The Auteur of Anime - Asia-Pacific Journal · wizard in “Howl’s Moving Castle,” which will be...

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The Asia-Pacific Journal | Japan Focus Volume 4 | Issue 3 | Article ID 1900 | Mar 29, 2006 1 The Auteur of Anime Margaret Talbot The Auteur of Anime Margaret Talbot The building that houses the Ghibli Museum would be unusual anywhere, but in greater Tokyo, where architectural exuberance usually takes an angular, modernist form—black glass cubes, busy geometries of neon—it is particularly so. From the outside, the museum resembles an oversized adobe house, with slightly melted edges; its exterior walls are painted in saltwater-taffy shades of pink, green, and yellow. Inside, the museum looks like a child’s fantasy of Old Europe submitted to a rigorous Arts and Crafts sensibility. The floors are dark polished wood; stained-glass windows cast candy-colored light on whitewashed walls; a spiral stairway climbs—inside what looks like a giant Victorian birdcage—to a rooftop garden of world grasses, over which a hammered-metal robot soldier stands guard. In the central hall, beneath a high ceiling, a web of balconies and bridges suggests a dream vision of a nineteenth-century factory. Wrought-iron railings contain balls of colored glass, and leaded-glass lanterns are attached to the walls by wrought-iron vines. In the entryway, a fresco on the ceiling depicts a sky of Fra Angelico blue and a smiling sun wreathed in fruits and vegetables. Ghibli Museum Situated in a park on the outskirts of Tokyo, the Ghibli Museum is dedicated to the work of Hayao Miyazaki, the most beloved director in Japan today, and—especially since his film “Spirited Away” won the Oscar for best animated film, in 2002—perhaps the most admired animation director in the world. Miyazaki’s zeal for craft and beauty has set a new standard for animated films. With few exceptions, we seldom know the names of directors of children’s films, but if you have seen a Miyazaki film you know his name. He not only draws characters and storyboards for the films he directs; he also writes the rich, strange screenplays, which blend Japanese mythology with modern psychological realism. He is, in short, an auteur of children’s entertainment, perhaps the world’s first. Miyazaki designed the Ghibli himself. The museum was partly funded by his movie studio—after which it is named—and is now a hugely popular, self-sustaining attraction. Though the museum is intended for children, who might be supposed not to care so much for

Transcript of The Auteur of Anime - Asia-Pacific Journal · wizard in “Howl’s Moving Castle,” which will be...

Page 1: The Auteur of Anime - Asia-Pacific Journal · wizard in “Howl’s Moving Castle,” which will be released here later this year. It might be said that Miyazaki’s malevolent characters

The Asia-Pacific Journal | Japan Focus Volume 4 | Issue 3 | Article ID 1900 | Mar 29, 2006

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The Auteur of Anime

Margaret Talbot

The Auteur of Anime

Margaret Talbot

The building that houses the Ghibli Museumwould be unusual anywhere, but in greaterTokyo, where architectural exuberance usuallytakes an angular, modernist form—black glasscubes, busy geometries of neon—it isparticularly so. From the outside, the museumresembles an oversized adobe house, withslightly melted edges; its exterior walls arepainted in saltwater-taffy shades of pink, green,and yellow. Inside, the museum looks like achild’s fantasy of Old Europe submitted to arigorous Arts and Crafts sensibility. The floorsare dark polished wood; stained-glass windowscast candy-colored light on whitewashed walls;a spiral stairway climbs—inside what looks likea giant Victorian birdcage—to a rooftop gardenof world grasses, over which a hammered-metalrobot soldier stands guard. In the central hall,beneath a high ceiling, a web of balconies andbridges suggests a dream vis ion of anineteenth-century factory. Wrought-ironrailings contain balls of colored glass, andleaded-glass lanterns are attached to the wallsby wrought-iron vines. In the entryway, a frescoon the ceiling depicts a sky of Fra Angelico blueand a smiling sun wreathed in fruits andvegetables.

Ghibli Museum

Situated in a park on the outskirts of Tokyo, theGhibli Museum is dedicated to the work ofHayao Miyazaki, the most beloved director inJapan today, and—especially since his film“Spirited Away” won the Oscar for bestanimated film, in 2002—perhaps the mostadmired animation director in the world.Miyazaki’s zeal for craft and beauty has set anew standard for animated films. With fewexceptions, we seldom know the names ofdirectors of children’s films, but if you haveseen a Miyazaki film you know his name. Henot only draws characters and storyboards forthe films he directs; he also writes the rich,strange screenplays, which blend Japanesemythology with modern psychological realism.He is, in short, an auteur of children’sentertainment, perhaps the world’s first.

Miyazaki designed the Ghibli himself. Themuseum was partly funded by his moviestudio—after which it is named—and is now ahugely popular, self-sustaining attraction.Though the museum is intended for children,who might be supposed not to care so much for

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beauty per se, it is, in nearly every detail,beautiful. A reproduction of the cat-shaped busin Miyazaki’s “My Neighbor Totoro” (1988),which is large enough for children to climb on,has glowing golden eyes, and fur both soft andbristly, like a caterpillar’s. The museumshowcases not only the visual splendor ofMiyazaki’s films but also what inspires them:among other things, a sense of wonder aboutthe natural world; a fascination with flight; acuriosity about miniature or hidden realms.When I visited the museum this summer, itstruck me as one of the few kid-orientedattractions I know that take seriously thenotion of children as natural aesthetes—in partbecause it portrays for them a creative life thatthey might plausibly lead as adults.

Hayao Miyazaki

One typical exhibit, “Where a Film Begins,”depicts a room in which a young boy dreams upan idea for a movie. The room is supposed to bea study inherited from the imaginary boy’sgrandfather, and the mise en scéne captures anidealized, slightly antique coziness; a glass jarof colored pencils sits atop a wooden desk, andworn tapestry pillows rest on a library chair.The display conjures a creative young mind’shalf-glimpsed notions and sudden enthusiasms:

models of a flying dinosaur and a red biplanehang from the ceiling; thick books about birdsand fish and the history of aviation occupy thebookshelves. As sentimental as it is, this roommakes you think with pleasure about thedreamy stage that often precedes the making ofart. Standing amid its congenial clutter, a childvisitor can easily grasp how it is, as Miyazakiwrites in the museum’s catalogue, that“imagination and premonition” and “sketchesand partial images” can become “the core of afilm.” Indeed, “Spirited Away,” the story of asullen ten-year-old girl who finds herselftransported from an abandoned theme parkinto a ravishing spirit world, was inspired inpart by Miyazaki’s own visit to a peculiaroutdoor attraction—a Tokyo museum where oldJapanese buildings, including a splendidbathhouse, had been carted from their originallocations.

