Keiko Niwa

Keiko Niwa (丹羽圭子) is a Japanese editor and writer. She wrote the screenplay of Ocean Waves under the pseudonym Kaoru Nakamura.

She has written several screenplays for Studio Ghibli, mostly for films directed by Goro Miyazaki. She co-wrote the script for the Kabuki stage adaptation of Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, which premiered at the Shinbashi Embujo in Ginza, Japan in 2019. She, along with her co-writer Kazuhisa Tobe won the 48th Takejiro Otani Award.

She was a former editor at Animage magazine, and was an assistant to Toshio Suzuki.

Character
Toshio Suzuki, the head of Tokuma Shoten, who has worked with Niwa throughout the decades, described her as an enigma. "I don't know what she's thinking, she always seems vacant." Despite this, he highly appreciates her writing ability. Screenwriter Nobuyuki Isshiki, a fellow student at the Shochiku Scenario Research Institute, pointed out that she was considered the best in their class.

Early Life
Born in Hyōgo Prefecture, Japan. Niwa studied screenplay at Shochiku Scenario Research Institute. She attended classes at the same time as fellow screenwriter Nobuyuki Isshiki, who described her as a "genius".

Career
Niwa soon dropped out of the institute and began working at Tokuma Shoten as an editor for Animage magazine. She trained under Toshio Suzuki, who was the editor-in-chief at the time.

At the request of Suzuki, she became involved as a screenwriter at Studio Ghibli, eventually working there permanently to write the screenplay for Ocean Waves. The film was released in 1993 where Niwa went under the pseudonym "Kaori Nakamura".

She worked on the screenplay for Tales from Earthsea, directed by Goro Miyazaki and released in 2006. She was also wrote the screenplay for The Secret World of Arrietty in 2010. It is said that Hayao Miyazaki, who served as those film's planner, spoke freely about various ideas, and Niwa would transcribe and construct them into a scenario that would later be used in pre-production. Niwa is the first to have experience of co-writing for both Hayao and Goro Miyazaki.

She collaborated with Hayao Miyazaki while writing the screenplay for From Up on Poppy Hill, which was directed by Goro.

On Friday, December 6, 2019, she wrote the script for the Kabuki stage adaptation of Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, which was performed at the Shinbashi Embujo, and won the 48th Reiwa 1st Year Otani Takejiro Award.

Works

 * Ocean Waves as "Kaori Nakamura"
 * Tales from Earthsea
 * The Secret World of Arrietty
 * From Up on Poppy Hill
 * When Marnie Was There
 * Earwig and the Witch

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Keiko Niwa