To elaborate on the economic troubles I think part of the problem is possibly the lack of a successor to Miyazaki. His son's work is often considered quite poor

To elaborate on the economic troubles I think part of the problem is possibly the lack of a successor to Miyazaki. His son's work is often considered quite poor [2] and there's no clear successor to Miyazaki who often announces his retirement, then comes back for one last film. In addition to this, they've have a series of big budget flops. While The Tale of the Princess Kaguya has received critical acclaim for it's artistic quality, it cost 50MUSD to make (compared to 6MUSD for Kiki's delivery service), while bring in 25MUSD at the box office. And while it's received critical acclaim, informally I've been told it's not well liked in Japan (looks good, but content is poor). So, I was curious to hear more about their financial troubles, and how much they have been effected by these large budget flops and what the future might be (there's a rumor that Nico Nico Douga might buy them, or that they might shut down completely). It's unfortunate that this wasn't covered in the article. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wind_Rises#Controversy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wind_Rises#Controversy [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gor%C5%8D_Miyazaki http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gor%C5%8D_Miyazaki