Miyazaki is detail-oriented to the point ofobsession—he traveled to Portugal just to lookat a painting by Hieronymus Bosch that hadlong haunted him, and sent Michiyo Yasuda,the color designer for his films, to Alsace toscout hues for his latest movie—and so, too, ishis museum. For the in-house theatre, whichshows short films that he makes especially forthe museum (including a sequel to “MyNeighbor Totoro”), he hired an acousticdesigner to create an uncommonly gentlesound system. Miyazaki wanted the opposite ofthe “tendency in recent Hollywood films,”which is “to use heavy bass to try to pull theaudience into the film.” He thinks that movietheatres can be claustrophobic, evenoverwhelming places for young children, so hewanted his theatre to have windows that let insome natural light, bench-style seats that achild can’t sink into, and films that make them“sigh in relaxation.” Miyazaki fondlyremembered the days when cigarette smoke ina theatre could draw your attention to thebeam of light stretching from the projector, sohe placed the projector in a glass booth thatprotrudes into the seating area. “I want to

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show children that moving images are enjoyedby having huge reels revolving, an electric lightshining on the film, and a lot of complicatedthings being done,” he explains in themuseum’s catalogue. Colleagues told him thatprojecting the films digitally would helppreserve them, but Miyazaki relished the ideathat, eventually, viewers might see “worn filmwith ‘falling-rain’ scratches on the screen.”

To plan the menu for the museum café,Miyazaki hired not a professional chef but awoman who was a good home cook and hadraised four children: he wanted homemadebread; katosand , breaded pork-cutletsandwiches; and fresh vegetable soup. When heheard that children were prying open the littlewindows on a model of a house in the museum,and had broken the shutters, he was delighted,and placed pictures inside the house for kids tosee. He painted several large murals—one of acommissary, another of an old animationstudio—himself. Some of Miyazaki’s ideas couldnot be realized. He had wanted to make amountain of dirt at the Ghibli Museum—amountain with muddy, slippery stretches wherechildren “would fall and get scolded by theirmothers.” He had liked the idea, too, of a spiralstaircase that gently swayed when you walkedup it. These notions were eventually deemedunsafe or impractical, but, over all, themuseum still feels stubbornly, and joyfully,idiosyncratic.

Despite Miyazaki’s fame—his latest film,“Howl’s Moving Castle,” grossed a record$14.5 million in its first week of release inJapan—he almost never grants formalinterviews. Yet a few days after I visited themuseum I was lucky enough to run into himduring a tour of his nearby studio, and hebegan chatting amiably. It immediately becameapparent why he was compelled to createimaginary worlds. A spry, slim man of sixty-three, with silver hair, parenthesis-shapeddimples, and thick, expressive black eyebrows,Miyazaki betrayed a profound dissatisfaction

with modern life. He complained, “Everythingis so thin and shallow and fake.” He lamentedthe fact that children had become disconnectedfrom nature, and fulminated about thedeadening impact of video games on theimagination. Only half in jest, he said that hewas hoping for the day when “developers gobankrupt, Japan gets poorer, and wild grassestake over.” And the conversation grew onlydarker from there. A man disappointed, eveninfuriated, by the ugliness surrounding him,Miyazaki is devoted to making whatever he cancontrol—a museum, each frame of a film—asgorgeous as it can be.

John Lasseter, the director of “Toy Story” and“A Bug’s Life,” is an ardent fan, and a friend, ofMiyazaki’s. He recently visited the GhibliMuseum with his sons. “You know how whenyou’re watching a movie, you’ll say, ‘Wow, I’venever seen that before’? With his films, thathappens in every sequence,” he said. “And hehas such a big heart; his characters and hisworlds are so rich. The museum is like having aplace to visit those worlds. It’s like whenDisneyland first opened, in the fifties—visitorsmust have felt, in a very pure way, like theyhad walked inside a Disney film.”

People have been invoking Miyazaki and Disneyin the same breath for a long time, and in someways it is an apt comparison. Miyazaki films areas popular in Japan as Disney films are inAmerica. (“Spirited Away” is Japan’s highest-grossing movie ever.) Miyazaki-inspiredmerchandise-such as plush versions of theTotoro, a rotund woodland creature ofMiyazaki’s devising—is nearly as ubiquitous inJapan as Disney stuff is here. Like Walt Disney,Hayao Miyazaki started his professional careerdrawing animation cels and rose to head anindependent cartoon empire with a tentacularhold on kids’ imaginations.

Yet, in themes and style, Miyazaki’s eight filmsdo not much resemble the Disney oeuvre.Unlike Disney movies—so many of which are

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based on familiar fairy tales—Miyazaki’s filmsare either original stories or his ownadaptations of fairly obscure works. Thoughthey contain set pieces of suspensefulaction—he is particularly fond of airship battlesand dramatic rescues in the sky—they have amuch quieter, less frenetic feel. In part, this isbecause they are not musicals: no brassyshowstoppers or treacly ballads interrupt thenarratives. Moreover, his films rarely havevillains of the scenery-chewing, extravagantlyblack-hearted Disney variety. Miyazakisometimes forgoes villains altogether-as in“Totoro” and the charming “Kiki’s DeliveryService” (1989), the story of an apprenticewitch—making you forget what a fixture theyare in other children’s films. His is not a black-and-white moral universe: he has sympathy forthe vain and the gluttonous and the misguided,a bemused tolerance for the poor creatures weall are. Some of his characters can bethreatening or unappealing, but also complexand capable of change—like the moody youngwizard in “Howl’s Moving Castle,” which willbe released here later this year. It might besaid that Miyazaki’s malevolent characters arecapable of redemption, except that redemptionis too Christian an idea: it’s more that theyprove capable of a kind of shape-shifting, whichallows them to reveal a different facet ofthemselves.

The absence of villains also means a refreshingabsence of perfect and perfectly prettyheroines, their lives arcing toward romance.Miyazaki’s protagonists are usually girls, andthough they are likable and loyal, they tend tobe ordinary children—which makes themextraordinary in the world of children’s films.Miyazaki dwells on the latent phase ofchildhood, so that his girl characters are oftenclose friends with boys. And they can be brattyand grievously sad, as well as plucky andresourceful.

