In defense of English dubs, no one does it better than Studio Ghibli. It’s not a matter of either-or; with the incredible global talents that span the original Japanese voices and the English casts, it just means we get more!
With the release of The Boy and the Heron, which featuresRobert Pattinson’s dedicated vocal bird transformation, we’re looking back at the best Studio Ghibli dubs. When it comes to Hayao Miyazaki’s films, care has always been taken between by the Disney and GKIDS distributors to cast the English roles with incredible talent. It’s no easy feat to perform in sync with animation, let alone in a foreign language, but it helps to have the guidance of directors such as Pixar’s Pete Docter (Howl’s Moving Castle) who approach the task with appropriate reverence. While we understand the importance of subtitles—and we’d never take away from the wonderful work of the original Japanese voice casts—dubs help make the films accessible to more audiences. And as an animation fan, I love dubs because I can bask in the art and storytelling without reading and then revisiting with subtitles. It’s a preference and a gateway for more global animation to travel the world.
Here’s a list of the top 10 English Studio Ghibli dubs we love.
Studio Ghibli, The famous Japanese animation studio behind classics like Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away has spent the past few days teasing a possible collaboration with Lucasfilm and Star Wars on its official Twitter. And there’s some evidence that it might be a Baby Yoda aka Grogu show based on a previous leak and a new tease.
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If you are reading Kotaku, I likely don’t need to explain Studio Ghibli or Star Wars, but let’s just pretend for a moment that you have no idea what these things are. This will just take a second, be patient. Studio Ghibli is an incredibly popular animation studio that was founded in 1985 in Tokyo, Japan. Since its creation, it’s gone on to produce beloved films, like My Neighbor Totoro and Kiki’s Delivery Service. Meanwhile, Star Wars is a massive sci-fi franchise that was created by George Lucas in the 70s and has since grown into one of the biggest things on the planet. Its most recent show, Andor, is amazing (and also filled with cool, but easy-to-miss Easter eggs!) And these two might be working together in the not-too-distant future, based on recent tweets from both.
Yesterday, the official Studio Ghibli Twitter account tweeted out a short video showing the Lucasfilm logo and its own logo. That was it. But it was enough to get people talking and going “Hey, what’s that all about, then?” Shortly afterward, the official Star Wars Twitter account re-shared the teaser as well. This did two things. One, it killed my hopes that the anime studio was working on an Indiana Jones series, and two, it confirmed that whatever they are collabing on involves Star Wars. Now, earlier today, Studio Ghibli doubled down on the connection to the famous galaxy, far, far away with a follow-up post showing an image of Grogu, also known online as Baby Yoda. The official Star Wars account has since re-tweeted the image.
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This alone seems like solid evidence the studio is doing a Baby Yoda short or movie or animated series. But even before today’s tweet and yesterday’s tease, we knew Disney and Lucasfilm were likely working on a Grogu project of some kind. That’s thanks to a previous leak from the Italian Disney+ Twitter account earlier this month. That leak pointed toward a November 12 release date, which is coincidentally tomorrow. It’s also the three-year anniversary of the premiere for The Mandalorian, the show where Grogu first appeared.
All of this points to the very real possibility that very soon, Studio Ghibli and Lucasfilm will release a new animated Star Wars short starring Grogu. Or perhaps that leaked short has nothing to do with this project and instead, Ghibli is working on a segment for the next season of the Star Wars anime spin-off anthology series, Star Wars Visions. Time will tell…
