Studio Ghibli’s archive is the key to its 4K restoration process

is a reporter focusing on film, TV, and pop culture. Before The Verge, he wrote about comic books, labor, race, and more at io9 and Gizmodo for almost five years. When Princess Mononoke first debuted back in 1997, it marked a major turning point for Studio Ghibli. The studio had already dabbled in computer-generated imagery and digital compositing with films like Isao Takahata’s Pom Poko and Yoshifumi Kondō’s Whisper of the Heart. But Mononoke was the first instance of Ghibli really embracing CGI as a tool to enhance one of its hand-drawn animated projects — something that writer / director Hayao Miyazaki had staunchly opposed in the past. The original prints of Mononoke that screened in theaters were already a gorgeous showcase of how seamlessly Ghibli could incorporate cutting edge technology into its traditional production workflow. But the studio plans for its upcoming Mononoke 4K restoration to be an even more visually-stunning example of how newer innovations can revitalize cla ... Read full article.