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Hayao Miyazaki prepares to cast one last spell

284 points by cmsefton 5y ago

zitterbewegung 5y ago
He has said multiple times that the movie that he has been working on will be his "Final Fantasy" only to make another movie because unless Hayao himself works on the movie no one will watch it. This makes his Studio have an incredible risk if he stops making movies.
brundolf 5y ago
Isn't this his third or fourth "one last movie"? I believe he's one of those people who won't be able to stop working until he's dead
- netizen-936824 5y ago
  I seem to remember the same thing, although I won't complain as I absolutely adore his works
- monkeybutton 5y ago
  I remember him saying it in "The Kingdom of Dreams and Madness" and that was almost a decade ago! Also if you're a fan of his films, I highly recommend that documentary.
WantonQuantum 5y ago
Talk about burying the lede! Info about the movie is right at the bottom: Neither Miyazaki nor Suzuki will share much about the forthcoming film, beyond the fact that it is based on a 1937 novel by Genzaburo Yoshino. The story concerns a 15-year-old boy in Tokyo, small for his age and fond of mischief, whose father has recently died. In the English translation by Bruno Navasky, published in October, the boy gazes out at the city and is overwhelmed: “The watching self, the self being watched, and furthermore the self becoming conscious of all this, the self observing itself by itself, from afar, all those various selves overlapped in his heart, and suddenly he began to feel dizzy.” The actual content of the film could be anything — Suzuki has described it as “fantasy on a grand scale” — since Miyazaki doesn’t so much borrow stories as liberate them from their origins. (In the pseudobiographical “The Wind Rises,” he gives the real-life Jiro Horikoshi a fictional wife dying of tuberculosis.) All Suzuki will share is that he recognizes himself in one of the characters, who is not human. It is time. Miyazaki rubs the top of his head and lights a cigarette, one of his signature king-size, charcoal-filtered Seven Stars. I am allowed one last question. “The title of your next film is ‘How Do You Live?,’” I say. “Will you give us the answer?” The smile comes only after he speaks: “I am making this movie because I do not have the answer.”
bitwize 5y ago
He's totally retiring this time, guys.
- micromacrofoot 5y ago
  I think retiring was more like… not personally running the studio anymore.
  - Hamuko 5y ago
    The Wind Rises was supposed to be his last feature film. https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2013-09-01/hayao-miyazaki-to-retire-from-making-feature-films https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2013-09-01/hayao-miyaz...
    - glandium 5y ago
      And so was Spirited Away. And so was even Mononoke Hime. That one was released in 1997. Miyazaki has been serial-retiring for close to 25 years!
      - Apocryphon 5y ago
        The Hideo Kojima of animation
- zerocrates 5y ago
  At 80 it's a fair bet.
lvass 5y ago
https://archive.md/Al6rk https://archive.md/Al6rk
oh_sigh 5y ago
This man has retired more than Sugar Ray Leonard!
bch 5y ago
One last time, like Daniel Day-Lewis.
jkhdigital 5y ago
Long read, but some real gems in there. The ideas that seem to animate Miyazaki’s movies, if you’ll pardon the pun, feel a lot like the ideas that animate most of Jordan Peterson’s lectures. Life is a relentless and unmitigated tragedy, and yet we manage to find (or create!) beauty and wonder all over the place. The author seems to think this acute awareness of the paradox that is life comes from growing up in postwar Japan; I can see how that experience might have been a major influence.
- earthboundkid 5y ago
  Miyazaki is a literal communist. He supports the JCP. It’s the subtext of like half of Studio Ghibli movies.
  - jbay808 5y ago
    Worth mentioning that the JCP is much more of a major mainstream party in Japan than communist parties are in most, or perhaps any, other western developed country. Miyazaki himself also became somewhat more moderate in the early 90s while working on Nausicaa.
    - dustintrex 5y ago
      Eh, "major mainstream" is pushing it. They have 0.5% of the seats in the Diet, approximately similar representation in local government, and have never been part of a ruling coalition. Their membership is geriatric and their vote share slowly declining as well. AFAICT, the main reason they command any support is their staunch pacifism/anti-militarism, not economic policy. Many post-Communist parties in Europe, like Germany's die Linke, have done much better. But unlike the JCP, they've also employed branding consultants and dropped the word "Communist", the hammers and sickles, etc.
      - jbay808 5y ago