In “My Neighbor Totoro,” one of the loveliestchildren’s films ever made, two sisters, Mei and

Satsuki, are not idealized; they are at oncegoofy, brave, and vulnerable, like a lot of kids.The sisters have just moved with their father toa new house in rural Japan. Gradually, the twogirls discover a host of strange but benignwoodland creatures: fuzzy little soot spritesthat hang out in old houses and hide when youturn on the lights; the plump, whiskeredTotoros, who live in the roots of a giantcamphor tree; and the marvelous cat bus, withits headlight eyes, caramel-colored stripes, andextra legs that function as wheels. (In a 1993televised discussion between Miyazaki and thedirector Akira Kurosawa, Kurosawa mentionedhow much he admired the sweetly surreal catbus.) There is a gentle hint of Shintoism in allthis: the father, an anthropologist, respectfullyaccepts the notion that the forest is presidedover by spirits, though he is no longer able tosee them, as his children can. Unlike theanimals in most American cartoons, thesec r e a t u r e s a r e n o t e x c e s s i v e l yanthropomorphized; they don’t speak, whichsomehow makes them seem both moreplausible and more dignified, and which givesthe girls the delightful challenge of interpretingthem. In fact, the film is focused on dignifyingthe girls’ imaginations, honoring their ability topartake in a fantasy that is both comforting andfortifying—for we gradually learn that they areseparated from their mother, who is ill and inthe hospital.

A scene from My Neighbor Totoro

The tone of the film is dreamy and playful—ithas the sun-soaked colors and languid pace of a

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summer afternoon in the country—but the wayit melds such elements with a subtlepsychological treatment of the children’sanxiety over their mother makes it a radicalfilm. When four-year-old Mei learns that hermother won’t be coming home for a visit asplanned, her grief takes the form of a tantrum.She howls—her mouth a black cavern, her armsstiff. (In Disney movies, children weepdecorously or break into poignant song.)Satsuki, panicked and struggling to be themature sister, shouts at her not to be so“stupid”; Mei runs away to the hospital to findher mother. Both girls are ultimately rescuedby the cat bus, which opens up a warm, golden,womb-like interior to them—an entrancingimage of solace—and bounds across thecountryside to return them to their father.Miyazaki is a master at conveying emotions asa child would experience them: obliquely, oftenphysically, with a thread of magical thinkingthat promotes resilience.

Miyazaki’s films are also striking for theirpreoccupation with the environment, and theirnot entirely metaphorical suggestion that thenatural world is capable of remembering what’sbeen done to it. (He believes that we harbor“memories in our DNA from before we took theform of humans.”) “Nausicäa of the Valley ofthe Wind” (1984) is set in a post-apocalypticworld where humans live huddled on the edgeof a toxic forest. Its heroine finds beauty in thelush, strangely colored undergrowth and thegiant cicada-like insects that dwell there,nursing a grudge against the humans who’vepoisoned their habitat.

A scene from Nausicäa of the Valley of theWind

Miyazaki began his animation career in thenineteen-sixties, at a time when the economicmiracle that had swiftly transformed postwarJapan into one of the strongest economies ofthe world was, almost as swiftly, obliterating itscountryside. In the nineteen-eighties, thegovernment cleaned up the worst industrialpollution, but Japan is still a country wheredevelopers (especially golf-resort planners)have free rein, where most people prefernature in tamed and miniaturized form (bonsai,Zen gardens, lavishly packaged tiny melons),and where few places are untouched bycommerce (there are vending machines on Mt.Fuji). “Spirited Away” contains a memorablescene in which a gloppy-looking creature—thespirit of a polluted river—comes to a bathhouseto be cleansed; a lot of dirty, foul-smelling laboris required. For this sequence, Miyazaki drewon his own memories of cleaning up ariver—and pulling things like bicycles out of themuck.

A scene from Spirited Away

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Miyazaki’s movies are threaded with otherpersonal obsessions, just as samurai imagerypervades Kurosawa’s work. Pigs, for example,turn up in many films. (“The behavior of pigs isvery similar to human behavior,” Miyazaki hassaid. “I really like pigs at heart, for theirstrengths as well as their weaknesses.”) A 1992film, “Porco Rosso,” tells the story of a pig thatflies—he’s a pilot who works the skies over theAdriatic before the Second World War. In onetender scene, the pig recalls the air battle inwhich his fel low flying aces just keptascending—floating ever upward into a coldempyrean death—while he, a more earthboundcreature, could not face such self-sacrifice.Next month, Disney, the American distributorof Miyazaki’s films, will release a video versionof “Porco,” whose title charter will be voiced byMichael Keaton. It will also make available anEnglish version of “Nausicäa, with voices byUma Thurman and Patrick Stewart. With thesetwo releases, the entirety of Miyazaki’seccentric output will be available in goodEnglish versions for the first time.

A scene from Porco Rosso

John Lasseter told me that when the animatorsat Pixar get stuck on a project they go into ascreening room and watch a Miyazaki film. Theirony of this admiration is that Miyazaki is anold-fashioned artist who has rejected thecomputerized path that many animationstudios, including Pixar, have taken. (Last year,Disney closed down its hand-drawn-animationunit, in Florida, in favor of digitally rendered

work.) Though Miyazaki incorporates somecomputer graphics in his films, he insists thatall his characters and backgrounds be drawnby hand.

Toshio Suzuki, a wry, articulate man with close-cropped silver hair and an elfin grin, isMiyazaki’s producer and longtime collaborator.“When silents moved to talkies, Chaplin heldout the longest,” he told me. “When black-and-white went to color, Kurosawa held out thelongest. Miyazaki feels he should be the one tohold out the longest when it comes to computeranimation.” Miyazaki lavishes particularattention on his backgrounds, which are full ofpainterly flourishes. I’d never really noticed thecolors in an animated film until I noticed his.Skies and seas are saturated in strangelyemotional blues; wet halos surround the redlantern and absinthe-green neon signs in“Spirited Away”; in “Kiki’s Delivery Service,”the young witch’s dress isn’t quite black—it’sthe smudged purple of the darkest plums.

A scene from Kiki's Delivery Service

Even Miyazaki’s most outlandishly imaginedcreatures have an unnerving realism. Theeerie, poignant No Face in “Spirited Away” is acreature who wears a mask, whimpers softly,and eats everything in sight, greedily eager forcommunion with others; he glides along like aninky rain cloud, and expands just as ominously.In the same film, a flock of white paper birdsflash through the sky: they are like origami,only sharp-edged, and capable of drawingblood.

