Studio Ponoc

• 1. Introduction

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  Studio Ponoc's logo shows a young witch named Mary Smith, watching the way Totoro watches from Studio Ghibli's own crest. This is a Japanese, independent animation studio, and it was built largely by veterans of that older, far more famous name. Why would a brand-new company echo the mascot pose of the studio it grew out of? What does the studio's own name, Ponoc, actually mean, and why was it chosen? How did a short film made for the Tokyo Olympics end up premiering during Games that had already been postponed once? And why did Netflix eventually want a stake in this small studio's future work?

• 2. A Studio Born From Ghibli

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  On the 15th of April 2015, Yoshiaki Nishimura founded Studio Ponoc in Musashino, Tokyo. He had been Studio Ghibli's lead film producer before starting this new company on his own. Several animators who had worked under Ghibli joined him, among them director Hiromasa Yonebayashi. By the end of that same year, Nishimura's new team already had its first paying client outside the movie business.

• 3. The Meaning Of Midnight

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  Borrowed from a Serbo-Croatian word for midnight, the name Ponoc was chosen by Nishimura to signify the beginning of a new day. That choice of name came before the studio had released a single film of its own. Its very first assignment, in fact, was a commercial called Summer Train, made for the railway company JR West as part of its 2015 summer advertising campaign. A far bigger production was already taking shape behind the scenes, one built to carry the studio's name into cinemas nationwide.

• 4. Mary And The Witch's Flower

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  Mary and the Witch's Flower reached theaters throughout Japan on the 8th of July 2017, becoming Studio Ponoc's first feature. It adapts The Little Broomstick, a novel by Mary Stewart, with a screenplay credited to Riko Sakaguchi and director Hiromasa Yonebayashi. Several more former Ghibli staff joined the production, drawn to the studio's first attempt at a full-length film. By year's end, the film had climbed to sixth place among Japan's highest-grossing releases of 2017. The following year, on the 24th of August 2018, the studio released a second feature, Modest Heroes, crediting three directors and three screenwriters together.

• 5. An Olympic Short Delayed

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  Production began in June 2019 on Tomorrow's Leaves, a short film written by Nishimura and directed by Yoshiyuki Momose. Studio Ponoc made it together with the International Olympic Committee's Olympic Foundation for Culture and Heritage. The short drew on the Olympic values of Excellence, Friendship and Respect, and was timed to open alongside the Tokyo Games. When the 2020 Summer Olympics were postponed, the film's release was postponed along with them. Its world premiere finally arrived at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival's opening ceremony, on the 14th of June 2021. From the 12th of July until the 5th of September, the short also screened at the Tokyo Skytree. It officially reached the public on the 23rd of July, the opening date of the delayed 2020 Summer Olympic Games in Tokyo. The International Olympic Committee posted it on YouTube that same day, and Studio Ponoc released it on its own site, ponoc.jp. The studio's next milestone would not involve a festival screen at all, but a streaming deal announced years later.

• 6. A Global Streaming Deal

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  On the 25th of January 2024, Netflix announced it had acquired worldwide streaming rights to The Imaginary. The Imaginary, released on the 15th of December 2023, was directed by Yoshiyuki Momose from a screenplay by Yoshiaki Nishimura. The agreement reached further than just one title, covering global streaming rights to the studio's future feature projects as well. Whatever Studio Ponoc makes next, audiences well beyond Japan will be able to find it on Netflix as soon as it's ready.