Hayao Miyazaki

Hayao Miyazaki was born January 5^th, 1941, in Tokyo, Japan.  He was the second child, with one older brother and two younger brothers.  His family lived a kind life, and his father earned a lot of money.  Hayao Miyazaki’s father made A6M Zero Fighter planes for WWII.  Because of the war, he and his family had to move to Utsumiya and Yatokanuma, smaller towns away from Tokyo.  However, in 1950, his family returned to Tokyo.

                When he was a child, he loved Japanese comics, called manga.  He loved to draw manga as a child, and wanted to become a manga artist.  When he entered high school, he saw a movie called The Tale of the White Serpent.  The movie inspired him to create animation.

                In 1963, he began working at Toei Animation, an animation company in Tokyo.  He did small work in the animation department, doing in-between jobs that needed to be done.  While working there, he had helped with several story boards, and, when he found the original ending unsatisfactory, even pitched an ending idea for Gulliver’s Travel’s Beyond the Moon, which was then used as the actual ending.  He left Toei Animation for A Pro Animation in 1971. 

                After joining A Pro, Hayao Miyazaki began to work on several films.  His first well known movie was called Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind.  The film, as much of his other movies, deals with humans trying to coexist with nature, along with many elements of flight.  Since his father had built planes for WWII, Miyazaki had a fascination with flight, and it shows in his movies from Kiki flying on her broom in Kiki’s Delivery Service, to the dragon back ride in Spirited Away.

                Because he was born during WWII, many of his films contain anti-war messages, feminism, flight, and the evolution of human industry.  Many of his films contain strong female protagonists, as he has been labeled as a feminist. 

                In 2001, he created his most famous movie, Spirited Away.  It his most well-known movie, and made a lot of money for his animation company, Studio Ghibli, grossing at about 30.4 billion yen. 

                Although Hayao Miyazaki is elderly now, he has expressed that he wants to continue animating, but due to old age, has voiced that he will retire.