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Chihiro encounters No Face in Spirited Away.

Miyazaki’s starting point for a film, Suzuki said,is often a small visual detail. Five years ago,when Miyazaki read a Japanese translation ofthe book “Howl’s Moving Castle,” by DianaWynne Jones, a British author, he wasimmediately taken with the idea of a castle thatambulates around the countryside. “The booknever explains how it moves, and that triggeredhis imagination,” Suzuki recalled. “He wantedto solve that problem. The first thing he did onthe film was to start to design the castle. Howwould it move? It must have legs, and he wasobsessed with settling this question. Wouldthey be Japanese warrior legs? Human-typefeet? One day, he suddenly said, ‘Let’s go withchicken feet! ’ That was, for him, thebreakthrough.” Suzuki thinks of Miyazaki’sapproach as uniquely Japanese: “In traditionalJapanese architecture, you start with oneroom—maybe the alcove, where you hang somepictures. You spend a lot of time trying to pickthe right shelves, the right little pillar, whatkind of handles the drawers will have. Onlywhen you finish that room do you worry aboutthe next. In the West, you start from thegeneral and go to the specific. A Hitchcockmovie might start off with a panorama of thecity, and then the camera closes in on a street,and a house, and then the stairway inside. Ifyou’re a Japanese filmmaker, you might startwith the railing on the stairway. When Miyazakimakes a film, he is thinking, like with this newone, O.K., first off, here are two very importantpoints to settle: Does Sophie, the little girl inthe movie, have braids or not? Are they long or

short?”

From Howl's Moving Castle

But it wouldn’t be quite right to describeMiyazaki’s approach as wholly Japanese. Aswith fantasy writers in the British tradition,from C.S. Lewis to J.K. Rowling, Miyazakimakes the details of the worlds he createsconcrete and coherent, so that we might bettersuspend our disbelief for the big leaps offantasy. This devotion to realism, Suzukiacknowledges, “is rare in Japanese animation,”which tends to revel in the freedom fromearthly laws that the medium allows. Miyazakican be steely in pursuit of this goal. In aJapanese television documentary about“Spirited Away,” he is shown at a meeting withhis young staff, explaining how they are todraw certain images based on his storyboards.“The dragon is supposed to fall from down theair vent, but, being a dragon, it doesn’t land onthe ground,” Miyazaki says. “It attaches itself

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to the wall, like a gecko. And then—ow!—itfalls—thud!—it should fall like a serpent. Haveyou ever seen a snake fall out of a tree?” Heexplains that it “doesn’t slither, but holds itsposition.” He looks around at the animators,most of whom appear to be in their twentiesand early thirties. They are taking notes,looking grave: nobody has seen a snake fall outof a tree.

Miyazaki goes on to describe how thedragon—a protean creature named Haku, whosometimes takes this form—struggles when heis pinned down. “This will be tricky,” Miyazakisays, smiling. “If you want to get an idea, go toan eel restaurant and see how an eel is gutted.”The director wriggles around in his seat,imitating the action of a recalcitrant eel. “Haveyou ever seen an eel resisting?” Miyazaki asks.

Chihiro on Haku the dragon in Spirited Away

“No, actually,” admits a young man withhipster glasses, an orange sweatshirt, and anindoor pallor.

Miyazaki groans. “Japanese culture is doomed!”He says. When he describes a scene in whichhis heroine, Chihiro, forces open the dragon’smouth to give it medicine, he says theanimators should be thinking, as they draw, ofwhat it’s like to feed a dog a pill, when you tipits head to the side, and “the dog clenches itsteeth and its gums stick out.” There is morenote-taking, but no sign that this might be afamiliar experience.

“Any of you ever had a dog?” Miyazaki asks.

“I had a cat,” somebody volunteers.

“This is pathetic,” Miyazaki says. Thedocumentary shows the chastened staff makinga field trip that night to a veterinary hospital,videotaping a golden retriever’s gums andteeth, and then returning to the studio to studythe video.

It seems almost inevitable that the world’sgreatest animator should be Japanese. Over thepast decade or so, Japan has become, outsidethe United States, the most successful exporterof children’s pop culture. With television showslike “Poké-mon” and “Yu-Gi-Oh!,” which havelarge casts of creatures accompanied by theirown stats and trading cards, the Japanesefigured out how to tap into children’s mania forcollecting and classifying. With shows like“Hamtaro” (Little Hamsters, Big Adventures”)and “Sailor Moon” (in which giggly, shopaholicschoolgirls turn into saviors of the world), theygot the idea that overmuscled superheroes, asalluring as they are, can seem out of reach,whereas smal ler creatures that aresimultaneously cute and powerful are easy toidentify with. With Hello Kitty—the blank, big-headed cartoon cat—they proved thatinnocence was an aesthetic that could bepushed to extremes. Sanrio, the company thatmanufactures tens of thousands of Hello Kittyproducts—from pink vinyl coin purses topackets of “sweet squid chunks” bearing herwide-eyed likeness—is a billion-dollar business.

One reason the Japanese are so good at thiskind of thing is that many adults in Japan arecuriously attuned to cuteness. Even in acosmopolitan city like Tokyo, kawaii—or “cute”culture—is everywhere: road signs are adornedwith adorable raccoons and bunnies; stuffedanimals sit on salarymen’s desks; Hello Kittycharms are offered for sale at Shinto shrines. Itis also a culture where anime (cartoons) andmanga (comic books) are both widelyconsumed and, in some cases, highly regarded

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as art and literature. No one knows exactly whycomic books are so popular in Japan; onetheory is that they grew out of woodblockprints and seemed naturally connected to abroader artistic tradition that produced some ofits best work in ephemeral, everyday objectslike fans and screens. In any case, manga makeup nearly half of the book sales in Japan, andyou see people of all ages reading them on thesubway. Animated programs, of which ninety orso air on Japanese TV every week, have longbeen shown in prime time, on the assumptionthat families will watch them together. Andwhile much anime and manga is intended foradults—violent sci-fi and pornography, as wellas contemplative family dramas—the marketfor children remains the largest. Althoughmuch of Japan’s kid-oriented anime has beenexported to the U.S., a great deal more—suchas “Anpanman,” a hugely popular series abouta bean-paste-stuffed bread roll—has not. (A fanWeb site notes, “To a non-Japanese person, theconcept of a living bread superman who fightsgiant germs and feeds the hungry with piecesof his head may seem bizarre.”)

