Hayao Miyazaki
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Portrait of animator Hayao Miyazaki. |
Hayao Miyazaki (宮崎 駿,
Miyazaki Hayao), born
January 5,
1941 in
Tokyo, is one of the most famous and respected creators of
anime, or
Japanese
animated films.
Miyazaki is the creator of many popular anime feature films, as well as some
manga. Although largely unknown in the West outside of animation circles until
Miramax released his film
Princess Mononoke in 1999, his films have enjoyed huge box-office and critical success in Japan and East Asia for many years. Miyazaki's
Spirited Away is the highest-grossing film of all time in Japan;
Princess Mononoke held the same title for a short period until the release of
Titanic later in the same year.
Miyazaki's films are distinguished by recurring themes, such as humanity's relationship to nature and technology, and the difficulty of maintaining a
pacifist ethic. The protagonists of his movies are often strong, independent girls or young women; the "villains" often turn out to be ambiguous characters with redeeming qualities.
Miyazaki's films have generally been financial successes. His success has invited comparisons with American animator
Walt Disney. However, Miyazaki does not see himself as a person building an animation empire, but as an animator lucky enough to have been allowed to make films with his own personal touch. With that statement, one might compare him to
Yuriy Norshteyn,
Frédéric Back, or
Chuck Jones as an animator's animator.
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O Totoro, Satsuki and Mei in My Neighbor Totoro. |
Miyazaki, the second of four brothers, was born in the town of Akebono-cho, part of Tokyo's
Bunkyō-ku. During
World War II, Miyazaki's father Katsuji Miyazaki was director of Miyazaki Airplane, owned by the elder Miyazaki's brother, which made rudders for the
Zero fighter plane. Hayao Miyazaki inherited a lifelong fascination with aviation.
Miyazaki's mother was a voracious reader and an intelligent woman, who often questioned socially accepted norms. Miyazaki later said that he inherited his questioning and skeptical mind from her.
Miyazaki moved frequently throughout his childhood, in part because his mother was undergoing treatment for spinal
tuberculosis from 1947 until 1955. Miyazaki's film
My Neighbor Totoro features a family whose mother is similarly afflicted.
Around 1956 " the date is apparently uncertain " Miyazaki entered Toyotama High School. In his third year there, he saw the film
Hakuja Den, described as "the first-ever Japanese feature-length color anime", [
1] and began to take an interest in animation. In order to become an animator, he had to learn to draw people, because his artwork up until that point had been limited to drawing airplanes and battleships.[
2]
After high school, Miyazaki attended
Gakushuin University, graduating in 1963 with degrees in
political science and
economics. He was a member of the "children's literature research club," said to be "the closest thing to a comics club in those days". [
3]
In April 1963, Miyazaki got a job at
Toei Animation, working as an in-between artist on the anime
Wanwan Chushingura (
Watchdog Bow Wow). He was a leader in a labor dispute soon after his arrival, and he became chief secretary of Toei's labor union in 1964.
In October 1965, he married fellow animator Akemi Ota, who later left work to raise their two sons,
Gorō and
Keisuke. Goro is now an anime filmmaker himself, directing
Tales from Earthsea at
Studio Ghibli. Keisuke is a wood artist who has done work for the
Ghibli Museum and who made the wood engraving shown in Ghibli's
Whisper of the Heart.
Miyazaki first gained recognition while working as an in-betweener on the Toei production of
Garibā no Uchuu Ryokou (
1965) (U.S. title:
Gulliver's Travels Beyond the Moon). He felt that the original ending in the script was lacking, and pitched his own idea, which became the ending used in the final film.
A few years later Miyazaki played an important role as chief animator and concept artist on
Hols: Prince of the Sun (1968), a landmark animated film directed by
Isao Takahata, with whom he would continue to collaborate for the next three decades. In Kimio Yabuki's
Puss in Boots (1969), Miyazaki again provided key animation, storyboards, designs, and story ideas for key scenes in the movie such as the final chase in Lucifer's castle. Shortly afterward Miyazaki proposed scenes in the screenplay for
The Flying Ghost Ship, in which military tanks would march into downtown Tokyo and cause massive havoc, and animated those scenes. Later in 1971 Miyazaki played a decisive role creating story and character ideas for
Animal Treasure Island and
Alibaba and the 40 Thieves, earning the credits idea construction and organization for the two films respectively, as well as animating pivotal scenes in both.
