of Princess Mononoke , due to the freshly signed Disney- Tokuma deal, as well as the parent company’s famil- iarity with the medium of animation, it is my assumption that Disney was at least aware of, and thus complicit in, the re- marketing strategies employed. As such, despite the fact that the Disney brand name is conspicuously absent from Princess Mononoke ’s paratexts, these tactics can still be discussed in relation to ‘Disneyfi cation’, another concept that shall be unpacked below. In short, while one could make a case that the Disney brand name is absent from the promotional campaign of Princess Mononoke , one can still trace the infl uence of the Disney brand-network . Moreover, an anachronous, tran- shistoric audience viewing Studio Ghibli’s canon today may not be aware of the complexities of such intra- industry arrangements and might arguably assume that all of the studio’s anime fi lms have undergone the same process of Disneyfi cation as was applied to Miyazaki’s later fi lms. On the basis of these assumptions, this chapter proceeds with the understanding that Princess Mononoke experienced at least some degree of Disneyfi cation and that the associations drawn between Ghibli and Disney through information avail- able to audiences today necessitates a closer look at Disney’s role in the anime’s Anglophone promotional campaign. With the benefi t of hindsight, the marketing for Princess Mononoke also bears a striking resemblance to that undertaken for Miyazaki’s later fi lms Sen to Chihiro no kamikakushi ( Spirited Away , Hayao Miyazaki, 2001), Hauru no ugoku shiro ( Howl’s Moving Castle , Hayao Miyazaki, 2004), Gake no ue no Ponyo ( Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea , Hayao Miyazaki, 2008) and Kaze tachinu ( Th e Wind Rises , 2013). Th at is to say that the decisions made at this juncture infl uenced Disney’s marketing strategies and voice casting policy for future Ghibli re- productions. Several of the broad themes behind these techniques have been noted by Rayna Denison, including the use of ‘star clustering’ and brand- networks,11 but there is still much ground to cover, especially in terms of how specifi c star- images commingle with and impact upon paratextual materi- als. Th is chapter aims to occupy this intellectual space and, by examining the fi rst instance of Disney’s involvement with Ghibli, provide a reference point for future re- marketing case studies. As referenced earlier, previous academics, such as Jonathan Gray and

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