Hello Kitty

Miyazaki distances himself from all thiscommercialism. He doesn’t care for a lot ofcontemporary Japanese animation. “Animatorsare getting too old,” he told me. “Animation

used to be for young people. Now people intheir forties are the ones who are supportingit.” When he watches movies at all these days,he said, he prefers documentaries, especially“the simple ones that just try to show otherpeople and other civilizations. They have theirown distortions, but, still, I like them.” He is aleftist who thinks that too many people aremaking money off children, who frets over thespectre of virtual reality “eating into ouremotional life,” and who wishes that we coulddrastically reduce the number of video gamesand DVDs available for sale. He worries that heis contributing to the problem by making animehimself, and isn’t keen on promoting his ownfilms, which is one reason that he resists givinginterviews.

Several people who know Miyazaki told me thatmothers frequently approach him to tell himthat their child watches “Totoro” or “Kiki”every day, and he always acts horrified. “Don’tdo that!” he will say. “Let them see it once ayear, at most!” In an essay he wrote in 1987, hewas already concerned: “No matter how wemay think of ourselves as conscientious, it istrue that images such as anime stimulate onlythe visual and auditory sensations of children,and deprive them of the world they go out tofind, touch, and taste.” And yet he would not bequite the figure he is—recognized by childrenon the street, in a position to make just aboutany movie he wants—in a country that did nothonor animation and fetishize childhood quiteso much.

Hayao Miyazaki was born in Tokyo in 1941. Hisfather helped run a family-owned factory thatmade parts for military airplanes. His mother,like the mother in “Totoro,” was sickly andoften bedridden, but she was also smart andstrong-willed. “My grandfather was affluent,and he knew how to live,” Goro Miyazaki, oneof the director’s two sons, recalled. I spokewith him last summer at the Ghibli Museum,where he is the curator. “He liked to havefun—he liked to go to restaurants and movies.

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My grandmother was very intelligent and notparticularly interested in going out. She hadher own mind and she didn’t like to spendmoney. She exerted a huge influence onMiyazaki. When he was young, he had all thesequestions—big ideas—and it was his mother hecould talk to about them. He was on of fourboys, and he was the closest to her.”

His friend Suzuki was more direct. “He was amama’s boy,” he said. Suzuki thinks the factthat there is always an old woman in Miyazaki’sfilms, and that she is often a trenchantcharacter, is a tribute to the director’s mother.“When he was small, and his mother was ill, thefour brothers took turns helping out withchores. But he loved her the best of all ofthem.” (Like the tough grannies in his movies,Miyazaki’s mother surprised everyone by livinginto old age.)

Neither of Miyazaki’s parents was artistic. “Mygrandfather liked buying paintings, and heliked to show them off to guests,” GoroMiyazaki said. “But I don’t know that he hadany particular artistic understanding. It’s amystery where Miyazaki’s talent came from. Hehad a kind of a complex toward his brothers,and that gave him a strong motivation tosucceed at animation. His brothers went intobusiness; they were more influenced by theirfather. But success wasn’t easy for him. Hewasn’t dexterous, and he really had to work toachieve what he has.”

At Gakushuin University, in Tokyo, Miyazakistudied economics and political science. But healso joined a children’s-literature group, wheremembers read and discussed fantasy fiction. Asa senior in high school, Miyazaki had sneakedout to see the first Japanese animated filmmade in color, “The Legend of the WhiteSnake,” when he was supposed to be studyingfor his entrance exams. The film had a bigimpact on him, he wrote years later, becausewhile he could see that it was “cheapmelodrama,” its naked emotionalism touched

him. “My soul was moved and I stumbled backhome in the snow that had just started.Comparing my pitiful situation to thecharacters’ earnestness, I was ashamed ofmyself, and cried all night.” At the time, he hadbeen trying to write a sophisticated, absurdistmanga, but he realized, somewhat to hisembarrassment, that he was more interested increating something sincere.

Poster for Legend of White Snakes

In 1963, Miyazaki went to work as a rookieanimator at Toei Animation, in Tokyo, whichprimarily made cartoons for television. Thecompany’s animation had a particularstyle—the style we associate with anime ing e n e r a l , t h o u g h n o t s o m u c h w i t hMiyazaki—and it derived mainly from economicnecessity. Japanese studios were not thewealthy behemoths that Disney and WarnerBros. were, and they saved money by havinganimators draw fewer cels. The result was

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jerkier, with more stilted movements andlonger close-ups, in which faces often filled thescreens: a kind of cut-rate Expressionism. Thebig, round eyes that Westerners associate withanime because signatures then—the legacy ofOsamu Tezuka, the comic artist who, in thenineteen-fifties and sixties, drew Astro Boy andKimba the White Lion. (One theory is thatTezuka was influenced by Betty Boop, who wasvery popular in Japan.) Miyazaki admired thesoulful Tezuka, but his influences were morecosmopolitan: he loved Chagall, Bosch, and theRussian animators Lev Atamanov and YuriNorstein, who made bewitching animationsbased on Russian folktales. His image of Japanwas so shaken by memories of the country’spostwar devastation that for years afterward,he told Kurosawa, his imagination turnedreflexively to Europe—a fantasy version,stitched together in his mind, that had neverexperienced the Second World War. (In hisfilms, Europe looks like a harmonious amalgamof Scandinavia, Alsace, and the Amalfi coast,with a bit of Dalmatia tossed in.)

At Toei, Miyazaki met Akemi Ota, an animator,whom he married in 1965, and who decided tostay at home when the couple’s two sons wereyoung. (Goro, who was a landscape designerbefore going to work at the Ghibli Museum,was born in 1967; Keisuke, an artist who makesintricate wood engravings, was born two yearslater.) On his first job at Toei, Miyazaki alsomet Isao Takahata, an animation director withan intellectual bent, who had graduated fromthe University of Tokyo with a degree in Frenchliterature; and Michiyo Yasuda, the gifted colordesigner, who went on to work on most of hisfilms. The three of them were officials of theanimation workers’ union, and spent a lot oftime during union meetings discussing theirown artistic futures, which they weredetermined to entwine. “It wasn’t toophilosophical—more practical,” Takahatarecalled. “ ‘O.K., you’re drawing a robot. It’sgot to be heavy. What kind of holes does itmake in the ground when it moves?’ We talked

a lot about the challenges of depicting thingscorrectly.”