        They have about 270,000 members. Between both Diet houses they have 23 seats in total, which is 3.2%, not 0.5%. Their share of the popular vote was over 13% in 2014. By any measures that's massively more successful than, say, the Canadian Green Party.
rodgerd 5y ago
Every few years he retires, and then comes back. He won't really retire until he's dead, I suspect, or so ill he's no longer capable of working. He can't not tell stories.
nihonde 5y ago
Not surprising, but sort of disappointing that the writer thinks that modern Japanese culture so heavily defined by its interactions with the West, esp. from WWII. It's not that it's untrue or incorrect, it's just that Japan is more complicated than that. Lots of old paradoxes and influences that don't really lend themselves to a neat thesis. You're doomed to fall short, like when you try to explain a beautiful dream to someone who didn't see it.
- tauchunfall 5y ago
  >that modern Japanese culture so heavily defined by its interactions with the West It's maybe a small detail: The hero picture of the article shows Miyazaki in front of his atelier near Studio Ghibli with an old German mailbox ("Postkasten") next to him.
  - slightwinder 5y ago
    It should be noted that Japan has a very special and long history with German Countries. Germans brought modern western medical knowledge to Japan in the 17th. Century, influencing the country to the point that the language used in the medical sector was German (AFAIK still is today to some degree). In the 19th. Century when Japan was forced to open itself to the world, Japan had a friendship and treaty with the German state Prussia, which helped to modernize Japans industry and society. The whole education-system at the time was basically imported from there, to the point that the iconic look of Japanese pupils today are going back to Prussia. That mailbox is in similar style, it's very old and the design is so classic that the word on it is not even common any more today.
  - HideousKojima 5y ago
    And the very name Ghibli comes from an Italian plane: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caproni_Ca.309 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caproni_Ca.309 You'll also notice that the manufacturer, Caproni, is the same guy who shows up in all of the dream sequences in The Wind Rises. Also, IIRC, the engine in Porco Rosso's plane is from a Ghibli.
- Sophistifunk 5y ago
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
duxup 5y ago
I wish his work wasn’t all tied up in HBO Max in the US.
- nanna 5y ago
  Explain?
  - duxup 5y ago
    In the US HBO Max has the streaming rights to most of the Studio Ghibli content.
    - baggy_trough 5y ago
      At least it’s available for streaming. Didn’t use to be.
- junon 5y ago
  Get a VPN and change to Germany. A number of them are available on Netflix here, if memory serves.
- lolsal 5y ago
  Many titles can also be purchased on iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/movie-collection/studio-ghibli-6-film-collection/id1490496377 https://itunes.apple.com/us/movie-collection/studio-ghibli-6...
rp1 5y ago
This article seemed more like an overview of the artist and his work, but what about the movie? Is there any information on it?
- ruined 5y ago
  it's based on a novel, "How Do You Live?" by Genzaburo Yoshino. this link is provided in the article, a translation was apparently published in anticipation. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/12/books/review/how-do-you-live-genzaburo-yoshino.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/12/books/review/how-do-you-l...
- m_mueller 5y ago
  I just don't get articles like this. Whatever content there is - interview, biography and essay about his work - is blown into a thousand pieces and smeared across 10 pages. How is this enjoyable to anyone?
  - makeitdouble 5y ago
    I'd assume the author is paid by the word count and the site gets to insert more adds, so win-win on their side ?
  - JohnJamesRambo 5y ago
    Like most modern journalism, it is just regurgitated PR. I remember going to The Wind Rises and they said the same thing about it being his last movie. I wish we could skip the PR and just be honest.
Andrew_nenakhov 5y ago
This must be fifth time he plans to film last movie before retirement. (Not that I mind, we don't have enough Ghibli movies.)
- swsieber 5y ago
  He's worse than Brett Farve
  - metamet 5y ago
    Yet better in nearly every way.
- baby 5y ago
  It’s weird because I remember being young when he said that the first time, how old is he now?
- hinkley 5y ago
  He's like Daniel Day Lewis at this point. He's could stop now and have had a full life, but some movies just call to you.
- a_bonobo 5y ago
