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The Miyazaki Mailing List
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This mailing list is for discussion of the works, studio, and colleagues of Hayao Miyazaki, a writer, director, and producer of Japanese animated films.
See also Topics of discussion.
This mailing list provides an English-language forum for discussion of topics related to Hayao Miyazaki, a wonderful storyteller and a director of a number of box-office successes in Japan.
This list was created in the United States at Brown University in 1991 to facilitate discussion among fans of Miyazaki's works. Japanese animation fandom, as with many other special-interest communities, began as small, isolated groups of people who got in touch over the Internet and gradually connected with similar groups all over the United States and around the world.
Japanese animation fandom in particular has had the longest Internet presence of all animation fan groups, with rec.arts.anime being the first and oldest running animation-related newsgroup.
At first, subscribers were people with interests in comic books and manga (Japanese comics and graphic novels), especially Nausicaä of the Valley of Wind, Hayao Miyazaki's epic work, and the small number of films he'd released before 1991: Nausicaä (1984), Castle (1986), Totoro (1988), and Kiki's (1989). Thus the address nausicaa@brownvm.brown.edu for the mailing list. This name has recently changed to nausicaa@listserv.brown.edu due to a recent transfer of the list server to a newer machine.
Over time, as copies of Miyazaki's films became more accessible in the form of fansubs, special screenings, and film festivals, Miyazaki fandom grew, and mailing list subscribers grew beyond Japanese fans, serious comic book collectors, film students, and students of Japanese popular culture. People started joining the list who were following the Viz Comics English translation of the Nausicaä graphic novels, or who had seen one or more of Miyazaki's films, or who had recently been introduced to Japanese animation and were recommended the works of Miyazaki.
Subscribers are quite diverse these days. They include students, teachers, professors, amateur and professional artists, animation art collectors and dealers, film studio employees and executives, game software developers, publishers of books on relevant subjects, members of the press, and professionals in many other industries.
People typically join this list to talk about the issues raised by these films and compare their reactions with others. There is a strong sense of community among subscribers, a shared respect for the works of Miyazaki and his colleagues, and an interest in sharing these works with others, far and wide.
People also join this list to talk about the other works by Hayao Miyazaki and his colleagues, such as his epic comic titled Nausicaä of the Valley of Wind, which ran (with some interruptions) for 13 years before completion.
Subscribers have joined this list from at least 23 different countries, and provide great insight into the influence of Studio Ghibli's works on people around the world.
Some of these people have seen or read every work by Miyazaki et al., others joined after having seen the film Princess Mononoke, or the other Studio Ghibli films which have toured North America.
If you wish to join, please see How do I subscribe?
Fans join this list to stay up to date with, or contribute, exciting news about the release of Miyazaki's film Princess Mononoke in North America, and the touring film festival of the remainder of Studio Ghibli's films. Some of these fans operate popular web sites featuring up-to-date news, information, and links to other pages on the subject of Japanese animation.
Student subscribers are often members of campus anime clubs. After graduation, they often remain active in their local fan communities, and participate in or contribute to the promotion of awareness of Japanese animation, taking whatever opportunities they have to also promote the works of Miyazaki to their friends, family, and coworkers.
Teachers in many schools have accepted suggestions from students to integrate the comic or other films of Studio Ghibli as topics of discussion with the standard course material. For example, there is a college-level class using the comic series Nausicaä of the Valley of Wind as required reading.
While it might seem natural for people in the animation industry to subscribe to a mailing list about animation, this list is of particular interest because of the respect animators generally have for the inspirational works of Hayao Miyazaki.
When Ruby Persson landed the exclusive rights to distribute licensed replicas of Studio Ghibli animation cels in North America, where did she go to reach the most fans most quickly? The Miyazaki Mailing List, and by extension, Nausicaa.net.
How better to keep tabs on fan reaction to the films of Studio Ghibli than to be subscribed to the largest, most influential online gathering of its fans?
Selling computer games nowadays can depend on richly detailed artwork, compelling characters, and inspirational stories to draw consumers in and keep their attention. Miyazaki's name has appeared in the special thanks credits of a number of popular computer games.
