Is Nausicaä a Studio Ghibli film?
Yes and no. Studio Ghibli did not exist as a formal company when Nausicaä was made. When Tokuma decided to have Miyazaki make the film, they had to find an animation studio that could do contract work with Miyazaki supervising the project. They chose Topcraft, a studio that before had done mostly contract work for the US animation company Rankin-Bass. Topcraft’s best known animated films in the US are The Hobbit, The Last Unicorn, and The Return of the King. Nausicaa was successful enough that Tokuma wanted Miyazaki to make more films, so he formed a new company called Studio Ghibli and most of the staff and artists from Topcraft came to work at the new studio. It is not clear whether Tokuma bought out Topcraft or whether Topcraft went out of business at the same time, so the staff jumped at the opportunity to work at the new studio. So essentially the same team of animators, artists, and staff who created Nausicaä then went on to create Laputa. Because of this, although Ghibli did not