  His son Goro Miyazaki's movies haven't been as well-received as his own movies, I guess he can't let his baby go knowing it won't do as well without him. I found this exchange between a then-retired Hayao Miyazaki and a Japanese tabloid reporter very funny: https://www.kotaku.com.au/2020/11/hayao-miyazaki-asked-about-anime-when-picking-up-trash/ https://www.kotaku.com.au/2020/11/hayao-miyazaki-asked-about...
  - jkhdigital 5y ago
    I love how he drops an offhand comment about inflation, as if to say “clearly anyone with half a brain knows that nominal box office records are essentially guaranteed to be broken, I can’t believe we actually need to say that out loud”
  - 5y ago
mkaic 5y ago
Princess Mononoke changed my life. It was the first Ghibli film I saw, and I only saw it for the first time about a year ago (yes, I'm aware I'm rather late to the party). Every preconception I had about how a movie had to be made, or how stories ought to be told, was completely swept away. One of those moments where I can clearly delineate the person I was before watching from the person I was after. Miyazaki is a master of his craft. I aspire to tell stories like him one day.
- chairhairair 5y ago
  It’s an extremely traditional story arc, isn’t it?
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - IggleSniggle 5y ago
    This is like being presented with eg West Side Story and responding “oh hey but that’s just the same old Romeo and Juliet story isn’t it?” It really doesn’t matter if you “spoil” most story arcs, because as it turns out, for most stories, it’s not the story arc that matters. On the contrary, if you follow the familiar, recognizable beats and cadences, it gives you a lot more room to experiment and build nuanced meaning, because a lot of the meaning comes pre-established. An apple is just an apple, until you’ve tried a Gala, and a Honey Crisp, and a Braeburn…they are very different, and you can’t really appreciate that until you've first had some kind of apple.
    - slx26 5y ago
      We are in for the journey.
  - whateveracct 5y ago
    I wouldn't say so. Anticlimax and ambiguity are two of its hallmarks.
  - kgarten 5y ago
ngcc_hk 5y ago
[flagged]
GhettoComputers 5y ago
> Miyazaki’s movies, with their warplanes and intrusions of Western décor and dress, keep circling back to the traumatic moment when Japan, which until the mid-19th century had kept itself closed off to the outside world, was forced to embrace the West and Western values. This is downright wrong, the Meiji Restoration was when Japan absorbed westernization, not to mention their partial acceptance of Christianity during Imjin War, they were said to be the most open to conversion before suddenly persecuting the Jesuit priests, yet one of the daimyo (renamed Augustine) who was instrumental in the Korean invasion was a devout Christian and was said to have adopted a devout Korean Christian woman, who was certainly Christian enough to be persecuted and is worshipped in both Korea and Japan. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julia_Ota https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julia_Ota
- DocTomoe 5y ago
  It is not outright wrong, just incomplete, and refers to the period of seclusion between 1639 and 1853. In all, 16th century European Jesuits (and to a much lesser extend: Franciscians) in Japan are a footnote in history, with Daimyo's specifically adapting Christianity in order to have better trade relations (and thus easier access to firearms) with the Portugese (and later Spainards). Stories of high daimyos exclusively converting to Christianity were great success story fodder for the Jesuits to write home to European courts and ask for more money for their mission (and in fact: such tractats and letters have survived, and are available in university libraries today. The most colourful of these writings come from Luís Fróis). Japanese common-people understanding of Christianity was highly syncretised even back then (as Jesuits adapted Christian stories into plays, and matched story tropes and experiences of their Japanese audience, one famous example is Jesus' apostels morphing into samurai serving their daimyo Jesus). These religious ideas became even more intertwined when Jesuits were not around (e.g. Mary often was fused with Amida Buddha), and when Christianity was banned and Christians were persecuted, several tiny groups were able to survive in hiding (hanare kirishitan) and develop their own dogma which eventually diverged so much from original Christianity that when they resurfaced in the late 1800s, Western Christians did not accept them as compatible. These hanare kirishitan were at risk of extinction in the 1990s. There is no indication of widespread adoption of Christianity, especially exclusive Christianity even in original Jesuit sources. What did happen was that Christianity was mostly understood as yet another Buddhist sect for most of its 16th century presence. When the Shogunate decided that they weren't (and the Franciscians demanded Spanish military fortifications in Japan, among other incidents), Japanese authorities decided to shut down Christianity. The Tokugawa era is sometimes described as "Japan's second medieval age", which ended - abruptly so - with Perry's show of force. The assessment that Japan only started westernisation in the aftermath of a traumatic event (the landing of Perry's steam-powered warships in a quasi-medieval society is described by then-living Japanese authors much like we today would write about extraterrestial invasion) is pretty fair.