Whenever a hot topic receives a lot of media attention, publishers are quick to find books to publish to feed the public's thirst for information. For the non-traditional market of foreign animation, what better place to learn about the market for books about Miyazaki's films than from the mailing list devoted to discussion of his works, to which a number of writers on the subject are already subscribed?
Professional and amateur journalists have been subscribed to the Miyazaki Mailing List to be among the first to know about newsworthy events related to the works of Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli. The publications and web sites these journalists work for have been spotted quoting information and material which has appeared on the Miyazaki Mailing List and the Nausicaa.net web site.
Subscribers have reported hundreds of sightings of articles and reviews about Princess Mononoke and other Studio Ghibli films in the press. Whether or not their articles or reviews recommended that people watch these films, their articles have not always benefited from the up-to-date and accurate information available on the Miyazaki Mailing List and the Nausicaa.net web site.
We would like to extend an invitation to representatives of the media and entertainment industry to join this mailing list to take advantage of it to improve the quality of their research into the subject of Hayao Miyazaki, his colleagues, studio, and films. We will be the first to admit we don't have all of the answers, but we certainly have the resources and contacts necessary to assist someone with their questions.
[From a message to the mailing list by the list owner Michael Johnson.]
It's not often that this list hears from professionals in the media and entertainment industries, but I'm glad that it does because this helps give companies a human face in the eyes of fans. It helps the rest of us understand the hard-working people who bring to us the stories we enjoy so much, the movies we love to watch, the soundtracks we love to listen to, the books we love to read, and the merchandise we love to wear or cuddle or display. We want to show the world that we have some wonderful, thought-provoking illustrated literature and film to share with them.
As we have seen on this list since the news about the Disney-Tokuma Deal was announced [in 1996], fan opinion of the chances Studio Ghibli's films have in this country and around the world rose from an all-time low ("Disney has now bought the rights to Ghibli films and will bury them"), to incredibly hopeful, yet guarded, optimism ("Please, Miramax, tell us the Mononoke box office figures are enough to convince you to release all Ghibli films nationwide to *local* theaters"). Part of this improved outlook stems from communication with the representatives of the companies involved in the projects to bring first Kiki's Delivery Service, then the Ghibli festival, then Princess Mononoke, then Castle in the Sky to North America.
Team Ghiblink, which maintains the Nausicaa.net web site, has been very fortunate to have established contact with representatives from these companies for the purpose of bringing you the information you want to know about the fate of these films, and for the purpose of bringing your requests and feedback to their attention. I can tell you that the month between September and October 3rd of [1999] were the busiest and most exciting days of my life, as we received permission to premiere the Miramax trailer of Princess Mononoke on Nausicaa.net and collected feedback about it from fans all over the world.
Do you remember the complaints about the pronunciation of "Miyazake" and "Mononoki" in the trailer? Miramax corrected that and released new trailers! They would never have done so if they'd ignored our feedback.
Do you remember the complaints that there were too few cinemas showing Princess Mononoke on October 29th and November 5th [1999]? Miramax opened a test market in Minnesota to see how well a wide release would be received by the public. They would never have done so if you hadn't helped encourage all of your fan clubs, friends, and families within reach of a limited release theater to go see the film and show their support, despite whatever you might have felt about the trailer, the choice of voice actors, or the company releasing the film.
Do you remember the complaints about the lack of official Studio Ghibli merchandise? Tokuma International and Studio Ghibli went to great lengths to ensure that JSR Direct made T-shirts, posters, keychains, and jewelry for the North American market that met very strict quality requirements. Tokuma and Ghibli also worked very closely with Ruby Persson to guarantee the quality of the limited edition Studio Ghibli cel replicas she is licensed [as] the exclusive distributor for. Stone Bridge Press, as with any publisher, takes risks whenever deciding to publish books on niche topics like Japanese Animation. Helen [McCarthy]'s lovely book [Hayao Miyazaki - Master of Japanese Animation] presents Miyazaki's work with great respect that isn't lost on the reader. Hyperion/Miramax Books published the English translation of the Art Of Mononoke Hime [Princess Mononoke]. And don't forget that Milan Records released the official English soundtrack.
