Hayao Miyazaki is one of Japan’s greatest animation directors. The entertaining plots, compelling characters, and breathtaking animation in his films have earned him international renown from critics as well as public recognition within Japan. The Walt Disney Company’s commitment to introduce the films to the rest of the world will let more people appreciate the high-quality works he has given the movie-going public.
Hayao Miyazaki
Biography
Miyazaki, the second of four sons, was born January 5, 1941, in the town of Akebono-cho, part of Tokyo’s Bunkyō. During World War II, Miyazaki’s father, Katsuji, was director of Miyazaki Airplane, owned by his brother (Hayao Miyazaki’s uncle), which made rudders for A6M Zero fighter planes. During this time, Miyazaki drew airplanes and developed a lifelong fascination with aviation, a penchant that later manifested as a recurring theme in his films. Miyazaki’s mother was a voracious reader who often questioned socially accepted norms. From 1947 until 1955 his mother underwent treatment for Pott disease. She spent the first few years mostly in the hospital, but was eventually able to be nursed from home. During his childhood, Miyazaki was forced to switch schools several times. These would all impact elements of his films. First, when he was three, Miyazaki’s family was forced to evacuate Bunkyō. He began school as an evacuee in 1947. At age nine his family returned home, but the following year he switched to another American-influenced elementary school. Miyazaki attended Toyotama High School. In his third year there, he saw the film Hakujaden (The Tale of the White Serpent), which has been described as “the first-ever Japanese feature length color anime”. After high school, Miyazaki attended Gakushuin University, from which he would graduate in 1963 with degrees in political science and economics. He was a member of the “Children’s Literature research club,” the “closest thing to a comics club in those days”.
Like many children in postwar Japan, Miyazaki decided he wanted to become a manga artist during high school. However, his talents were limited to things like planes, tanks and battleships; he had an especially hard time drawing people. Famous manga artists like Osamu Tezuka, Tetsuji Fukushima and Sanpei Shirato influenced his early works. In order to distance himself from the criticism he expected from following Tezuka’s form, he consciously developed his own style, but was unable to fully shake Tezuka’s influence off until he began studying animation. His interest in animation began during high school after watching Japan’s first full-length feature animation The Tale of the White Serpent by Taiji Yabushita. Miyazaki “fell in love” with the movie’s heroine and it left a strong impression on him. It was after this Miyazaki decided to stop his pursuit of being a manga artist and pursue animation. However, in order to become an animator, he had to learn to draw the human figure, since his prior work had been limited to airplanes and battleships.
Filmography
Director, screenplay and storyboards
Lupin III Part I, Yuki’s Sun, Future Boy Conan, The Castle of Cagliostro, Lupin III Part II, Sherlock Hound
Films in the Studio Ghibli canon
- (1984) Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind
- (1986) Castle in the Sky
- (1988) My Neighbor Totoro
- (1989) Kiki’s Delivery Service
- (1992) Porco Rosso
- (1992) Princess Mononoke
- (2001) Spirited Away
- (2003) The Cat Returns
- (2005) Howl’s Moving Castle
- (2008) Ponyo
Shorts
- (1995) “On Your Mark”
- (2001) “The Whale Hunt”
- (2001) “Koro’s Big Day Out”
- (2002) “Mei and the Kittenbus”
- (2002) “Imaginary Flying Machines”
- (2002) “Ornithopter Story: Fly! Hiyodori Tengu Go!”
- (2006) “Monmon the Water Spider”
- (2006) “House-hunting”
- (2006) “The Day I Harvested A Planet”
- (2001 – 2008) “Film Guruguru”
- (2010) “Mr. Dough and the Egg Princess”
Manga
Miyazaki has illustrated several manga, beginning in 1969 with Puss in Boots (Nagagutsu wo Haita Neko). His major work in this format is the seven-volume manga version of his tale Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, which he created from 1982 to 1994 and which has sold millions of copies worldwide. Other works include Sabaku no Tami, Shuna no Tabi, The Notebook of Various Images, which was the basis of his film Porco Rosso.
In October 2006, A Trip to Tynemouth was published in Japan. Miyazaki based it on the young adult short stories of Robert Westall, who grew up in World War II England. The most famous story, first published in a collection called Break of Dark, is titled Blackham’s Wimpy, the name of a Vickers Wellington Bomber featured in the story, whose nickname comes from the character J. Wellington Wimpy from the Popeye comics and cartoons (the Wellington was named for Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, victor over Napoleon). In early 2009, Miyazaki returned with a new manga called Kaze Tachinu, telling the story of Mitsubishi A6M Zero fighter designer Jiro Horikoshi. The manga was published in two issues of the Model Graphix magazine, published on February 25 and March 25, 2009.
Animation career
Toei Animation
In April 1963, Miyazaki got a job at Toei Animation, working as an in-between artist on the anime Watchdog Bow Wow (Wanwan Chushingura). He was a leader in a labor dispute soon after his arrival, becoming chief secretary of Toei’s labor union in 1964. He first gained recognition while working as an in-between artist on the Toei production Gulliver’s Travels Beyond the Moon (Garibā no Uchuu Ryokō) in 1965. He found the original ending to the script unsatisfactory and pitched his own idea, which became the ending used in the final film. In October 1965, he married fellow animator Akemi Ota, who later left work to raise their two sons, Gorō and Keisuke. In 1968 Miyazaki played an important role as chief animator, concept artist, and scene designer on Hols: Prince of the Sun, a landmark animated film directed by Isao Takahata, with whom he continued to collaborate for the next three decades. In Kimio Yabuki’s Puss in Boots (1969), Miyazaki again provided key animation as well as designs, storyboards and story ideas for key scenes in the film, including the climactic chase scene. Shortly thereafter, Miyazaki proposed scenes in the screenplay for Flying Phantom Ship, in which military tanks would roll into downtown Tokyo and cause mass hysteria, and was hired to storyboard and animate those scenes. In 1971, Miyazaki played a decisive role in developing structure, characters and designs for Animal Treasure Island and Ali Baba and the 40 Thieves. He also helped in the storyboarding and key animating of pivotal scenes in both films.
Works for other studios
Miyazaki left Toei in 1971 for A Pro, where he co-directed six episodes of the first Lupin III series with Isao Takahata. He and Takahata then began pre-production on a Pippi Longstocking series and drew extensive story boards for it. However, after traveling to Sweden to conduct research for the film and meet the original author, Astrid Lindgren, they were denied permission to complete the project, and it was canceled. Instead of Pippi Longstocking, Miyazaki conceived, wrote, designed and animated two Panda! Go, Panda! shorts which were directed by Takahata. Miyazaki then left Nippon Animation in 1979 in the middle of the production of Anne of Green Gables to direct his first feature anime The Castle of Cagliostro (1979), a Lupin III adventure film. Miyazaki’s next film, Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (Kaze no Tani no Naushika, 1984), was an adventure film that introduced many of the themes which recur in later films: a concern with ecology and the human impact on the environment; a fascination with aircraft and flight; pacifism, including an anti-military streak; feminism; and morally ambiguous characterizations, especially among villains. This was the first film both written and directed by Miyazaki. He adapted it from his manga series of the same title, which he began writing and illustrating two years earlier, but which remained incomplete until after the film’s release.