How a bout of writer's block birthed a Studio Ghibli sci-fi masterpiece
In short: In 1995, Hayao Miyazaki was stuck. Struggling with writer's block on Princess Mononoke, the legendary director turned to a side project: an experimental music video. What emerged was a cryptic, non-linear vision of a radioactive wasteland that remains one of animation's most visually stunning enigmas.
Created for the Japanese rock duo Chage and Aska, the 1995 animated music video for 'On Your Mark' serves as a striking departure from traditional Ghibli narratives. Rather than a linear story, Miyazaki utilized a non-linear structure, presenting multiple iterations and alternate scenes to depict a world where the Earth's surface has become uninhabitable due to radiation. The setting features an underground human civilization and a landscape marked by the concrete sarcophagus of a nuclear reactor, an homage to the Chernobyl disaster.
The plot follows two policemen—loosely modeled after the song's performers—who raid a religious cult and discover a winged, angelic being. After the girl is taken to a secure laboratory, the men orchestrately break her out. A high-stakes escape in an armored truck involves navigating a narrow, suspended roadway over a domed city, eventually leading to a moment where the three characters plummet into an abyss before the truck uses stabilizing thrusters to escape. The video concludes with the men releasing the angel into the sky, a gesture Miyazaki described as protecting 'hope' by letting it go where no one can touch it.
Technologically, the production was a significant milestone. Lacking an in-house computer department, Studio Ghibli outsourced work to CG Production Company Links, experimenting with computer animation to supplement traditional hand-drawn cel animation. These techniques, involving tools like Pixar RenderMan, were later integrated into the production of Princess Mononoke. While the video is celebrated for its intricate detail, it remains a subject of scholarly interest, with researchers drawing parallels between the winged girl's liberation and the symbolic release of characters in Shakespeare's The Tempest.
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- Summary by Intellect · source: On Your Mark (music video)
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