• Film Animator, Manga Artist and Screenwriter Hayao Miyazaki, 1941

   

Born in Bunkyō, Tokyo, Miyazaki began his animation career in 1961, when he joined Toei Animation. From there, Miyazaki worked as an in-between artist for Gulliver's Travels Beyond the Moon where he pitched his own ideas that eventually became the movie's ending. He continued to work in various roles in the animation industry over the decade until he was able to direct his first feature film Lupin III: The Castle of Cagliostro which was released in 1979. After the success of his next film, Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, he co-founded Studio Ghibli where he continued to produce many feature films until his temporary retirement in 1997 following Princess Mononoke.

While Miyazaki's films have long enjoyed both commercial and critical success in Japan, he remained largely unknown to the West until Miramax Films released Princess Mononoke. Princess Mononoke was the highest grossing film in Japan — until it was eclipsed by another 1997 film, Titanic — and the first animated film to win Picture of the Year at the Japanese Academy Awards. Miyazaki returned to animation with Spirited Away. The film topped Titanic's sales at the Japanese box office, also won Picture of the Year at the Japanese Academy Awards and was the first anime film to win an American Academy Award.

Miyazaki's films often contain recurrent themes like humanity's relationship with nature and technology, and the difficulty of maintaining a pacifist ethic. The protagonists of his films are often strong, independent girls or young women. While two of his films, The Castle of Cagliostro and Castle in the Sky, involve traditional villains, his other films like Nausicaä and Princess Mononoke present morally ambiguous antagonists with redeeming qualities. He recently co-wrote the film The Secret World of Arrietty, which was released in July 2010 in Japan and February 2012 in the United States.

Miyazaki was born in the town of Akebono-cho in Bunkyō, Tokyo, the second of four sons born to Katsuji Miyazaki. During World War II, 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 upbringing, Miyazaki was forced to switch schools several times. These would impact elements of his films. When Miyazaki was three years old, his family was forced to evacuate Bunkyō and 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, and as with many children in postwar Japan, he wanted to become a manga artist. His talents were limited to things like planes, tanks and battleships; he had an especially problematic time drawing people. Famous manga artists like Osamu Tezuka, Tetsuji Fukushima and Sanpei Shirato influenced his early works. 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.

During his third year at Toyotama, Miyazaki saw the film Hakujaden (The Tale of the White Serpent), directed by Taiji Yabushita, animated by Toei Animation described as "the first ever Japanese feature length color anime". He "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. To become an animator, Miyazaki had to learn to draw the human figure. After graduating from Toyotama, Miyazaki attended Gakushuin University and was a member of the university's "Children's Literature research club," the "closest thing to a comics club in those days." Miyazaki graduated from Gakushuin in 1963 with degrees in political science and economics.

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 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. He also illustrated the manga version of Puss in Boots. Pero, the 'Puss In Boots' from that film would later received two sequels from Toei Animation, during the 1970's and he would ultimately become the studio's mascot, however Miyazaki was not involved with any of the sequels. 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 Forty Thieves (アリババと 40匹の盗賊 Aribaba to Yonjūbiki no Tozuku). He also helped in the storyboarding and key animating of pivotal scenes in both films.

Miyazaki left Toei in 1971 for Mushi Production, A Pro, Nippon Animation, and TMS Entertainment where he co-directed six episodes of the first Lupin III series with Isao Takahata. He also worked as an animator on the World Masterpiece Theater with Takahata. The two 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, permission was refused to complete the project, and it was canceled as a result.

Miyazaki conceived, wrote, designed and animated two Panda! Go, Panda! shorts which were directed by Takahata. He also directed Future Boy Conan (1978), an 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 attempts to revive lost technology. The series also elaborates on the characters and events in the book, and is an early example of characterizations which recur throughout Miyazaki's later work: a girl who is in touch with nature, a warrior woman who appears menacing but is not an antagonist, and a boy who seems destined for the girl. The series also featured imaginative aircraft designs.

Miyazaki left Nippon Animation in 1979 in the middle of the production of Anne of Green Gables to direct his first feature anime film The Castle of Cagliostro (1979), a Lupin III adventure film. During this time, Miyazaki also directed six episodes of Sherlock Hound, an Italian-Japanese co-production between TMS Entertainment and the television station RAI, which retold Sherlock Holmes tales using anthropomorphic animals. These episodes were first broadcast in 1984-85.

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. Starring the voices of Sumi Shimamoto, Yōji Matsuda, Iemasa Kayumi, Gorō Naya and Yoshiko Sakakibara, 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.