Miyazaki left Toei in 1971 for A Pro, where he co-directed episodes #7-8, 10-11, and 13-23 of the first
Lupin III series with Isao Takahata. He conceived, wrote, designed, and animated the two
Panda! Go Panda! shorts again directed by Isao Takahata. Miyazaki's first film as a director was
The Castle of Cagliostro (
1979), a light-hearted adventure film based on
Lupin III, an extensive Japanese TV series and movie franchise.
The director's next film,
Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (
1984) (
Kaze no Tani no Naushika), was an epic adventure featuring many distinctive themes that reappear in later films: a concern with
ecological issues, a fascination with aircraft, and the absence of a traditional villain. He adapted it from the
manga of the same name, which he had himself created two years prior (this was the first film which he had written as well as directed). Following the success of
Nausicaä, Miyazaki co-founded, with
Isao Takahata, the animation film company
Studio Ghibli, and has produced most (if not all) of his subsequent work through it.
Miyazaki continued to gain recognition with his first three films made through Ghibli.
Castle in the Sky (
1986) recounts the adventure of two orphans seeking a magical floating island.
My Neighbor Totoro (
1988) (
Tonari no Totoro) tells of the adventure of two girls and a magical creature called a "totoro".
Kiki's Delivery Service (
1989) is the story of a small-town teenage
witch who strikes out on her own in a big city.
Porco Rosso (
1992) was something of a departure for Miyazaki, in that the main character was an adult male, an
anti-fascist aviator transformed into an anthropomorphic
pig. The film is a light-hearted adventure set in a fictional world based on
1920s Italy where bounty hunters, aviators, and air pirates battle in the skies. The movie explores the tension between selfishness and duty. Many also see the film as being an abstract self-portrait of the director himself, something of a fictionalised
autobiography.
Miyazaki's next film,
Princess Mononoke (
Mononoke Hime), released in
1997, is what many consider to be his finest, it returns to the ecological and political themes of
Nausicaä. The main plot is an epic struggle between the animal gods who rule the forest and the humans who are trying to exploit it for industry. The film was a huge commercial success in Japan where it became the highest grossing film of all time, until the later success of
Titanic, and it ultimately won Best Picture at the
Japanese Academy Awards. Miyazaki retired after making
Princess Mononoke, intending it to be his last film as a director.
He came out of
retirement after spending a holiday with the daughters of a friend, one of whom became the inspiration for
Spirited Away (
Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi, "Sen & Chihiro's spiriting away"), the story of a girl who is forced to survive in a strange alternate spirit world, enlisted to work in a bathhouse for spirits and gods after her parents are turned into pigs. The film, released in Japan in July
2001, broke the attendance and box office records previously set by
Titanic with 30.4 billion (almost $300,000,000) in total gross earnings from over 23 million viewings. It has received numerous film awards, including Best Picture at the
2001 Japanese Academy Awards, Golden Bear (First Prize) at the
2002 Berlin Film Festival, and the
2002 Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, the first
Oscar awarded to an anime production. In 2005, Miyazaki was awarded for lifetime achievement at the
Venice Film Festival.
In July
2004, Miyazaki finished production on
Howl's Moving Castle, a film adaptation of
Diana Wynne Jones'
fantasy novel of the same name, for which he was required to come out of retirement again following the sudden departure of original director Mamoru Hosoda. The film premiered at the 2004
Venice International Film Festival and won the Golden Osella award for animation technology. On
November 20, 2004,
Howl's Moving Castle opened to general audiences in Japan and earned ¥1.4 billion in its first two days, continuing the record-setting trend of Miyazaki films at the box office. The English dubbed version was released in the U.S. through Disney on
June 11,
2005.
Also in 2005, news was spread that Miyazaki's next (and, as the reports said, last) project would be
I Lost My Little Boy, based on a Chinese children's book. As of
2006, nothing more has been heard of the project.
Miyazaki's son,
Goro Miyazaki, recently finished his first film,
Tales from Earthsea, based on some of the stories by
Ursula K. Le Guin. Throughout the film's production, he and his father were not on speaking terms because of a dispute over whether or not Goro was ready to direct. On
June 28,
2006, Hayao previewed his son's completed film and apparently reversed his opinions on Goro's ability. [
4]
Nausicaa.net has recently reported that the elder Miyazaki has plans to direct his next film, having made up his mind about its "mood". It will apparently take place in
Kobe. Among areas that Miyazaki's team visited as part of pre-production were the view of a city from high in the mountains and a mysterious old cafe run by an elderly couple. The exact location of these places was censored in Studio Ghibli's production diaries.