Do you remember the complaints about too little advertising for Princess Mononoke? Miramax isn't dropping the ball. Their choice of famous actors for the voices, their choice of writer for the English script, their use of Team Ghiblink press material for their official press kit, and their question to Team Ghiblink "Can you tell us which celebrities are known to be fans of Miyazaki?" all show that they're doing their level best to encourage support among influential people, and among people who look up to those influential people -- whether those influential people are celebrities with a strong fan following, or are the "Number one Miyazaki resource on the Internet" as some have called us.
We have a lot to thank these people and companies for. We have long wished that we could do more than share n-th generation fansubs with our friends and families. Now that Disney and its subsidiaries have the distribution rights to Studio Ghibli's films, we can. We told them what we wanted, we complained bitterly about their perceived mistakes in making them available to us, and surprisingly enough they had the patience and good grace to listen to us, to take steps to give us what we asked for, and to correct their mistakes.
We owe them our gratitude and our full support.
Thank you all for your support of the Miramax release of Princess Mononoke. ...of the Milan Records release of the official English soundtrack to Princess Mononoke. ...of the Cowboy Booking International's Retrospective of the Legendary Studio Ghibli (the Ghibli film festival touring North America). ...of the Hyperion/Miramax Books publication of the translated Art Of Mononoke Hime book. ...of Helen McCarthy's book Hayao Miyazaki: Master of Japanese Animation, published by Stone Bridge Press. ...of the Buena Vista Home Entertainment video release of Kiki's Delivery Service. ...of the Fox Video release of My Neighbor Totoro, and the limited Troma [Films] theatrical release. ...of the Viz Comics publication of the translated Nausicaä manga. And lastly, thank you all for your support of the Miyazaki Web over the past five years, and this Miyazaki Mailing List for the past eight. We couldn't have helped make Mononoke a success without your help!
All of these things have demonstrated that Miyazaki's and Studio Ghibli's works are commercially viable products in North America. If such success can continue to be demonstrated, releases will continue and will be more likely to spread to other countries around the world.
Let's continue to show our gratitude and full support. Anything less would jeopardize the success of the most promising effort to bring Studio Ghibli's works to North America and the world. Do we want that on our conscience?
I hope that this list can continue to live up to its charter as a Hayao Miyazaki Discussion Group -- one which is seen as a well behaved, productive, and rewarding forum for topics related to director Miyazaki, his colleagues, his studio, and their works, whether the participants are consumers, critics, or professionals. It would be especially nice to see representatives from Tokuma Shoten, Studio Ghibli, Disney, Buena Vista, Miramax, Hyperion, Milan Records, and JSR Direct as participating members of this group in addition to those professional artists, engineers, authors, and publishers who [have already subscribed]. Perhaps even the musicians, voice actors, and film critics we've read so much about would also consider joining us. ^_^
(Invitations such as this one tend to fall on deaf ears when coming from "mere fans," -- I know, I've tried -- so if those of you in the industry have contacts in the companies mentioned above, or with the artists, actors, and critics mentioned above, please consider extending an invitation for them to join this list with your endorsement. If they have misgivings, please let me know so that we can see what we can do about making participation in the list more useful to them. If this means creating new, more specialized, lower-traffic mailing lists or masking their true e-mail addresses, that can easily be arranged. Thank you!)
The list owners can be reached by e-mail at the address nausicaa-request@listserv.brown.edu. They stand ready to assist you with your subscription, but ask that you try your best to use the information provided in these online documents to help you guide yourself to the answers that you seek whenever possible.
If the primary list owner is unavailable for any reason, the other list owners are empowered to act on his behalf.
Subscribers are encouraged not only to follow the rules and policies of this mailing list, but to help enforce them. The list owners are often busy with other responsibilities (full-time jobs and other hobbies, for example), and can't be as vigilant as they'd like to be.
If you receive a reasonable request from another subscriber to adhere to the list's policies, please take heed. If there are any complaints about the activities of the list owners or other subscribers, please contact the list owners.
This list was created on April 11th, 1991 by Steven Feldman, at that time a student at Brown University. Since then, primary list ownership has been handed down twice: to Mauricio Tavares and later to Michael Johnson.
The Miyazaki Web was created on December 31st, 1994 on TCP.COM, and moved to its own domain, Nausicaa.net, on April 26th, 1997.
See also What is its purpose? for more background information about this mailing list.
