Hayao Miyazaki

One day, my dad, who enjoys movies so much, bought us (me and my younger sister) a bunch of anime DVDs. I was surprised, for it was unusual for him to buy us anime DVDs (he does not enjoy anime) and I asked him why he bought them. He said that they (the anime) were different. They were amazing, bewitching. He kept on forcing us to watch one of them, so we watched. The first movie we watched was Laputa: Castle in the Sky. For the first half hour, I sat silently on my couch, dumbstruck (which was a rare moment because I'm kind of a noisy movie-watcher). At the end of the film, I found myself shouting joyously, "This is the man who could move the world and put it in simple, yet beautiful, animated scenes and put some extra magic dust here and there!" That's how I became a great fan of Hayao Miyazaki: the man who moved me.

Hayao Miyazaki was born in January 5, 1941 in Tokyo, and he was one of the most famous and respected creators of anime (Japanese animated films) and manga (Japanese comics). He was born in a rich family of wingtip makers for Zero fighters during the war. His father, Katsuji Miyazaki, was the director of Miyazaki Airplane. Hayao Miyazaki inherited a lifelong fascination with aviation because of it, but had contradictory feelings towards war and weapons. His mother was an enthusiastic reader and an intelligent, strict woman. She suffered from spinal tuberculosis, causing them to move frequently throughout Miyazaki's childhood for undertaking her treatments from 1947 until 1955. His older brother is Arata Miyazaki, while his younger brothers are Yutaka and Shirou Miyazaki.

A close-up photo of famous Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki at the 2008 Venice Film FestivalThomas Schulzdetengase @ Flickr [CC BY-SA 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)]Between 1953 and 1955, he graduated from Eifuku Elementary and attended Omiya Junior High. Between 1956 and 1958, he graduated from Omiya Junior High and went to Toyotama High. In his third year, for the first time, he saw the film Hakuja Den and began to take an interest in animated films. In 1962, he graduated from Toyotama High and entered Gakushuin University, taking a major in economics. He joined the Children's Literature Research Club. He graduated in 1963 with degrees in political science and economics.

In April 1963, he got a job at Toei Douga (Toei Animation) and was trained for three months before he became an in-betweener on Wanwan Chushingura (Watchdog Bow Wow) films. He soon drew people's attention with his extraordinary ability to draw and with his endless movie ideas. He gained his first recognition from Gariba no Uchuu Ryokou (Gulliver's Travels Beyond the Moon) (1965). In 1964 he became a chief secretary of Toei Douga's labor union with Isao Takahata as the vice-chairman. In the autumn of 1965, he volunteered himself to help Takahata finish Horus: Prince of the Sun (which was directed by Takahata himself)(1968).

He married fellow animator Akemi Ota in October, 1965. Their first son, Goro Miyazaki, is a landscape designer and designed the garden on the rooftop of Studio Ghibli (now he is working on his own animated film, Tales from Earthsea). Keisuke Miyazaki, their second son, is a wood artist who made the wooden print of "Craftsman Making a Violin in Prison" in Ghibli's film Whisper of the Heart. In 1971, he moved to A Pro with Isao Takahata, then to Nippon Animation in 1973, involved in a World Masterpiece Theatre TV animation series.

Conan, the Boy in Future was his first directed TV series. He moved to Tokyo Movie Shinsha in 1979 and directed his first film in Lupin III: The Castle of Cagliostro. In 1984, he released Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind (1984), which was based on the manga of the same title (created in 1982). It gained a huge success, and therefore he co-founded the animation film company Studi Ghibli with Isao Takahata. Since then, he has directed, written, and produced many other films with Takahata.

He then gained success with his three films made through Ghibli. Following Nausicaa, there was Laputa: Castle in the Sky (1986), My Neighbor Totoro (1988), and Kiki's Delivery Service (1989), continued by Porco Rosso (1992).

Miyazaki's Princess Mononoke (1997), was a huge commercial success in Japan and became the highest grossing domestic film (about US$ 150 million) and won Best Picture (Wikipedia version, which is Best Film according to Nausicaa.net) at the Japan Academy Award. The record was broken by the following success of Titanic. He formally quit from the Ghibli on January 14, 1998, after the success of Princess Mononoke, but it seemed that he "came back" from his retirement for the making of Spirited Away (2001) on January 16, 1999. Spirited Away showed up and broke both the presence and box office records of Titanic. It has received numerous international film awards, such as Best Picture at 2001 Japan Academy Awards, Golden Bear at 2002 Berlin Film Festival, and Best Animated Feature at 2002 Academy Award (the first Oscar for anime production).

Again, he tried retiring after the success of Spirited Away, but he "came back" for the making of Howl's Moving Castle (2004). It premiered at 2004 Venice International Film Festival and won Golden Osella award for animation technology.

He was awarded Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at Venice International Film Festival in 2005.

As a "debatophiliac" girl, I really enjoy his films which are rich of debatable notions, such as human's relationship with nature and technology. Maybe that's why I enjoy his movies so much. Another reason why I enjoy his films was because his movies are always optimistic. They always bring me imagination, fantasies, truth, facts, debates, arguments, and hope. One thing I really respected him for is his reason to make such optimistic films: he makes films and feels that it is important for everyone to see the world positively and have hope.

"I want to create movies that inspire children." In that case, I disagree. His films do not only inspire children. They inspire the world.