fouadf 5y ago
This makes me so happy, lately the only movies I've been genuinely enjoying are his. There's something healing about his movies.
- jahller 5y ago
  "healing" might be the most fitting description I could come up with as well for the effect his movies have on me. there is just something very special about his depiction of the world via animation. and if you look at his story boards you will also immediately notice that it's truly his vision which drives these movies and makes them so special. it's no reproducible. truly one-of-a-kind and a generational talent.
wodenokoto 5y ago
So what is left for Ghibli? On one hand, it is one of the few studios whose name is a quality stamp in and by itself. But unlike Disney and Pixar it doesn't seem like they've managed to foster or acquire talent to continue the studio. Who is left to continue the legacy? - Hayao Miyazaki is 80, and likely won't be able to make more movies after this one. - Isao Takahata (Only yesterday, Yamadas and Kaguya Hime) has passed away. - Yoshifumi Kondo (whisper of the heart) was set to be a new generation for Ghibli, but tragically died in the late 90s. - Hiromasa Yonebayashi (When Marnie was there, Arietty) left and started his own Studio. And then there is Goro Miyazaki, who I think is being overly harshly criticized. I didn't enjoy Earthsea, but its not like other directors don't have misses in their early career[1]. I haven't seen Ronja, but I've heard good things about it and Up on Poppy Hill is as great as any Ghibli film. Earwig and the Witch doesn't look all that great, but it is a strait-to-tv movie being released in cinema. But even so, that isn't a strong contender for continuing Ghibli. So what is left? Is the studio gonna die out? [1] I went to see a Makoto Shinkai (Your Name) movie festival, and some of his early work was less than impressive.
- de_nied 5y ago
  You forgot Joe Hisashi, probably one of the most defining characteristics of a Ghibli flim. He's still active though, as far as I know.
  - wodenokoto 5y ago
    I didn't forget him, as I don't expect him to direct any films. But I agree that his music is very important for Ghiblis success.
  - bschwindHN 5y ago
    I saw him in a concert right when covid was starting and I think he's back and performing again. He's such an amazing composer and he seems so kind and energetic, just based on his mannerisms from afar.
- Aeolun 5y ago
  As long as they have people they’ll continue. Maybe we’ll be surprised by someone that hasn’t been on the radar at all until now?
Aeolun 5y ago
To the surprise of absolutely no-one. I feel like Miyazaki has as much chance of not making any films any more as I have of stopping to program.
edem 5y ago
Is there a way around the paywall?
supperburg 5y ago
I’ve been watching these movies recently simply because they are so popular — I feel obligated to see them. I was bored by my neighbor totoro. But kikis delivery service absolutely blew me away and I would call it one of the best movies ever made. It astounded me. The story is perfectly paced and the characters mesh with each other, the setting and the story absolutely perfectly. It’s extremely beautiful visually. It should be mandatory viewing in the way that to kill a mockingbird is mandatory reading.
crhutchins 5y ago
I do hope that this one last spell will bring us rollercoaster emotions that will magically last through the end of time.
AlwaysRock 5y ago
This has happened so many times I'm starting to think this is just how Miyazaki promotes his movies now.
2OEH8eoCRo0 5y ago
It was a magical and surreal experience when I was first introduced to Miyazaki's work. Shortly after arriving at my duty station in Okinawa I pushed to be assigned to the 31st MEU. Pretty soon I found myself in mainland Japan at the Sasebo naval base. A Marine friend of mine had the initiative to sign a bunch of us up for a bus trip to Nagasaki for the day. The drive was about an hour and a half and the entertainment during the trip was Castle in the Sky. I was deeply moved watching both the film and the picturesque hilly southern Japanese country side roll by. I still feel moved by the experience today.
bsanr2 5y ago
I suppose I'll still hold out hope that he'll come out of retirement one more time after this so that he can adapt Vernor Vinge's Rainbows End
oDot 5y ago
Thank god for his multiple last spells