Distinctive themes
One of the most distinctive traits of Miyazaki's later films that sets them apart from certain Western animation is the lack of stereotypically "good" or "bad" characters. His characters have complex motivations, and while some can be better or worse than others, they are often capable of growth and change. For example, Lady Eboshi from
Princess Mononoke stands in opposition to the other main characters, and her ironworks blatantly exploit the nearby forests for raw materials. However, her character doesn't fit into the standard role of villain: the viewer sees how she provides a productive home for
lepers and former
prostitutes in her city. Lady Eboshi and
Princess Mononoke also exemplify the
environmental ethic apparent in much of Miyazaki's work, although even this commitment is never presented in "black and white":
Mononoke is resolved when Lady Eboshi's industrial city reconciles itself with its "primitive" neighbors.
Some of Miyazaki's early films, however, featured undeniably evil villains (Count Cagliostro in
Castle of Cagliostro or Muska in
Castle in the Sky), while others are remarkable for having no villain at all (
Kiki's Delivery Service and
My Neighbor Totoro).
Many of Miyazaki's work are styled as
bildungsroman, i.e. they depict the path of personal growth and change of the main character. In the beginning, the protagonist (almost always a girl) is described as naive, dependent on others, or selfish. As the story precipitates into a crisis, the character is confronted with challenges, failure and hardships, which she learns to overcome by relying on her own will and inner strength. In the end she's able to make her own decision and strike out of her own. This change is also achieved through exposure to life's major realities,
love (life), and
old age (death). Most of Miyazaki's movies feature a boy co-protagonist, who will later become the first romantic relationship of the character, and an old woman, who starts out as an antagonist, but later reveals her good side and motherly nature, providing essential help. The "grandmother figure" may mean that, as a person achieves maturity, their attitude toward old age changes from opposition to acceptance.
For example, in
Laputa, at the start, Sheeta is so naive that she literally "falls from the clouds". By learning to trust the brash Pazu, and with the help of the not-so-ferocious pirate Dola, she finally saves her own world from destruction. In
Spirited Away, the selfish Chihiro risks her life to save the beloved Haku and her parents.
Miyazaki's
Marxist background is apparent in some of his films (such as
Porco Rosso), while Miyazaki's pro-
feminist views are exemplified by the strong-willed female protagonists in nearly all his films.
Visual devices
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Nausicaä flying her Mehve over the Valley of the Wind |
Specific visual elements recur in many of Miyazaki's films. Particularly in his later work, he occasionally dedicates a few seconds of film to explore a quiet moment in the animated environment. The image of wind moving in long waves across a field of grass or grain has been used in many of his films, as is a closeup shot of a stone or boulder darkening with raindrops. These brief sequences, usually no longer than five or six seconds, are often instrumental in establishing the larger "reality" of his animated world.
Another visual element common to Miyazaki's films is the use of character designs that, at the most basic level, are quite similar. This is often humorously considered an artistic perception that such characters are actors and actresses, reappearing in different films of his.
Flight by the characters is a very common occurrence in Miyazaki's films, lauded for their ability to often look very natural and not "forced". Examples include Nausicaä piloting Mehve, Kiki riding her broomstick, Totoro carrying Satsuki and Mei across the night sky, Howl and Sophie floating majestically above the town of Market Chipping, or Chihiro being borne by Haku in dragon-form back towards the bathhouse of the spirits to find her parents.
A number of English and French authors have influenced Miyazaki's artwork, such as
Lewis Carroll,
Moebius,
Diana Wynne Jones, and
J.R.R. Tolkien. As in Miyazaki's films, these authors have created self-contained worlds where
allegory is avoided, characters have complex or ambiguous motivations, and the audience is not explicitly lectured to. In a 1994
BBC interview, Miyazaki cited the British authors
Eleanor Farjeon,
Rosemary Sutcliff, and
Philippa Pearce as influences. He has also cited TV work based on
Arthur Conan Doyle's
Sherlock Holmes stories. The filmmaker is also fond of
Roald Dahl's stories about planes and pilots: for example, the image from
Porco Rosso of a cloud of dead pilots was inspired by Dahl's "They Shall Not Grow Old". Other Miyazaki works—such as
My Neighbor Totoro,
Princess Mononoke, and
Spirited Away—specifically incorporate elements of Japanese history and mythology.