In the seventies, Miyazaki and Takahata bothtook jobs at Nippon Animation. Between 1974and 1979, Miyazaki was a key artist or scenedesigner for five of Takahata’s television series,including “Heidi,” and worked on a film fortelevision that Takahata directed: “Panda! GoPanda!,” a funny, sweet movie featuring aspirited, pigtailed, pug-faced little girl—theprecursor of Miyazaki’s own heroines. “Shewas modeled on Pippi Longstocking,” YasuoOhtsuka, an animator who worked withMiyazaki on several projects, said. “Miyazakiwanted to draw an audacious, energetic littlegirl—they’re just a lot more fun to draw. Wethought of her as a girl from American orEuropean literature, because Japanese girlsaren’t –or weren’t, anyway—all that high-spirited.”

Miyazaki is a workaholic, and that tendencywas in full force by then. “When I was small, hewould come home at 2 A.M. and get up at 8A.M. and do TV series all year round,” GoroMiyazaki recalled. “It was very rare for me tosee him. Every morning, I’d look into myfather’s bedroom and see him sleeping. Just tocheck: ‘O.K., he’s here. He’s in the house.’ ”When, in his early thirties, Goro startedworking closely with his father for the firsttime, on the Ghibli Museum, he felt that he“understood his creative processes so wellprecisely because he’d been such an absentfather. When I was a child, I studied him. Tolearn more about him, I watched his moviesobsessively. I read everything that was writtenabout him. I studied his drawings.” With arueful chuckle, he added, “I think that I am theNo. 1 expert on Hayao Miyazaki.”

When I asked Goro if he’d ever talked with hisfather about what he’d learned about him, helaughed and said no, he couldn’t picture thathappening. He was closer to his mother, hesaid, who would take him hiking and mountain

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climbing, and who taught him the names oftrees, flowers, and birds. But Goro didremember that after his father finished aproduction the family would celebrate with aneel dinner at a restaurant. When he pesteredhis father for toys, Miyazaki had shown himhow to whittle instead—an ability for which hewas now grateful. It left him with the feelingthat no matter where he was he could makesomething with his hands.

As driven as Miyazaki was, he did not achievefame overnight. He was in his late thirties bythe time he had his first directing credit—for aJapanese TV series, “Future Boy Conan,” as it’scalled, awkwardly, in English. And it wasn’tuntil he wrote the manga “Nausicäa of theValley of the Wind,” and then received fundingto make it into a movie, that he became widelyknown.

Toshio Suzuki met Miyazaki in 1978, whenSuzuki was working as the editor of Animage,an animation magazine. He had been assignedto interview Miyazaki, but Miyazaki refused.“So I showed up at the studio, without phoningfirst, and Miyazaki ignored me,” Suzuki toldme. “He said only one thing: ‘I’m busy. Gohome.’ I brought over a chair and sat downnext to him. He said, ‘What are you doing?’ Isaid, ‘I’m not going home until you saysomething to me.’ I sat there till late at night,until he went home. The next day, I went backand sat down in that same place. On the thirdnight, he finally spoke to me—to ask for advice.He asked about whether there was a specificterm for this kind of car chase he was doing. Itold him what the name was; we talked aboutother things, and after a while he consented toan interview. But then we tried to take a photo.He didn’t want a photo. Only from the back. SoI got pissed. I ran the shot and I did a littlecaption for it: ‘A very rare photo of the back ofHayao Miyazaki’s head.’ That was my revenge.Starting from that day, we’ve been workingtogether for twenty-five years, and I have seenhim nearly every day.”

In 1985, Tokuma Shoten, the publishingcompany, which had released the manga of“Nausicäa,” opened an anime studio, Ghibli;Toshio Suzuki, Isao Takahata, and HayaoMiyazaki became its directors. The name wasMiyazaki’s choice; ghibli is a word that Italianpilots once used to describe a wind blowingfrom the Sahara. To Miyazaki, the namec o n v e y e d a m e s s a g e , a l m o s t athreat—something l ike “Let’s blow asensational wind through the Japaneseanimation world,” Suzuki recalled, in a speechyears later. The studio would produceanimation that, as Suzuki put it in his speech,“illustrates the joys and sorrows of life as theyreally are: and, as Miyazaki put it in the GhibliMuseum catalogue, shows “how complex theworld is and how beautiful the world shouldbe.”

Miyazaki threw himself into the project single-mindedly. “He would work from nine to four-thirty in the morning.” Suzuki said. “And hedidn’t take holidays. He changed quite a bitwhen he turned fifty—he figured maybe heshould take off a Sunday now and then. Now hetends to leave at midnight.” (Miyazaki told me,“I don’t take long vacations. I don’t have thetime. My idea of a vacation is a nap.”)

Studio Ghibli’s first film was “Castle in the Sky”(1986), a fable featuring a gutsy girl fromanother planet, a gallant boy from a Welshmining village, a magical crystal pendant, and avariety of flying machines that look likefuturistic imaginings from the nineteenthcentury. Neither it nor “Totoro” nor “Grave ofthe Fireflies” (1988)—an almost unbearably sadfilm, directed by Takahata, about two Japanesechildren fleeing fire-bombing raids in the lastdays of the Second World War—did well at thebox office, though they received great reviews.But the “Totoro” characters had staying power:two years after the film was released, Ghiblilicensed the merchandising of Totoro stuffedanimals, and, when sales took off, the studiowas able to cover any deficit in its production

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costs. And in 1989 the studio had its first hit,“Kiki’s Delivery Service.” (The apprenticewitch, modeled on Suzuki’s teen-age daughter,leaves her family for a time to live in a coastalcity in Miyazaki’s Europe, starting her ownbusiness delivering parcels by broomstick.)“Kiki” was seen by 2.6 million people,becoming the most popular domestic movie inJapan that year.

At that point, Miyazaki floated the idea ofdisbanding the studio. “He felt that afterdirecting three films, made with the samegroup of people, the human relationships hadbecome too tangled,” Suzuki recalled. Heeventually convinced Miyazaki that closingshop would be a mistake. (Suzuki is perhapsone of the few people, if not the only person,who can talk Miyazaki into anything. “Heknows how to handle Miyazaki,” Takahata said.“He knows that it’s like dealing with a child:when you want something, you say theopposite, because you know he’ll say no to yoursuggestion.”)

The studio became successful to the point thatthe staff was working on two projects at once.Miyazaki, Suzuki recalled in his speech, “cameup with a proposition: Let’s build a newstudio!” He went on, “It was the Miyazaki way:when facing a problem, try to find a break-through by coming up with a much biggerproblem.”