In June 1985, Miyazaki, Takahata and Tokuma Shoten chairman Yasuyoshi Tokuma organized the animation production company Studio Ghibli with funding from Tokuma Shoten. His first film with Ghibli, Laputa: Castle in the Sky (1986) recounts the adventure of two orphans seeking a magical castle-island that floats in the sky; My Neighbor Totoro (Tonari no Totoro, 1988) tells of the adventure of two girls and their interaction with forest spirits; and Kiki's Delivery Service (1989), adapted from the 1985 novel of the same name by Eiko Kadono, tells the story of a small town girl who leaves home to begin life as a witch in a big city. Miyazaki's fascination with flight is evident throughout these films, ranging from the ornithopters flown by pirates in Castle in the Sky, to the Totoro and the Cat Bus soaring through the air, and Kiki flying her broom.

In 1992, Miyazaki directed the 1920s Italy-set adventure film Porco Rosso (1992) was a notable departure for Miyazaki, in that the main character was an adult male, an anti-fascist aviator transformed into an anthropomorphic pig. The film is set in 1920s Italy and the film is about a titular bounty hunter, voiced by Shūichirō Moriyama, and an American soldier of fortune, voiced by Akio Ōtsuka. The film explores the tension between selfishness and duty. Porco Rosso was released on July 19, 1992. That August, Studio Ghibli set up its headquarters in Koganei, Tokyo.

In 1995, Miyazaki began work on Princess Mononoke, which uses the ecological and political themes of Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind. Starring Yuriko Ishida, Yōji Matsuda, Akihiro Miwa and Yūko Tanaka, the story is about a struggle between the animal spirits inhabiting the forest and the humans exploiting the forest for industry. The film was released on July 19, 1997 and was both a financial and critical success; it won the Japan Academy Prize for Best Picture. Miyazaki went into semi - retirement after directing Princess Mononoke. In working on the film, Miyazaki redrew 80,000 of the film's frames himself. He also stated at one point that "Princess Mononoke" would be his last film. Tokuma Shoten merged with Studio Ghibli that June.

During this period of semi - retirement, Miyazaki spent time with the daughters of a friend. One of these friends would become his inspiration for Miyazaki's next film which would also become biggest commercial success to date, Spirited Away. The film stars Rumi Hiiragi, Mari Natsuki and Miyu Irino, and is the story of a girl, forced to survive in a bizarre spirit world, who works in a bathhouse for spirits after her parents are turned into pigs by the sorceress who owns it. The film was released on July 2001 and grossed ¥30.4 billion (approximately $300 million) at the box office. It won a Japan Academy Prize, a Golden Bear award at the 2002 Berlin Film Festival, and an Academy Award for Best Animated Feature.

In July 2004, Miyazaki completed production on Howl's Moving Castle, based on Diana Wynne Jones' 1986 fantasy novel of the same name. Miyazaki came out of retirement following the sudden departure of Mamoru Hosoda, the film's original director. The film premiered at the 2004 Venice International Film Festival and was later released on November 24, 2004, again to positive reviews. It won the Golden Osella award for animation technology, and received an Oscar nomination for Best Animated Feature.

In 2005, Miyazaki received a lifetime achievement award at the Venice Film Festival. On February 10, 2005, Studio Ghibli announced that it was ending its relationship with Tokuma Shoten. The studio moved its headquarters to Koganei, Tokyo, and acquired the copyrights of Miyazaki's works and business rights from Tokuma Shoten.

In 2006, Miyazaki's son Gorō Miyazaki completed his first film, Tales from Earthsea, starring Jun'ichi Okada and Bunta Sugawara and based on several stories by Ursula K. Le Guin. Hayao Miyazaki had long aspired to make an anime of this work and had repeatedly asked for permission from the author, Ursula K. Le Guin. However, he had been refused every time. Instead, Miyazaki produced Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind and Shuna no tabi, (The Journey of Shuna) as substitutes (some of the ideas from Shuna no tabi were diverted to this movie). When Le Guin finally requested that Miyazaki produce an anime adaptation of her work, he refused, because he had lost the desire to do so. Le Guin remembers this differently: "In August 2005, Mr Toshio Suzuki of Studio Ghibli came with Mr Hayao Miyazaki to talk with me and my son (who controls the trust which owns the Earthsea copyrights). We had a pleasant visit in my house. It was explained to us that Mr Hayao wished to retire from film making, and that the family and the studio wanted Mr Hayao's son Goro, who had never made a film at all, to make this one. We were very disappointed, and also anxious, but we were given the impression, indeed assured, that the project would be always subject to Mr Hayao's approval. With this understanding, we made the agreement." Throughout the film's production, Gorō and his father were not speaking to each other, due to a dispute over whether or not Gorō was ready to direct. It was originally to be produced by Miyazaki, but he declined as he was already in the middle of producing Howl's Moving Castle. Ghibli decided to make Gorō, who had yet to head any animated films, the producer instead. Tales from Earthsea was released on July 29, 2006, to mixed reviews.