284 points by cmsefton 5y ago

He has said multiple times that the movie that he has been working on will be his "Final Fantasy" only to make another movie because unless Hayao himself works on the movie no one will watch it. This makes his Studio have an incredible risk if he stops making movies.

brundolf 5y ago

Isn't this his third or fourth "one last movie"? I believe he's one of those people who won't be able to stop working until he's dead

netizen-936824 5y ago
I seem to remember the same thing, although I won't complain as I absolutely adore his works
monkeybutton 5y ago
I remember him saying it in "The Kingdom of Dreams and Madness" and that was almost a decade ago! Also if you're a fan of his films, I highly recommend that documentary.

WantonQuantum 5y ago

Talk about burying the lede! Info about the movie is right at the bottom: Neither Miyazaki nor Suzuki will share much about the forthcoming film, beyond the fact that it is based on a 1937 novel by Genzaburo Yoshino. The story concerns a 15-year-old boy in Tokyo, small for his age and fond of mischief, whose father has recently died. In the English translation by Bruno Navasky, published in October, the boy gazes out at the city and is overwhelmed: “The watching self, the self being watched, and furthermore the self becoming conscious of all this, the self observing itself by itself, from afar, all those various selves overlapped in his heart, and suddenly he began to feel dizzy.” The actual content of the film could be anything — Suzuki has described it as “fantasy on a grand scale” — since Miyazaki doesn’t so much borrow stories as liberate them from their origins. (In the pseudobiographical “The Wind Rises,” he gives the real-life Jiro Horikoshi a fictional wife dying of tuberculosis.) All Suzuki will share is that he recognizes himself in one of the characters, who is not human. It is time. Miyazaki rubs the top of his head and lights a cigarette, one of his signature king-size, charcoal-filtered Seven Stars. I am allowed one last question. “The title of your next film is ‘How Do You Live?,’” I say. “Will you give us the answer?” The smile comes only after he speaks: “I am making this movie because I do not have the answer.”

bitwize 5y ago

He's totally retiring this time, guys.

micromacrofoot 5y ago
I think retiring was more like… not personally running the studio anymore.
- Hamuko 5y ago
  The Wind Rises was supposed to be his last feature film. https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2013-09-01/hayao-miyazaki-to-retire-from-making-feature-films https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2013-09-01/hayao-miyaz...
  - glandium 5y ago
    And so was Spirited Away. And so was even Mononoke Hime. That one was released in 1997. Miyazaki has been serial-retiring for close to 25 years!
    - Apocryphon 5y ago
      The Hideo Kojima of animation
zerocrates 5y ago
At 80 it's a fair bet.

lvass 5y ago

https://archive.md/Al6rk https://archive.md/Al6rk

oh_sigh 5y ago

This man has retired more than Sugar Ray Leonard!

bch 5y ago

One last time, like Daniel Day-Lewis.

jkhdigital 5y ago

Long read, but some real gems in there. The ideas that seem to animate Miyazaki’s movies, if you’ll pardon the pun, feel a lot like the ideas that animate most of Jordan Peterson’s lectures. Life is a relentless and unmitigated tragedy, and yet we manage to find (or create!) beauty and wonder all over the place. The author seems to think this acute awareness of the paradox that is life comes from growing up in postwar Japan; I can see how that experience might have been a major influence.

earthboundkid 5y ago
Miyazaki is a literal communist. He supports the JCP. It’s the subtext of like half of Studio Ghibli movies.
- jbay808 5y ago
  Worth mentioning that the JCP is much more of a major mainstream party in Japan than communist parties are in most, or perhaps any, other western developed country. Miyazaki himself also became somewhat more moderate in the early 90s while working on Nausicaa.
  - dustintrex 5y ago
    Eh, "major mainstream" is pushing it. They have 0.5% of the seats in the Diet, approximately similar representation in local government, and have never been part of a ruling coalition. Their membership is geriatric and their vote share slowly declining as well. AFAICT, the main reason they command any support is their staunch pacifism/anti-militarism, not economic policy. Many post-Communist parties in Europe, like Germany's die Linke, have done much better. But unlike the JCP, they've also employed branding consultants and dropped the word "Communist", the hammers and sickles, etc.
    - jbay808 5y ago
      They have about 270,000 members. Between both Diet houses they have 23 seats in total, which is 3.2%, not 0.5%. Their share of the popular vote was over 13% in 2014. By any measures that's massively more successful than, say, the Canadian Green Party.

