The 2024 Academy Awards ceremony, held March 10 in Los Angeles, was a big night for Japan as two of the country’s cultural titans – anime powerhouse Studio Ghibli and the 70-year-old Godzilla franchise – won high accolades from Hollywood’s elite. The award for best animated feature film went to Hayao Miyazaki’s The Boy and the Heron, while Takashi Yamazaki’s monster film Godzilla Minus One won best visual effects.
It was Miyazaki’s second time to claim an Oscar. He received his first in 2003 for Spirited Away.
“We are just extremely grateful. Miyazaki was very happy,” Toshio Suzuki, a producer and co-founder of Studio Ghibli, said at a news conference in Tokyo. The 83-year-old director did not attend the news conference.
Yamazaki’s Godzilla Minus One, set in postwar Japan, is the latest installment in the long-running franchise about a fire-breathing, city-stomping monster.
“To someone so far from Hollywood, even the possibility of standing on this stage seemed out of reach,” Yamazaki said upon receiving the award. “This award is proof that everyone has a chance,” the 59-year-old added.
Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer, depicting the life of physicist Robert Oppenheimer, known as the “father of the atomic bomb,” took home best picture and six other awards.(The Japan Times, Kyodo)
毎週届く！