The day I spoke with Suzuki, he was wearingblack jeans and a T-shirt, and was chain-smoking. “Young people, unknown people withaspirations—they are very pure, honest, and soon,” he said. “Miyazaki saw that I was not thattype, and he liked that.” Suzuki is the publicface of Ghibli. He, not Miyazaki, attended theVenice Film Festival, in September, where“Howl’s Moving Castle” won an award fortechnical achievement. He’s funny and shrewd,and he fills in for the interview-shy Miyazakiwith flair. Suzuki told me, “Just recently,Miyazaki-san came into my room at night and

we had a talk—just the two of us. He said, witha very serous look, ‘What are we going to doabout Studio Ghibli? There aren’t many youngtalents out there.’ He said, ‘I think I can do thisanother ten years.’ I said ‘You can? Another tenyears?’ Japanese fans tell him, ‘Please keepmaking animation.’ I’m the only person in Japanwho hopes he will retire soon.”

Takahata and Miyazaki, who worked togetherso closely for years, have lately moved indifferent directions. Takahata is moreinterested in literary and film theory, morecerebral and less enamored of magic. His filmsare not for children, and “Grave of theFireflies” could easily have been a live-actionfilm. Takahata is sixty-nine, but he has aformidable head of dark hair and a handsome,unwrinkled face. “With Miyazaki, you have tototally believe in the world of the film,”Takahata told me. “He is demanding that theaudience enter the world he has createdcompletely. The audience is being asked tosurrender.” He paused. “I want the audience tohave a little distance. My relationship with himis limited now. We are friends but we don’thave a direct working relationship.”

A scene from Grave of the Fireflies

For many viewers, of course, surrendering toMiyazaki is a pleasure. Weeks after I saw“Spirited Away,” I was still thinking of thescene in which Chihiro takes a train trip, in thecompany of No Face, to seek out a witch whomay help her save her friend. The sequence is

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both emotionally precise and fantastical. It’slike every solitary journey you’ve ever taken,when you felt lonely and a little exalted, but itis also deeply strange, for the train glides,stately and surreal, over a translucent blue sea,while the sky slowly ripples through thepossibilities of a sunset, from the pink ofcrushed petals to a soft, forgiving black.

A scene from Spirited Away

On the wall of one of the Studio Ghiblibuildings is a kind of joke about Miyazaki’sfears of invasion: two aluminum poles and twored hard hats on pegs. The staff was free toborrow them, Miyazaki explained to hiscolleagues, in order to repel unwanted visitors.But during my visit to the studio Steve Alpert,an American who heads Ghibli’s overseasdivision, showed me around, and in an upstairsroom I saw Miyazaki hanging out with a coupleof animators. He had shown the completed“Howl’s Moving Castle” to his wife and theGhibli staff that day. He was in a relaxed mood,and when I started asking him questions,through a translator, he started answering.

Miyazaki’s hair was parted on the side, and aluxuriant hank of i t fe l l over one eyeperiodically, Veronica Lake style. He wore bigoblong glasses, gray slacks, a light-blue short-sleeved shirt, and straw-soled sandals withwhite socks. At first glance, he seemed full ofsuppressed amusement—even jolly.

Today, Miyazaki announced cheerfully, markedthe last time that he would watch “Howl’sMoving Castle.” “I never watch my films after

they’ve left the studio, because I’ve lived it andI know exactly where I’ve made mistakes,” hesaid. “I’d have to sort of cringe and hide, justclose my eyes. ‘Oh, right, I remember thatmistake, and that one.’ You don’t have to gothrough that torment over and over.” Theremark was punctuated with a giddy, slightlymaniacal laugh—more of a giggle, really. In anycase, he said, he was already planning his nextproject: a short film for the museum. “I haveseveral I have to make. What can I do? I haveto keep feeding my staff,” he said, gesturingtoward a group that had gathered around us.“Look at all the mouths I’ve got to feed here.”

I asked him what had attracted him to “Howl’sMoving Castle.” He said, “Sophie, the girl, isgiven a spell and transformed into an oldwoman. It would be a lie to say that turningyoung again would mean living happily everafter. I didn’t want to say that. I didn’t want tomake it seem like turning old was such a badthing—the idea was that maybe she’ll havelearned something by being old for a while,and, when she actually is old, make a bettergrandma. Anyway, as Sophie gets older, shegets more pep. And she says what’s on hermind. She is transformed from a shy, mousylittle girl into a blunt, honest woman. It’s not amotif you see often, and, especially with an oldwoman taking up the whole screen, it’s a bigtheatrical risk. But it’s a delusion that beingyoung means you’re happy.”

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Sophie in Howl's Moving Castle

Miyazaki puffed on a cigarette. “Some peoplemay say this girl is a lot like Chihiro. Maybe.But I don’t fear that. I think I’d lose a lot moreby trying to avoid repeating myself than by justrepeating myself. Some people are alwaystrying radically new material. I know what Iwant, and I’ll continue with it.” He went on, “Idon’t have much patience for calculating andintellectualizing anymore. It has to do with thetimes. Nobody knows everything. Nobodyknows what’s going to happen. So myconclusion is, don’t try to be too smart andwise. Why does anybody feel the way they do?Why is somebody depressed? Or angry? Even ifyou have a therapist, you’re never going tofigure it out. You’re not going to solve it.Besides, every trauma is an important part ofyou.”

Miyazaki cradled the back of his head with hishand. “I’ve done things in this movie I wouldn’thave done ten years ago,” he said. “It has a bigclimax in the middle, and it ends with aresolution. It’s old-fashioned storytelling.Romantic.” Indeed, “Howl’s Moving Castle” hasthe first kiss ever in a Miyazaki film, andcontains more of an overt love story. “Howl’sdoesn’t have the elegiac beauty of certainsequences in “Spirited Away,” nor does it havethe emotional delicacy of “Totoro.” (The Howlcharacter, a vain, reclusive boy wizard whodresses in capes and epauletted jackets,reminded me somehow of Michael Jackson.)But it does have the director’s commandingsense of magic, along with a windy, wildflower-strewn Alpine landscape, and an amusinglycranky fire demon named Calcifer. And theliving, breathing, clanking castle is one ofMiyazaki’s most marvelous designs: it looks likea giant teakettle bristling with turrets andbalconies, and shifts about in its metal skin likea rhino, striding across the countryside on, yes,chicken feet.