In 2006, Nausicaa.net reported Hayao Miyazaki's planned to direct another film, rumored to be set in Kobe. Among areas Miyazaki's team visited during pre-production were an old café run by an elderly couple, and the view of a city from high in the mountains. The exact location of these places was censored from Studio Ghibli's production diaries. The studio also announced that Miyazaki had begun creating storyboards for the film and that they were being produced in watercolor because the film would have an "unusual visual style." Studio Ghibli said the production time would be about 20 months, with release slated for Summer 2008.

In 2007, the film's title was publicly announced as Gake no ue no Ponyo, which was eventually retitled Ponyo for its international releases. The film stars Yuria Nara, Hiroki Doi, Tomoko Yamaguchi, Kazushige Nagashima, George Tokoro and Yūki Amami. Toshio Suzuki noted that "70 to 80% of the film takes place at sea. It will be a director's challenge on how they will express the sea and its waves with freehand drawing." Ponyo was released on July 19, 2008, to positive reviews and the film grossed $202 million worldwide.

Miyazaki later co-wrote the screenplay for Studio Ghibli's next film, Arrietty, based on Mary Norton's 1952 novel The Borrowers. The film was the directorial debut of Hiromasa Yonebayashi, a Ghibli animator. Starring Mirai Shida, Ryūnosuke Kamiki, Tomokazu Miura, Keiko Takeshita, Shinobu Otake and Kirin Kiki, the film focuses on a small family known as the Borrowers who must avoid detection when discovered by humans. The film was released on July 17, 2010, again to positive reviews, and grossed $145 million worldwide. In 2011, Miyazaki co-wrote From up on Poppy Hill, based on the 1980 manga of the same name written by Tetsurō Sayama and illustrated by Chizuru Takahashi. The film stars Masami Nagasawa, Junichi Okada, Shunsuke Kazama and Teruyuki Kagawa. Set in Yokohama, the film's story focuses on Umi Matsuzaki, a high school student who is forced to fend for herself when her sailor father goes missing from the seaside town. The film was released on July 16, 2011, once again to positive reviews.

On December 13, 2012, Studio Ghibli announced that Miyazaki was working on his next film, The Wind Is Rising, based on his manga of the same name, with plans to simultaneously release it with The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter.

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 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 (砂漠の民 People of the Desert), Shuna no Tabi (シュナの旅 The Journey of Shuna), The Notebook of Various Images (雑想ノート Zassō Nōto), which was the basis of 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 began writing a new manga called Kaze Tachinu (風立ちぬ The Wind Rises), 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.

In October 1965, Miyazaki married fellow animator Akemi Ota, with whom he had two sons, Gorō and Keisuke. Miyazaki's dedication to his work has often been reported to have impacted negatively on his relationship with Gorō. He has expressed he does not wish to create a dynasty of animators and his son has to create a name for himself. Nonetheless he has shown support of his son's career in animation in recent times, co-writing the screenplay for Gorō's feature From Up on Poppy Hill and is in the process of developing the story for his son's third film as of November 2011.

Miyazaki's works are characterized by the recurrence of progressive themes, such as environmentalism, pacifism, feminism and the absence of villains. His films are also frequently concerned with childhood transition and a marked preoccupation with flight.

Miyazaki's narratives are notable for not pitting a hero against an unsympathetic antagonist. In Spirited Away, Miyazaki states "the heroine [is] thrown into a place where the good and bad dwell together. [...] She manages not because she has destroyed the 'evil', but because she has acquired the ability to survive." Even though Miyazaki sometimes feels pessimistic about the world, he prefers to show children a positive world view instead, and rejects simplistic stereotypes of good and evil

Miyazaki's films often emphasize environmentalism and the Earth's fragility. In an interview with The New Yorker, Miyazaki claimed that much of modern culture is "thin and shallow and fake", and "not entirely jokingly" looked forward to an apocalyptic age in which "wild green grasses" take over. Growing up in the Shōwa period was an unhappy time for him because "nature — the mountains and rivers — was being destroyed in the name of economic progress." Miyazaki is critical of capitalism, globalization and their impacts on modern life. Commenting on the 1954 Animal Farm animated film, he has said that "exploitation is not only found in communism, capitalism is a system just like that. I believe a company is common property of the people that work there. But that is a socialistic idea." Nonetheless, he suggests that adults should not "impose their vision of the world on children."

Nausicaä, Princess Mononoke and Howl's Moving Castle feature anti-war themes. In 2003, when Spirited Away won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, Miyazaki did not attend the awards show personally. He later explained that it was because he "didn’t want to visit a country that was bombing Iraq".

Miyazaki has been called a feminist by Studio Ghibli President Toshio Suzuki, in reference to his attitude to female workers. This is evident in the all - female factories of Porco Rosso and Princess Mononoke, as well as the matriarchal bath house of Spirited Away. Many of Miyazaki's films are populated by strong female protagonists that go against gender roles common in Japanese animation and fiction.

