Oscar-nominated Japanese anime director Isao Takahata, who co-founded Studio Ghibli and was best known for his work Grave of the Fireflies , has died aged 82, the studio said on Friday.
According to a statement from Studio Ghibli, he died in a Tokyo hospital after a battle with lung cancer.
“We pray that he rests in peace,” the statement said, adding that he would be buried in a private ceremony attended by close family.
The winner of many awards domestically and internationally, he was considered one of the greats of the Japanese animated film industry and is often linked with long-term Studio Ghibli collaborator Hayao Miyazaki.
He enjoyed a career spanning several decades, producing both films and work for the small screen and his latest production, The Tale of the Princess Kaguya , earned him an Academy nomination for best animated feature.
An adaptation of a popular tale from the 10th century considered one of the founding texts of Japanese literature the film was also selected for a slot in the Director’s Fortnight sidebar to the main Cannes film competition in 2014.
It also won rave reviews, with the New York Times in 2014 describing it as “exquisitely drawn with both watercolour delicacy and a brisk sense of line.”
However, most consider Takahata’s 1988 film Grave of the Fireflies , a moving tale of two orphans during World War II, to be his best work.
In 2000, famed reviewer Roger Ebert wrote that the movie “belongs on any list of the greatest war films ever made.”
Born in 1935 in Mie prefecture in central Japan, his early life was marked with violence when US forces bombed his hometown in June 1945 as World War II was coming to a close.
In an interview with the Japan Times , he described fleeing with his sister barefoot and still in his pyjamas.
On his way back to the family house, he recalled seeing piles of bodies in the street. “We were lucky to get out alive,” he told the newspaper.
Takahata started his career in animation at the Toei studio in 1959, where he eventually met long-term collaborator and rival Miyazaki.
With Miyazaki, he co-founded in 1985 the Japanese animation Studio Ghibli, which went on to produce several blockbusters.
With more complex and occasionally more violent plots than depicted in the average Disney cartoon film, these films have at times confused audiences outside Japan, who largely consider animation to be primarily for young children.
However, this has not stopped the films being lucrative box-office smashes.
Takahata and Miyazaki were often described as friends and rivals at the same time.
“We would never criticise each other face-to-face because it would just cause a fight. However, I know he has criticised my work,” Takahata told the Japan Times .
Over a long and distinguished career, Takahata produced around 20 films, including Only Yesterday (1991) and Pom Poko (1994).
He also produced the Miyazaki-directed 1984 film Kaze no Tani no Naushika (“The Valley of the Wind“), a science fantasy adventure that describes the relationship between nature and human beings.
He is also well-known for animation series Alps no Shojo Heidi ( ‘Heidi, Girl of the Alps’) and Lupin Sansei ( ‘Lupin the Third’).