The afternoon was warm, and outside the

window cicadas were making a racket.Miyazaki continued to look twinkly, butnonetheless he began airing a briskly dire viewof the world. “I’m not jealous of young people,”he said. “They’re not really free.” I asked himwhat he meant. “They’re raised on virtualreality. And it’s not like it’s any better in thecountryside. You go to the country and kidsspend more time staring at DVDs than kids doin the city. I have a place in the mountains, anda friend of mine runs a small junior-high schoolnearby. Out of twenty-seven pupils, he told me,nine do their schoolwork from home! They’retoo afraid to leave their homes.” He went on,“The best thing would be for virtual reality justto disappear. I realize that with our animationwe are creating virtual things, too. I keeptelling my crew, ‘Don’t watch animation! You’resurrounded by enough virtual things already.’ ”

We walked out to the rooftop garden that Gorohad designed as a place where staff could restand recharge. The studio’s four small buildingsare lovely, and are complete with Miyazakianrefinements. In some workspaces where hethought there wasn’t enough light or hint of theoutside, he had trompe-l’oeil windows paintedthat depict meadows beneath cerulean skies.The building containing his office—which herefers to as “the pig’s house”—looks like anelaborate Swiss châlet, with a steep narrowstairway made of laminated blocks of goldenpine, and a flying bridge with small doorwayson either side. Once, Alpert told me, whenMiyazaki looked out and noticed a processionof preschoolers walking by on the street, heinvited them in, “and just gave them free reinand they ran up and down the stairs and ontothe bridge, screaming and laughing.”

From the garden, we could hear taiko drumsthumping out a dance for a neighborhoodfestival, and see a flamboyant sunset over theold pine trees that remain in this neighborhood,unlike in so many others around Tokyo. Withsurprising enthusiasm, Miyazaki brought up thesubject of environmental apocalypse. “Our

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population could just suddenly dip anddisappear!” he said, flourishing his cigarette inthe air. “I talked to an expert on this recently,and I said, ‘Tell me the truth.’ He said withmass consumption continuing as it is we willhave less than fifty years. Then it will all be likeVenice. I think maybe less, more like forty. I’mhoping I’ll live another thirty years. I want tosee the sea rise over Tokyo and the NTV towerbecome an island. I’d like to see Manhattanunderwater. I’d like to see when the humanpopulation plummets and there are no morehigh-rises, because nobody’s buying them. I’mexcited about that. Money and desire—all thatis going to collapse, and wild green grasses aregoing to take over.”

He said that he’d visited the office tower ofNTV, a Japanese television network, the daybefore: “I climbed two hundred and six metresup, to where the red lights are to warn theplanes. You could see the whole city. And Ithought, This place is haunted, doomed. Allthose buildings. All those cubicles.”

Suzuki joined us, and Takahata sat downwithout greeting anyone, delicately removingan enormous black ant from his pants leg. Hesaid that he’d been reading a French novel inwhich ants are highly intelligent and can read.Somebody mentioned E. O. Wilson’s work oninsects and their e laborate forms ofcommunication.

“How are your frogs, by the way?” Suzukiasked Miyazaki, who explained that he keptthem in a pond at home.

“I’m trying to keep track of how many tadpolesI have, but how can I? I can’t write numbers ontheir backs.”

The three men talked for a while about frogsand dragonflies and cicadas, and how theJapanese grasshopper population is decliningbecause of overdevelopment. All of themwarmed to the topic. “There’s an abandonedhouse near mine, and I want to buy it and keep

it wild,” Miyazaki said. “Let all the wild grassesgrow over it. It’s amazing how much theygrow—their living energy. I wouldn’t cut thegrass at all, but then there’s always the oldladies who come along with their hedgetrimmers and scold you. We’ll have to wait forthat generation to die off. Until then, we’llnever see grass like I want to see grass.”

He was not a gardener himself, he said.“Gardening is my wife’s territory. But, whenshe gardens, it’s like a holocaust. You see abug? It’s evil. You have to exterminate it. Eventhe weeds—poor plants—she just yanks themout.” He smiled.” It’s not ecological at all. It’sfascism.” Japan should start a new form ofagriculture, he proclaimed, then admitted, “Ican’t do it. I’m not the farmer type, so I justcomplain.”

I noted that he had donated the “Totoro”licensing rights to a nature trust to help buy upsome nearby woodlands and preserve themfrom development. “Oh, it’s not much of awood, but we try to do something,” he said.Takahata spoke up: “If you add up all the landyou’ve saved, it’s vast.” Miyazaki shrugged.

I asked him if he’d ever want to live anywhereelse—he seemed so bitter about Japan’senvironmental depredations. “No,” he said.“Japan is fine—because they speak Japanese. Ilike Ireland, though, the countryside there.Dublin has too many yuppies, computer types,but I like the countryside, because it’s poorerthan England.” He mentioned liking Potsdam,in Germany, and the decrepit castle at SansSouci. “Sometimes I encounter places that Ifeel as though I saw as a boy. A certain light inan old kind of town. Like in Tarkovsky’s films,that feeling is always there. I felt that wayabout a town in Estonia that I visited.”Miyazaki added that he didn’t really find travelrelaxing; he found walking relaxing—that wasthe way human beings were meant to relax,and he expressed the wish that he “could walkback and forth to work every day, except that it

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would take two and a half hours each way,” andthen he wouldn’t have enough time to work.

This remark suddenly seemed to remind him ofall the work that he had to do. Miyazaki turnedto leave, and Suzuki and Takahata, along withother staff members, began drifting away.

On the train ride back to downtown Tokyo, Ithought about how kind and humane Miyazaki’sfilms typically are, and how harsh he had oftensounded in person. I decided to admire thisdichotomy as an example of what the socialcritic Antonio Gramsci called “pessimism of theintellect, optimism of the will.” An intervieweronce remarked to Miyazaki that his moviesexpressed “hope and a belief in the goodness of

man.” Miyazaki replied that he was, in fact, apessimist. He then added, “I don’t want totransfer my pessimism onto children. I keep itat bay. I don’t believe that adults should imposetheir vision of the world on children. Childrenare very much capable of forming their ownvisions.

This article first appeared on The New Yorker,January 17, 2005. Margaret Talbot is currentlya contributing writer at The New Yorker. Shehas also been an editor at Lingua Franca andThe New Republic, and has written for TheNew York Times Magazine, Salon, and TheAtlantic Monthly. Posted at Japan Focus, March29, 2006.