rodgerd 5y ago

Every few years he retires, and then comes back. He won't really retire until he's dead, I suspect, or so ill he's no longer capable of working. He can't not tell stories.

nihonde 5y ago

Not surprising, but sort of disappointing that the writer thinks that modern Japanese culture so heavily defined by its interactions with the West, esp. from WWII. It's not that it's untrue or incorrect, it's just that Japan is more complicated than that. Lots of old paradoxes and influences that don't really lend themselves to a neat thesis. You're doomed to fall short, like when you try to explain a beautiful dream to someone who didn't see it.

tauchunfall 5y ago
>that modern Japanese culture so heavily defined by its interactions with the West It's maybe a small detail: The hero picture of the article shows Miyazaki in front of his atelier near Studio Ghibli with an old German mailbox ("Postkasten") next to him.
- slightwinder 5y ago
  It should be noted that Japan has a very special and long history with German Countries. Germans brought modern western medical knowledge to Japan in the 17th. Century, influencing the country to the point that the language used in the medical sector was German (AFAIK still is today to some degree). In the 19th. Century when Japan was forced to open itself to the world, Japan had a friendship and treaty with the German state Prussia, which helped to modernize Japans industry and society. The whole education-system at the time was basically imported from there, to the point that the iconic look of Japanese pupils today are going back to Prussia. That mailbox is in similar style, it's very old and the design is so classic that the word on it is not even common any more today.
- HideousKojima 5y ago
  And the very name Ghibli comes from an Italian plane: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caproni_Ca.309 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caproni_Ca.309 You'll also notice that the manufacturer, Caproni, is the same guy who shows up in all of the dream sequences in The Wind Rises. Also, IIRC, the engine in Porco Rosso's plane is from a Ghibli.
Sophistifunk 5y ago

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

duxup 5y ago

I wish his work wasn’t all tied up in HBO Max in the US.

nanna 5y ago
Explain?
- duxup 5y ago
  In the US HBO Max has the streaming rights to most of the Studio Ghibli content.
  - baggy_trough 5y ago
    At least it’s available for streaming. Didn’t use to be.
junon 5y ago
Get a VPN and change to Germany. A number of them are available on Netflix here, if memory serves.
lolsal 5y ago
Many titles can also be purchased on iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/movie-collection/studio-ghibli-6-film-collection/id1490496377 https://itunes.apple.com/us/movie-collection/studio-ghibli-6...

rp1 5y ago

This article seemed more like an overview of the artist and his work, but what about the movie? Is there any information on it?

ruined 5y ago
it's based on a novel, "How Do You Live?" by Genzaburo Yoshino. this link is provided in the article, a translation was apparently published in anticipation. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/12/books/review/how-do-you-live-genzaburo-yoshino.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/12/books/review/how-do-you-l...
m_mueller 5y ago
I just don't get articles like this. Whatever content there is - interview, biography and essay about his work - is blown into a thousand pieces and smeared across 10 pages. How is this enjoyable to anyone?
- makeitdouble 5y ago
  I'd assume the author is paid by the word count and the site gets to insert more adds, so win-win on their side ?
- JohnJamesRambo 5y ago
  Like most modern journalism, it is just regurgitated PR. I remember going to The Wind Rises and they said the same thing about it being his last movie. I wish we could skip the PR and just be honest.