Miyazaki takes a leading role when creating his films, frequently serving as both writer and director. He personally reviewed every frame used in his early films, though due to health concerns over the high workload he now delegates some of the workload to other Ghibli members. In a 1999 interview, Miyazaki said, "at this age, I cannot do the work I used to. If my staff can relieve me and I can concentrate on directing, there are still a number of movies I'd like to make."

Miyazaki uses very human like movements in his animation. In addition, much of the art is done using water colors.

In contrast to American animation, the script and storyboards are created together, and animation begins before the story is finished and while storyboards are developing.

A number of Western authors have influenced Miyazaki's work, including Ursula K. Le Guin, Lewis Carroll and Diana Wynne Jones. Miyazaki confided to Le Guin that Earthsea had been a great influence on all his works, and that he kept her books at his bedside. Miyazaki and French writer and illustrator Jean Giraud (a.k.a. Moebius) have influenced each other and have become friends as a result of their mutual admiration. Monnaie de Paris held an exhibition of their work titled Miyazaki et Moebius: Deux Artistes Dont Les Dessins Prennent Vie (Two Artists’s Drawings Taking on a Life of Their Own) from December 2004 to April 2005. Both artists attended the opening of the exhibition. Moebius named his daughter Nausicaa after Miyazaki's heroine. Miyazaki has been deeply influenced by another French writer, Antoine de Saint - Exupéry. He illustrated the Japanese covers of Saint-Exupéry's Night Flight (Vol de nuit) and Wind, Sand and Stars (Terre des Hommes), and wrote an afterword for Wind, Sand and Stars.

In an interview broadcast on BBC Choice on 2002-06-10, Miyazaki cited the British authors Eleanor Farjeon, Rosemary Sutcliff and Philippa Pearce as influences. The filmmaker has also publicly expressed fondness for Roald Dahl's stories about pilots and airplanes; the image in Porco Rosso of a cloud of dead pilots was inspired by Dahl's They Shall Not Grow Old. As in Miyazaki's films, these authors create self-contained worlds in which allegory is often used, and characters have complex, and often ambiguous, motivations. Other Miyazaki works, such as My Neighbor Totoro, Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away, incorporate elements of Japanese history and mythology.

Miyazaki has said he was inspired to become an animator by The Tale of the White Serpent, considered the first modern anime, in 1958. He has also said that The Snow Queen, a Soviet animated film, was one of his earliest inspirations, and that it motivated him to stay in animation production. Yuriy Norshteyn, a Russian animator, is Miyazaki's friend and praised by him as "a great artist." Norshteyn's Hedgehog in the Fog is cited as one of Miyazaki's favorite animated films. Miyazaki has long been a fan of the Aardman Studios animation. In May 2006, David Sproxton and Peter Lord, founders of Aardman Studios, visited the Ghibli Museum exhibit dedicated to their works, where they also met Miyazaki.

Pete Docter, director of the popular films Up and Monsters, Inc. as well as a co-creator of other Pixar works, has praised Miyazaki and described him as an influence. Glen Keane, the animator for successful Disney films such as The Little Mermaid, The Rescuers Down Under, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin and Tangled, has also credited Miyazaki as a "huge influence" on his work and on Disney in general during the past two decades. Bryan Konietzko and Michael Dante DiMartino have cited Miyazaki's work as having the biggest influence on the universe and style of Avatar: The Last Airbender.

Miyazaki has also been cited as an influence on various role-playing video games. The creator of Square's Final Fantasy series, Hironobu Sakaguchi, cited Miyazaki as inspiration for elements such as the airships and chocobos featured in the series. The post apocalyptic setting of SNK's Crystalis was inspired by Miyazaki's Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, and Crystalis in turn influenced Square's Secret of Mana.

Miyazaki has also been influenced by Akira Kurosawa. Kurosawa was successful in bringing the Western World's attention to Japanese cinematography with the success of the 1951 film, Rashomon, Seven Samurai in 1957, and Yojimbo in 1960. Another influence was Osamu Tezuka who was a pioneer in new manga styles and techniques. And also, Miyazaki even said 'I wish Osamu Tezuka could have watched it Princess Mononoke'.

Among the actors that have collaborated with Miyazaki on his films, other filmmakers, writers, and producers have also collaborated with Miyazaki in multiple instances. This includes Isao Takahata, Toshio Suzuki, Hiromasa Yonebayashi, Gorō Miyazaki, Takeshi Seyama, Azumi Inoue, Youmi Kimura, Yoshifumi Kondō, Hiroyuki Morita, Kazuo Oga and Hideaki Anno. Also, music composer Joe Hisaishi has been responsible for every film score for Miyazaki's films since Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind.