As video calls and conferences became the new norm earlier this year, Studio Ghibli offered more than 20 images to download for free and use as background images to add to video chats.
Now, the studio has taken a further step in lighting up 2020 by releasing high-quality scene photos from all their films, available to download for free on its official website.
The initiative started this September with a total of 400 images from eight popular titles: When Marnie Was There, The Tale of the Princess Kaguya, The Wind Rises, From Up on Poppy Hill, The Secret World of Arrietty, Ponyo, Tales from Earthsea, and ‘Spirited Away’.
More scene photos will become available in the future, so stay tuned for the release date.
Ghibli films are renowned for their evocative art, full of beautiful magical villages and landscapes of nature so this collection is a gift to fans who can now use high resolution stills as desktop or phone backgrounds, share them on social media, and make artwork out of them.
Studio Ghibli producer Toshio Suzuki, who is also one of the co-founders along with Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata, asked for people to use the images “within the bounds of common sense”.
With this message, Suzuki is kindly requesting fans to not use these images to promote anything that could be considered offensive nor to sell them and make a profit.
It’s been six years since Studio Ghibli released their last film in 2014, “When Marnie Was There”. To keep us entertained and cheer us up (especially this year), the animation studio signed a distribution deal with Netflix in January that made Ghibli films go global in streaming.
Hayao Miyazaki is also working on his first film since “The Wind Rises”. His new project, entitled “How do you live?” is based on the novel by Japanese writer Genzaburō Yoshino, and is set to be released in theatres in 2021, although we’ll have to wait to see what the coronavirus situation will bring in the next months for cinemas, theatres, premiers, film festivals and more.
Check out a selection of new free Ghibli images below. Click here to view the full collection.
