This week’s highlight – or rather, lowlight from my point of view – was the news that Studio Ghibli is no more.

Well, not precisely no more. Media reports about what is happening there are so ambiguous that it’s anyone’s guess whether award-winning film-maker Hayao Miyazaki’s baby is on a break, is on life-support, is yanking everyone’s chain, is already dead or whatever.

The international media seems to have agreed to disagree over this one.

We’ve had The Independent say that the studio’s death was “inevitable”; The Inquirer claiming that the studio “is not dead yet” and fans would do well to chill; and BBC is sure that “this is just a pause”. What is really happening is anyone’s guess.

Miyazaki himself doesn’t seem to subscribe to the philosophy that too much of a good thing is great. And, without fail, anything produced by Studio Ghibli and helmed by him has always been a good thing.

All titles under his name have resulted in a degree of success that varies from the stupendous to the enchanting.

You might say that Studio Ghibli is not the sole effort of Miyazaki, and you would be correct.

Co-founder Toshio Suzuki also had a lot to do with establishing the studio’s vision and implementing it.

However, it’s an open secret that creative direction is all down to Miyazaki.

All those little quirks that make the Studio Ghibli magical and totally different from the other animation offerings and from other more commercial studios are all down to Miyazaki.

The 101 colourful detail and the diversity of the creatures in Spirited Away; the seemingly simple, yet astonishingly detailed visuals in Ponyo; the fairyland landscape in Howl’s Moving Castle... without Miyazaki, these would not have been.

Which is why many are taking claims that the studio will carry out without him, regardless, with a pinch of salt.

Even if Studio Ghibli carries on, will it be quite the same without the iconic director at the helm?

Experience has shown us that the audience doesn’t take too kindly to a Miyazaki-less production.

You might say that Studio Ghibli is not the sole effort of Miyazaki, and you would be correct. Co-founder Toshio Suzuki also had a lot to do with establishing the studio’s vision and implementing it

Take When Marnie Was There, released by Studio Ghibli this year and directed by Hiromasa Yonebayashi.

I don’t know about you, but I’ve heard no one waxing lyrical about it.

Financially, it’s doing nowhere near as well as the Miyazaki films, including his last one,The Wind Rises.

I myself have not bothered to look it up, which might be a mistake of course... you can say that the draw just was not there, although I will prob-ably get around to rectifying that soon.

Although the Studio Ghibli Facebook community is urg-ing fans not to panic and assuring us that production will continue, I suppose only time can tell.

Let’s hope it won’t be a watered-down version of what we have come to expect when we see the Ghibli name attached.