Andrew_nenakhov 5y ago

This must be fifth time he plans to film last movie before retirement. (Not that I mind, we don't have enough Ghibli movies.)

swsieber 5y ago
He's worse than Brett Farve
- metamet 5y ago
  Yet better in nearly every way.
baby 5y ago
It’s weird because I remember being young when he said that the first time, how old is he now?
hinkley 5y ago
He's like Daniel Day Lewis at this point. He's could stop now and have had a full life, but some movies just call to you.
a_bonobo 5y ago
His son Goro Miyazaki's movies haven't been as well-received as his own movies, I guess he can't let his baby go knowing it won't do as well without him. I found this exchange between a then-retired Hayao Miyazaki and a Japanese tabloid reporter very funny: https://www.kotaku.com.au/2020/11/hayao-miyazaki-asked-about-anime-when-picking-up-trash/ https://www.kotaku.com.au/2020/11/hayao-miyazaki-asked-about...
- jkhdigital 5y ago
  I love how he drops an offhand comment about inflation, as if to say “clearly anyone with half a brain knows that nominal box office records are essentially guaranteed to be broken, I can’t believe we actually need to say that out loud”
- 5y ago

mkaic 5y ago

Princess Mononoke changed my life. It was the first Ghibli film I saw, and I only saw it for the first time about a year ago (yes, I'm aware I'm rather late to the party). Every preconception I had about how a movie had to be made, or how stories ought to be told, was completely swept away. One of those moments where I can clearly delineate the person I was before watching from the person I was after. Miyazaki is a master of his craft. I aspire to tell stories like him one day.

chairhairair 5y ago
It’s an extremely traditional story arc, isn’t it?
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- IggleSniggle 5y ago
  This is like being presented with eg West Side Story and responding “oh hey but that’s just the same old Romeo and Juliet story isn’t it?” It really doesn’t matter if you “spoil” most story arcs, because as it turns out, for most stories, it’s not the story arc that matters. On the contrary, if you follow the familiar, recognizable beats and cadences, it gives you a lot more room to experiment and build nuanced meaning, because a lot of the meaning comes pre-established. An apple is just an apple, until you’ve tried a Gala, and a Honey Crisp, and a Braeburn…they are very different, and you can’t really appreciate that until you've first had some kind of apple.
  - slx26 5y ago
    We are in for the journey.
- whateveracct 5y ago
  I wouldn't say so. Anticlimax and ambiguity are two of its hallmarks.
- kgarten 5y ago

ngcc_hk 5y ago

[flagged]

GhettoComputers 5y ago

> Miyazaki’s movies, with their warplanes and intrusions of Western décor and dress, keep circling back to the traumatic moment when Japan, which until the mid-19th century had kept itself closed off to the outside world, was forced to embrace the West and Western values. This is downright wrong, the Meiji Restoration was when Japan absorbed westernization, not to mention their partial acceptance of Christianity during Imjin War, they were said to be the most open to conversion before suddenly persecuting the Jesuit priests, yet one of the daimyo (renamed Augustine) who was instrumental in the Korean invasion was a devout Christian and was said to have adopted a devout Korean Christian woman, who was certainly Christian enough to be persecuted and is worshipped in both Korea and Japan. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julia_Ota https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julia_Ota

DocTomoe 5y ago
It is not outright wrong, just incomplete, and refers to the period of seclusion between 1639 and 1853. In all, 16th century European Jesuits (and to a much lesser extend: Franciscians) in Japan are a footnote in history, with Daimyo's specifically adapting Christianity in order to have better trade relations (and thus easier access to firearms) with the Portugese (and later Spainards). Stories of high daimyos exclusively converting to Christianity were great success story fodder for the Jesuits to write home to European courts and ask for more money for their mission (and in fact: such tractats and letters have survived, and are available in university libraries today. The most colourful of these writings come from Luís Fróis). Japanese common-people understanding of Christianity was highly syncretised even back then (as Jesuits adapted Christian stories into plays, and matched story tropes and experiences of their Japanese audience, one famous example is Jesus' apostels morphing into samurai serving their daimyo Jesus). These religious ideas became even more intertwined when Jesuits were not around (e.g. Mary often was fused with Amida Buddha), and when Christianity was banned and Christians were persecuted, several tiny groups were able to survive in hiding (hanare kirishitan) and develop their own dogma which eventually diverged so much from original Christianity that when they resurfaced in the late 1800s, Western Christians did not accept them as compatible. These hanare kirishitan were at risk of extinction in the 1990s. There is no indication of widespread adoption of Christianity, especially exclusive Christianity even in original Jesuit sources. What did happen was that Christianity was mostly understood as yet another Buddhist sect for most of its 16th century presence. When the Shogunate decided that they weren't (and the Franciscians demanded Spanish military fortifications in Japan, among other incidents), Japanese authorities decided to shut down Christianity. The Tokugawa era is sometimes described as "Japan's second medieval age", which ended - abruptly so - with Perry's show of force. The assessment that Japan only started westernisation in the aftermath of a traumatic event (the landing of Perry's steam-powered warships in a quasi-medieval society is described by then-living Japanese authors much like we today would write about extraterrestial invasion) is pretty fair.