Miyazaki was also influenced by his political background in the
ANPO Hantai (opponents of the
U.S.-Japan Security Treaty) and labor movements of the
1960s. These political roots had an impact on the themes of his films.
Miyazaki's work in TV series is less well known than his films. In the
1970s he worked as an animator on the World Masterpiece Theater TV animation series under
Isao Takahata. His first directorial credit is for the TV version of
Lupin III in
1971; he was a co-director (with Takahata) of the second half of the first TV series, and director of two episodes of the second. He later based his first feature film,
Castle of Cagliostro, on the same character.
Perhaps his most famous TV work was directing
Future Boy Conan, a 1978 adaptation of the children's novel
The Incredible Tide by
Alexander Key. The main antagonist is the leader of the
city-state of Industria who is attempting to revive some lost technology. The series also elaborates on the characters and events in the book, but nonetheless is an early example of certain character types which would recur throughout Miyazaki's later work: for example, a girl who is in touch with nature, a warrior woman who is not her antagonist, and a boy who seems destined for the girl. The series also featured lots of unusual aircraft.
He also directed six episodes of
Sherlock Hound, a retelling of the
Sherlock Holmes tales using
anthropomorphic animals that was released in 1984-85.
Miyazaki has drawn several manga, starting in
1969 with
Nagakutsu wo Haita Neko (
Puss in Boots). His major work in this printed format is the manga version of the epic tale
Nausicaä, on which he worked from
1982 to
1994 and which has sold more than 10 million copies in Japan. He originally didn't want to do
Nausicaä as a manga but was forced to after
Toshio Suzuki couldn't get funding for a film not based on a manga. Other works include
Sabaku no Tami (砂漠の民
People of the Desert),
Shuna no Tabi (シュナの旅
The Journey of Shuna),
Zassou nōto (雑想ノート
The Notebook of Various Images), and
Hikoutei Jidai (飛行艇時代
The Age of the Flying Boat, the basis of his animated film
Porco Rosso).
* Hayao Miyazaki is an apparent smoker. In a bonus track of the
Spirited Away DVD, Miyazaki is seen with a lit cigarette in his left hand while sketching with the other.
Director and Screenwriter
*
The Castle of Cagliostro (Lupin III) - (ルパン三世カリオストロの城
Rupan Sansei: Kariosutoro no Shiro),
1979*
Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind - (風の谷のナウシカ
Kaze no Tani no Naushika),
1984*
Castle in the Sky (天空の城ラ"ュタ
Tenkuu no Shiro Rapyuta),
1986*
My Neighbor Totoro - (となりのトトロ
Tonari no Totoro),
1988*
Kiki's Delivery Service - ("女の宅急便
Majo no Takkyuubin),
1989*
Porco Rosso - (紅の豚
Kurenai no Buta),
1992*
Princess Mononoke - (もののけ姫
Mononoke Hime),
1997*
Spirited Away - (千と千尋の神隠し
Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi),
2001 (
Best Animated Feature, winner 2002)
*
Howl's Moving Castle - (ハウルの動く城
Hauru no Ugoku Shiro),
2004 (Best Animated Feature, nominee 2005)
Screenwriter
*
Animal Treasure Island - (どうぶつ宝島;
Doubutsu Takarajima),
1971 (Credited with story adaptation)
*
Panda! Go Panda!! - (パンダコパンダ;
Panda Kopanda),
1972*
Panda! Go Panda! & the Rainy-Day Circus (パンダコパンダ 雨降りサーカスの巻;
Panda Kopanda: Amefuri Saakasu no Maki),
1973 *
Whisper of the Heart (耳'すませば;
Mimi o Sumaseba),
1995* Cavallaro, Dani (2006),
The Anime Art of Hayao Miyazaki, Mcfarland. (ISBN 0786423692)
* McCarthy, Helen (1999),
Hayao Miyazaki: Master of Japanese Animation: Films, Themes, Artistry, Stone Bridge. (ISBN 1880656418)
*
Miyazaki Information at Nausicaa.net*
The Official Studio Ghibli Site (Japanese)*
GhibliWorld.com: The Ultimate Ghibli Collection Site (English Ghibli source with news updates straight from Japan and info about Studio Ghibli goods)
*
Profile at Japan Zone*
Profile at IMDB*
Discussion about Miyazaki in The New Yorker*
Interview in The Guardian*
Criticism of Miyazaki by
Mamoru Oshii*
Profile at Anime.com
