The story
From woodblock to Ghibli
Spirits on the printed page
In 1776 Toriyama Sekien published Gazu Hyakki Yagyō, an illustrated catalogue of yokai printed from carved woodblocks. Its kodama, spirits that live in trees more than a hundred years old, are the folklore behind the little forest spirits of Princess Mononoke.
Prints for everyone
Through the Edo period, publishers printed picture books and single-sheet prints by the thousand. Hokusai filled his sketchbooks, the Hokusai Manga, with animals, ghosts and everyday life, and ordinary townspeople bought them.
Shin-hanga, the new prints
From 1915 the publisher Watanabe Shōzaburō revived the old way of working, with an artist, a carver and a printer, for a new generation. Kawase Hasui’s quiet streets, rain, snow and dusk made him the best-known landscape artist of the movement.
Into animation
Hasui’s soft light and lived-in landscapes are often compared to Ghibli backgrounds, and the yokai of Edo picture books run through Japanese animation. Seen in person, the connection is easy to spot.