fouadf 5y ago

This makes me so happy, lately the only movies I've been genuinely enjoying are his. There's something healing about his movies.

jahller 5y ago
"healing" might be the most fitting description I could come up with as well for the effect his movies have on me. there is just something very special about his depiction of the world via animation. and if you look at his story boards you will also immediately notice that it's truly his vision which drives these movies and makes them so special. it's no reproducible. truly one-of-a-kind and a generational talent.

wodenokoto 5y ago

So what is left for Ghibli? On one hand, it is one of the few studios whose name is a quality stamp in and by itself. But unlike Disney and Pixar it doesn't seem like they've managed to foster or acquire talent to continue the studio. Who is left to continue the legacy? - Hayao Miyazaki is 80, and likely won't be able to make more movies after this one. - Isao Takahata (Only yesterday, Yamadas and Kaguya Hime) has passed away. - Yoshifumi Kondo (whisper of the heart) was set to be a new generation for Ghibli, but tragically died in the late 90s. - Hiromasa Yonebayashi (When Marnie was there, Arietty) left and started his own Studio. And then there is Goro Miyazaki, who I think is being overly harshly criticized. I didn't enjoy Earthsea, but its not like other directors don't have misses in their early career[1]. I haven't seen Ronja, but I've heard good things about it and Up on Poppy Hill is as great as any Ghibli film. Earwig and the Witch doesn't look all that great, but it is a strait-to-tv movie being released in cinema. But even so, that isn't a strong contender for continuing Ghibli. So what is left? Is the studio gonna die out? [1] I went to see a Makoto Shinkai (Your Name) movie festival, and some of his early work was less than impressive.

de_nied 5y ago
You forgot Joe Hisashi, probably one of the most defining characteristics of a Ghibli flim. He's still active though, as far as I know.
- wodenokoto 5y ago
  I didn't forget him, as I don't expect him to direct any films. But I agree that his music is very important for Ghiblis success.
- bschwindHN 5y ago
  I saw him in a concert right when covid was starting and I think he's back and performing again. He's such an amazing composer and he seems so kind and energetic, just based on his mannerisms from afar.
Aeolun 5y ago
As long as they have people they’ll continue. Maybe we’ll be surprised by someone that hasn’t been on the radar at all until now?

Aeolun 5y ago

To the surprise of absolutely no-one. I feel like Miyazaki has as much chance of not making any films any more as I have of stopping to program.

edem 5y ago

Is there a way around the paywall?

supperburg 5y ago

I’ve been watching these movies recently simply because they are so popular — I feel obligated to see them. I was bored by my neighbor totoro. But kikis delivery service absolutely blew me away and I would call it one of the best movies ever made. It astounded me. The story is perfectly paced and the characters mesh with each other, the setting and the story absolutely perfectly. It’s extremely beautiful visually. It should be mandatory viewing in the way that to kill a mockingbird is mandatory reading.

crhutchins 5y ago

I do hope that this one last spell will bring us rollercoaster emotions that will magically last through the end of time.

AlwaysRock 5y ago

This has happened so many times I'm starting to think this is just how Miyazaki promotes his movies now.

2OEH8eoCRo0 5y ago

It was a magical and surreal experience when I was first introduced to Miyazaki's work. Shortly after arriving at my duty station in Okinawa I pushed to be assigned to the 31st MEU. Pretty soon I found myself in mainland Japan at the Sasebo naval base. A Marine friend of mine had the initiative to sign a bunch of us up for a bus trip to Nagasaki for the day. The drive was about an hour and a half and the entertainment during the trip was Castle in the Sky. I was deeply moved watching both the film and the picturesque hilly southern Japanese country side roll by. I still feel moved by the experience today.

bsanr2 5y ago

I suppose I'll still hold out hope that he'll come out of retirement one more time after this so that he can adapt Vernor Vinge's Rainbows End

oDot 5y ago

Thank god for his multiple last spells