The mailing list is, as of December 1999 run on the machine listserv.brown.edu, a Unix machine running L-Soft's LISTSERV version 1.8d. A LISTSERV user's guide is available for those who wish to learn more about the list server and its features to take control of their subscriptions.
If you lost that piece of welcome mail that you received when you subscribed to this list - you remember the one with all of the helpful information about how to send messages to the list and unsubscribe, the one that warned you to keep it somewhere safe because you'd need it some day, right? - then you're in luck: this section will help you with most of that.
See also Problems with your subscription.
See also The Mailing List, and how to use it for links to list server documentation.
To subscribe: send the message "subscribe nausicaa" to the e-mail address listserv@listserv.brown.edu. Avoid putting any other text in your message, as it might confuse the list server.
Due to the risk of the list being targeted by spammers, all subscription requests will be delayed by one week before approval. This is to give spammers time to be reported to authorities and have their e-mail addresses deactivated. When we approve the subscription requests one week later, deactivated e-mail addresses immediately bounce mail to the list owners, making it easy for us to cancel those subscriptions.
See also How do I unsubscribe?
To unsubscribe: send the message "unsubscribe nausicaa" to the e-mail address listserv@listserv.brown.edu. Avoid putting any other text in your message, as it might confuse the list server.
See also How do I subscribe?
Before sending your message, please be sure that it abides by the list's rules and policies. Otherwise, if you are not sure, then please consult a list owner to find out if your message is appropriate for the list.
You can tell the list server to start or stop sending you copies of messages you send to the list. New subscribers default to receiving copies of their own messages. People who subscribed before about 1998 did not default to receiving copies of their own messages to the list.
You might prefer to periodically receive one large piece of e-mail (a digest) from the mailing list, instead of receiving each individual message sent to the list.
This is the same concept as asking the telephone company to make your number unlisted, so that it doesn't appear in a phone book. You can tell the list server to not list your e-mail address when other subscribers request a list of all of the subscribers.
NOTE: as of 1998, as an anti-spamming precaution, only the list owners may request a list of subscribers from the list server. Naturally, list owners will be able to request a list of all subscribers, including CONCEALed ones, but we will NEVER release this information to anyone without permission from the CONCEALed subscribers.
WARNING: because only subscribers may post messages to the list, posting a message to the mailing list will reveal to everyone else that you are a subscriber. Your message will be recorded in the list's archives, which are publicly available. If you wish anonymity when posting messages to the list, please contact the list owners for assistance.
You might wish to temporarily stop receiving messages from the mailing list. This might be due to planned absence from your e-mail, or because you are already subscribed to the list under another address.
(Note: this does not affect whether or not mail is delivered to you as individual messages or as digests.)
If for any reason you wish to receive messages from the list at a different address, you have three options.
Problems with your subscription can be caused by a number of things. If you're in a hurry, take a look at the Troubleshooting chart for an idea of what could be wrong with your subscription, what caused it, and what you can do about it. If you're really in a hurry, please contact the Problems receiving messages from the list
The list owners occasionally receive error messages about problems delivering mail to subscribers. Sometimes, so many of these error messages arrive that the list owners are forced to take action to avoid drowning in error messages. Most of these list owner actions will affect your subscription, if your subscription is the one that the error messages are reporting about. How they will affect your subscription depends on the problem.
Occasionally, some subscribers stray away from the rules of the list. When the list owners become aware of this, they issue warnings or take action to avoid repeated violations of the list's rules.
| What happened to my subscription? | What errors or problems did the list owners notice about me or my subscription to cause this? | What can I do about this? |
|---|---|---|
| I didn't receive a copy of my message to the mailing list. |
|
Send the message "query nausicaa" to listserv@listserv.brown.edu. If LISTSERV tells you that your subscription options include "NOREPRO - You do not receive a copy of your own postings," then this should help. If that also doesn't work, then contact the list owners for assistance. |
| Nobody responded to my message to the list. |
|
First read the archives to make sure your message was actually received by the list server and distributed to other subscribers. If you don't see your message in the archives, try the remedy for "I'm not receiving messages from the mailing list anymore." If that doesn't work either, then contact the list owners for assistance. |
| I'm not receiving messages from the mailing list anymore. |
|
Send the message "query nausicaa" to listserv@listserv.brown.edu. If LISTSERV replies and tells you that you are not a subscriber of the list anymore, you will have to resubscribe. If LISTSERV replies and tells you that you are still subscribed, but that your subscription options now include "NOMAIL" and "NOPOST," contact the list owners to let them know you can send and perhaps receive mail properly again. |
| I'm not able to post messages to the list anymore. | Any of the above errors, or one or more of your messages to the list violated the list's rules of conduct. | Same as above. |
| My messages to the list are held for review by a list owner. | One or more of your messages violated the list's rules of conduct. This is most commonly the case if you overquote. See "Quoting," below. |
If you have any questions about why your messages are being held, please ask the list owners. If the list owners notice your messages are not violating any list rules anymore, your messages will eventually not be held for review anymore. |
| I'm not subscribed to the mailing list anymore. |
|
If you have any questions about why you were unsubscribed, please ask the list owners. |
Occasionally, subscribers' behavior on the mailing list can be disrespectful, either of the list's rules, or of each other. If you have complaints about the behavior of other subscribers, please contact the list owners with the details.
Complaints about other subscribers can sometimes result in the cancellation of their subscription. Please try first to negotiate with the other subscriber, if possible, to avoid such a drastic result.
If you are having problems with your subscription please contact the list owners for technical support.
The list owners are open to suggestions about the list's rules and policies. You may contact them with your feedback.
There is more than one list owner, so you can reach all of us simultaneously to see if we can discuss it and arrive at a solution.
The rules and policies for this list are based in part on existing guidelines for good behavior online, a.k.a. "netiquette." There are two documents that cover this subject, only the first of which I would recommend that you become familiar with:
An exact policy for how to deal with people who break these rules has not yet been set. Current policy is to send the subscriber a warning, or to set hir subscription to REVIEW until the list owners are confident the misbehavior will stop. Suggestions, directed at the list owners, are welcome.
As stated in the Overview, this mailing list is for discussion of the films, studio, and colleagues of Hayao Miyazaki, a writer, director, and producer of Japanese animated films.
There is an unmoderated spinoff of the Miyazaki Mailing List called nausicaa-shadow. That list is intended for threads of discussion which become off-topic for the Miyazaki Mailing List. Note that because the shadow list is a separate list, it has different subscribers, so people on either list will never see conversations on the other unless subscribed to both.
Because it uses up space in the message archives that could otherwise be used to store more messages or more files or more information on the web site.
To be taken back off of REVIEW, you must first demonstrate to the list owners that you understand how to control overquoting. This can be achieved by posting a number of consecutive messages that aren't rejected due to overquoting.
This is a highly-exaggerated
example
of what a message written
with
long lines looks like on a
terminal
which is narrower than the
sender's.
Looks awful, doesn't it?
These points should be self-explanatory.
Want to know what list traffic is like before subscribing? Trying to find messages on topics that you suspect have already been talked about? Try reading or searching the back issues: the archives of the Miyazaki Mailing List.
Access to archives of all messages of the mailing list is made available on the web at www.nausicaa.net/miyazaki/mail-archive.
Instructions for accessing the archives of the mailing list using e-mail are available on the web at www.nausicaa.net/miyazaki/mail-archive. You can also send the message "INFO DATABASE" to the address listserv@listserv.brown.edu to receive detailed (but very technical) instructions.
Instructions for accessing the archives of the mailing list using FTP are available on the web at www.nausicaa.net/miyazaki/mail-archive/search-listserv.html.
Access to archives of all messages of the mailing list is made available on the web at www.nausicaa.net/miyazaki/mail-archive. The same tool on that page that lets you read archives will also let you search them.
Instructions for searching the archives of the mailing list using e-mail are also available on the web at www.nausicaa.net/miyazaki/mail-archive/search-listserv.html. Look for the topic "Using LISTSERV's advanced search features."
There is no automatic search feature available via FTP. All I can recommend is to follow the FTP instructions to guess roughly when the message might have been posted, download the weekly archive that corresponds to that time interval, and then use a text-search tool to search the archive(s) you've just downloaded. Information about how to access the archives of the mailing list using FTP is available on the web at www.nausicaa.net/miyazaki/mail-archive/search-listserv.html.
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