Japanese animation studio Studio Ghibli confirmed to EFE on Thursday that it has received the news about its 2026 Princess of Asturias Award for Communication and Humanities, announced the day before in Spain, and avoided further comment until confirming more details with the organizers.
“We have just received notification of the award and are in the process of confirming the details,” a spokeswoman for the studio told EFE by email, in its first official reaction to the award, after several attempts at contact since the day before.
Studio Ghibli, founded in 1985 by Hayao Miyazaki, Isao Takahata and Toshio Suzuki, has made more than 20 feature films, many of which were international hits, such as the Oscar-winning ‘Sen to Chihiro no kamikakushi’ (Spirited Away, 2001).
The spokeswoman for the studio co-founded by Miyazaki, 85, who is reluctant to attend international events and travel, said they could not yet go into details about the award because they had only recently received the news and were still figuring out the details.
The award was announced the day before, at 12.00 Spanish time (10.00 GMT and 19.00 pm in Japan), at the end of the so-called “Golden Week” Japanese holiday, so that the Tokyo offices of Ghibli remained closed, according to EFE.
The jury’s report, made public in Oviedo (northern Spain), states that, with its films, Studio Ghibli has transformed creativity into knowledge and communication through an artisanal process of great imagination with which it has created universal stories full of sensitivity and humanist values.
His films, through empathy, tolerance and friendship and respect for people and nature, have transcended generations and borders to become a reference for the challenges of a globalized society with a cinema that extols the beauty of the everyday, according to the jury.
Studio Ghibli has become the seventh Japanese winner in the 46 editions of the awards and takes over from the German philosopher of South Korean origin Byung-Chul Han in the Communication and Humanities category, which in recent years has honored the French-Iranian filmmaker Marjane Satrapi, the Italian philosopher Nuccio Ordine, the Polish writer Adam Michnik and the American journalist Gloria Steinem.
The Communication and Humanities category was the second of the eight categories to be awarded this year, reported Agencia EFE, after the Arts category, which went to U.S. singer and writer Patti Smith.
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