BIG IN JAPAN
Miyazaki Hayao
 Way back in the days before Titanic, the record-breaking movie at
the box office was Mononoke Hime, which topped the 1997 charts with takings of
over $150 million. Now it is currently impressing stateside viewers as part of the wave of
interest in all things Japanese, dubbed with the voices of Gillian Anderson, Claire Danes
and Billy Crudup and adapted by Neil Gaiman (see feature on pages 6-7).
The film, however, cannot be pigeonholed as just animation aimed at teens or preteens. The
film has an altogether grimmer, more thought-provoking view of life and a more realistic
style of animation, coming as it does from the company Studio Ghibli and the fertile
imagination of its founder, Miyazaki Hayao.
Miyazaki has been the most consistently successful film producer in Japan during the '
Similar themes can be seen running like threads through his earliest works to the present:
strongly written female characters in the lead role, complex and multi-layered worlds
which seem like slight variants of our reality and an almost apocalyptic sense of
injustice at the destruction of our environment.
Miyazaki was born in 1941 in Tokyo. The influence of his parents on his future career can
easily be seen. His mother's outspoken opinions filled him with a sensitivity to social
injustice, while his father's business - manufacturing parts for Zero warplanes - was the
inspiration for the meticulously realized flying sequences in many of his films. This is
where he obtained the name of his company; Ghibli is the name of a hot Saharan wind and
was a term used by wartime Italian pilots.
After graduating from Gakushuin University in 1963 with a degree in economics, Miyazaki
decided to follow his interest in animation and joined Toei Studios. His hard work and
technical skills gained him the respect of his superiors and he met Isao Takahata, who was
to become his long-term collaborator and business partner.
In the '70s, the two co-creators left Toei and embarked on a number of freelance
productions with other independent companies. In 1981 they set up Ghibli Studios and began
work on what was their first major hit, Kaze no Tani no Nausicaa (Nausicaa of the
Valley of the Wind), released in 1984 to commercial and critical success. Ghibli followed
this with Tenku no Shiro no Laputa (Floating Island of Laputa) in 1986, Tonari
no Totoro (My Neighbor Totoro) in 1988, and Majo no Takkyubin (Kiki's
Delivery Service) in 1989.
In 1992 Ghibli broke box-office records with Kurenai no Buta (The Red Pig), in
which Miyazaki's obsession with flying was in full effect. This was to set the standard
for the 1990s, in which Miyazaki released two successful features with complex emotional
themes, Mononoke Hime (Princess Mononoke) and an adaptation of the newspaper
strip Tonari no Yamada-kun (My Neighbor Yamada), released July 1999.
In a 1998 press conference, Miyazaki shocked the nation when he announced that Mononoke
Hime would be "the last feature length movie I make in that way." Since
then he has revealed that he is now working on shorter films based on children's stories,
to be screened at the Ghibli Museum in Mitaka City, Tokyo, scheduled to open in October
2001.
Mononoke Hime stands as a benchmark in the art form of animation and will be
remembered by future generations long after current fads have been scattered to the winds.
John Paul Catton
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