Studio Ghibli co-founder, Isao Takahata, dies aged 82

The co-founder of one of the world's most celebrated and enduring animation houses, Studio Ghibli, died on Thursday.

According to a report from AFP-JIJI, Isao Takahata passed away in a Tokyo hospital aged 82, after a career spanning more than half a century. He had been repeatedly hospitalised for heart problems since last year.

Graduating from the University of Tokyo in 1959, Takahata had stints at studios which included Toei Animation, where he met longtime collaborator Hayao Miyazaki. The pair went on to launch Studio Ghibli in 1985, alongside producer Toshio Suzuki.

Takahata is perhaps best known for directing 1988's acclaimed Grave of the Fireflies. He also served as a producer and writer for a number of films, such as the much-admired Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind and Ghibli's first film Castle in the Sky.

His last film, 2013's The Tale of the Princess Kaguya, was nominated for an Academy Award. In a 2016 interview with Variety, Takahata said he still had several projects still in mind.

"Whether those will be finalized as films is something that no one, myself included, can know," he said at the time.

Of course, Miyazaki came out of retirement last year to work on the forthcoming Ghibli film, How Do You Live?, which is set for release in 2020.