For 35 years, Studio Ghibli has brought anime fans together through beautiful movies. And while each of them has been loved for different reasons, one of them in particular became a hit on social media due to the most powerful force on the internet: memes.
Hayao Miyazaki's 1986 film, Tenkuu no Shiro Laputa (known in Latin America as The Castle in the Sky), has been broadcast in Japan once a year since 1988. In 2011, the year the film turned 25 since its Premiere, fans mobilized to create a storm of tweets that would surpass any other global feat on the platform. And then, two years later, they did it again.
Today, the enduring and far-reaching power of Studio Ghibli and his films is celebrated, through a peek at one of the biggest trends on Twitter - the Balse Matsuri.
The Tenkuu no Shiro Laputa movie has been consistently recognized not only as a fan favorite, but also as one of the best animated movies ever made. Even if you haven't seen it, you should be familiar with that memorable scene from Pazu, the hero of the movie, trapping the mysterious Sheeta as she floats from the sky. The film follows the couple on their journey to the floating island of the title, where they will face the villain Muska in her attempt to dominate the ruined land and its technology as their own.
At the climax of the feature film, Sheeta unleashes the "Destruction Spell", one of the many spells of her people her grandmother taught her. One word, "Balse", causes the castle to collapse. This is an iconic event, which would become even more special in 2011.
The first edition
In 2011, Japanese fans joined forces on message boards to basically organize an internet flash mob. The film's annual screening was scheduled for December 14 of that year, with a parallel broadcast via the Niconico website (it was still called Nico Nico Douga at the time). Niconico and the 2channel message board platform had already experienced quite a surge of activity in previous years during screenings of this film, but nothing had them ready for what was to come.
The plan was for internet users (specifically Twitter, but also 2channel and Niconico) to join Sheeta and Pazu in the "Destruction Spell." At the exact moment this scene occurs during the movie broadcast, fans from all over Japan simultaneously released ““ ル ス ”(Balse), and while it didn't make the internet crash as it did the castle, it certainly had a lasting effect.
For a brief moment, global Twitter activity tripled as fans posted their tweets with "バ ル ス". At its highest point, the social platform (which at the time was barely five years in service) reached 15,000 tweets per second, and 11,347 of them belonged to the Japanese trend. The achievement far exceeded the previous record of 8,868 tweets per second, established when Beyoncé revealed her pregnancy during the MTV Video Music Awards.
On the other hand, the Niconico and 2channel platforms also felt the destruction. The first, who was broadcasting alongside television, was overwhelmed by the comments but managed to survive. However, 2channel fell to the incredible surge in activity and temporarily closed.
The result was excellent, the "Balse Matsuri" had been a success. But the fans were not satisfied.
The second edition
In 2013, fans decided to revive the trend. The annual broadcast of Studio Ghibli's film Tenkuu no Shiro Laputa was scheduled that year for August 3, and this time the community was fully prepared. Twitter Japan warned headquarters in San Francisco that there would be a considerable increase in activity. The engineers then prepared ahead of time for the impact and this helped a lot. On August 3, 2013, at 7:21:50 a.m., the word “Balse” recorded a record 143,199 tweets per second.
Twitter Japan proudly boasted this new record to the world soon after. However, although Twitter knew how to prepare for the impact, the other transmission sites that carried out the broadcast of the film in parallel did not have the same luck. Like 2channel in 2011, several of them had to be inactive for a time.
While the "Balse Matsuri" event has yet to see such success since 2013, the trend is strengthening again with each new annual broadcast of the film. In 2016, Twitter even added a temporary "Balse" button.
Maybe it wasn't meant to be that year, or maybe the ability to write "Balse" via a button took the fun out of the meme, but no record was broken that day. However, the hashtag was strong, registering 345,000 tweets per minute.
While something like what was seen in 2013 may never be seen again, the love for the “Balse Matsuri” still continues. Fans found a pretty fun way to get together, have fun, and create history in the process. It is a fitting legacy for Studio Ghibli, a studio that has easily delivered the best Japanese animation movies ever made.
Original writing: Crunchyroll
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