Hayao Miyazaki co-founded Studio Ghibli and has drawn key frames himself well into his eighties, refusing most of the digital shortcuts the industry adopted. The insistence is not nostalgia, it is a claim about what hand-drawn movement can do that interpolation cannot.
His films frequently have no villain. My Neighbour Totoro contains no antagonist at all, and Princess Mononoke gives its apparent one a coherent argument. The recurring subjects are flight, environmental damage, and girls who solve problems through competence instead of rescue.
Spirited Away won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature and remains the only hand-drawn non-English film to do so. He has announced his retirement several times and returned each time.
Hayao MiyazakiNausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1984) rates 9 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. Miyazaki made it in about ten months for the equivalent of a million dollars, and its success paid for Studio Ghibli the following…
Hayao MiyazakiHayao Miyazaki's 1988 Studio Ghibli pastoral. Two girls discover forest spirits in rural Japan.
Hayao MiyazakiMiyazaki's 1997 environmental fantasy. Iron age Japan, forest gods, no clear villain.
Hayao MiyazakiA ten-year-old girl trapped in a bathhouse for spirits. First non-English Best Animated Feature Oscar winner.
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