The idyllic town of Positano was a welcome sight for the weary travelers of Production I.G. On the right, the Tyrrhenian Sea beckons. Unless otherwise noted, all photos courtesy of Justin Leach.

Earlier this year, my company received an invitation asking Production I.G. to make a presentation for a panel called, "Focus on the Studios" at the Cartoons on the Bay animation festival in Positano, Italy. After informing our president, Mitsuhisa Ishikawa, of the invitation to the festival, he accepted. He felt it would be a good opportunity to share some information about Production I.G. with people outside Japan. In addition to myself, he asked Yoshiki Sakurai, a fluent English-speaking writer for the Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex television series, to join us. My assignment was to prepare a presentation for the festival to cover our studio history, current and future projects.

After a grueling 19 hours of travel time at various airports in Europe, we finally made it to our destination: Naples, Italy. After we made our way through the tiny airport, a staff member from the festival helped us find our shuttle to Positano. In our shuttle bus, Jacques Pettigrew, the president of CinéGroupe, a French-Canadian animation studio based in Montreal, joined us.

The Production I.G. team immediately sensed that the Italian landscape had influenced Hayao Miyazaki visually. Left, is the hillside town of Positano and, on the right, the villa where Production I.G. stayed.

On the way to Positano, we passed Mt. Vesuvius, the famous volcano that decided to engulf Pompeii in 79 A.D. The volcano was quite a sight, and in many ways reminded me of Mt. Fuji, Japan' s famous volcano overlooking Tokyo. After we departed Naples, we began to make our way into the mountainous coastal area closer to the festival. As we were driving, both Ishikawa and Sakurai commented on the obvious influence Italy had on Hayao Miyazaki' s work, in particular, The Castle of Caglistro. As our car kept on winding around the steep corners, we suddenly felt as if Lupin the super would pass us at any time. After about an hour, we wearily arrived at our hotel in Positano and checked into our rooms.