Trevor Hogg profiles the career of Japanese animated filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki in the final instalment of a five part feature… read parts one, two, three and four.
“Although I have thought about leaving the world of animation many times,” confessed renowned anime filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki, “whenever I see a piece of work that I really like, I naturally want it to express it in my own ideas. When I hand it to the others, I always think about how this and that should be done. At last, I feel that it will be better if I take up the work myself.” With director Mamoru Hosoda departing from a planned adaptation of a book by Diana Wynne Jones about a flamboyant and wandering wizard, Miyazaki found himself shepparding Hauru no ugoku shiro (Howl’s Moving Castle, 2004) to completion. “The reason that we made Howl’s Moving Castle is that there are too many unhappy matters in the world, such as wars and economic crises,” stated the Tokyo-native. “We hope that, through the movie, people can keep up their courage and see the hope.”
Accompanying Howl in his journeys are Markl, a wizard in-training, and Sophie, a girl who has been transformed into an old woman by a witch’s curse. “Is someone different at age eighteen or sixty?,” asked Hayao Miyazaki. “I believe one stays the same. A ninety-year-old woman once said to me that she felt the same as when she was eighteen. So an eighteen-year-old young woman is struck by a spell and changes into an old lady. I didn’t want a film where the key to happiness would be to break the spell and get youth back…Being young is not panacea. So what is? How can this heroin be happy? I wondered about this very seriously, and this film is the result of my thinking.”
“I didn’t have time to show Howl’s character in detail,” admitted Miyazaki. “My co-workers often said, ‘In the evening, when we go back home, after a long work day, our wives do not know what we have done, and they don’t care much.’ I did this film with the same spirit. Sophie doesn’t have to care about what Howl is trying to do. So I didn’t show it.” Discussing his most glamourous onscreen creation, the animator remarked, “At the beginning, the character really look like shoujo-manga archetypes. I mean, those characters with big eyes and hair that flows like a somewhat mysterious curtain.”
The design of the pivotal movable home in which Howl lives was the result of a happy accident. “That drawing was originally not meant for the film,” revealed producer Toshio Suzuki. “It was intended to fill an empty space at the Studio Ghibli Museum. When Miyazaki asked me ‘What design should I use for the castle?’, I said, ‘How about that one?’ Miyazaki was happy, as there was now no need to find a new design. The problem became: what about its legs? The original book didn’t give much detail. Miyazaki said that if it moves, it need legs. Firstly, he thought about samurai armour from the twelfth to forteenth centuries, or maybe European armour of that time. Eventually, they became the legs of a… chicken. The next question was: how many – six or four? I suggested four. Miyazaki agreed.” The initial idea was for the picture to be computer generated rather than hand-drawn. If a movie at one point is made by the highest tech, it will become outdated soon,” observed Suzuki. “We tried CG on Howl’s. For example, the legs of the castle were made by CG. However, it didn’t seem very natural to me and I told Miyazaki that his skill was better than that of a computer. He accepted that and quit using CG.”
“The twenty-first century is a complex and unforeseeable epoch,” philosphized Hayao Miyazaki. “Our thinking habits and our values, which until now looked settled, are being challenged. Even if this film is intended for the young public, and must be entertaining, I couldn’t be satisfied reproducing films that have already been made, where you only have to fight off the bad guys. When I am doing a film I always wonder whether what I’m doing is interesting. I cut off all that is dull.” The anime artist added, “I can’t believe companies distribute my movies in America. They’re baffling in Japan! I’m well aware there are spots in Howl’s Moving Castle where I’m going to lose some of the audience. Why do you land in a different place when you open the door? Well, it’s magic. I don’t provide unnecessary explanations. If you want that, you’re not going to like my movies. That’s just the way it is.”
There was no confusion at the worldwide box office as the movie grossed $235 million; it won the Osella Award at the 61st Venice International Film Festival as well as the Mainichi Film Concours’ Reader’s Choice Award for Best Film. The Academy Awards nominated Howl’s Moving Castle for Best Animated Picture; the movie also contended for Best Film, Best Director, and Best Writing at the Annies. Hayao Miyazaki travelled to Aadman Animations in Bristol, to screen the movie for the story’s author Diana Wynne Jones and the staff of the British animation company.
On March 31, 2005, Studio Ghibli gained its independence from Tokuma Shoten. Named the corporate director of Studio Ghibli Inc., Hayao Miyazaki was listed as one of the hundred most influential people in the world by Time Magazine.
Resorting to traditional forms of animation, the anime artist produced another series of ten to twenty-minute experimental short films for the Studio Ghibli Museum. “In Yadosagashi [Looking for a Home, 2006], the leading character, a girl, encounters a lot of bugs when she spends a night at an empty house,” said the animator. “The insects stop approaching her after she draws a line between herself and them. That kind of thing would never happen in real life. But children like to play with these kinds of rules that stop you from crossing some kind of boundary. I think it is important to hold on to that kind of sensitivity. It also is important to have the feeling that everything in the world has a life. That is why the girl observes civilities [toward bugs, trees and shrines].” Explaining the experimentation featured in the picture, Hayao Miyazaki stated, “The onomatopoeic sounds such as “zah” for pounding rain and “zawa-zawa” for a breeze in the forest were represented by the words themselves on the screen. All the sound effects and incidental “music” were performed vocally by [TV personality] Tamori and [pianist, singer and composer] Akiko Yano. We can’t do this sort of thing in a typical film for the cinema.”
Also, included in the exclusive collection is Mizugumo monmon (Water Spider Monmon, 2006), a perilous pond tale about a water skater and water spider that fall in love; it utilized over thirty thousand animation cells. “To depict bubbles and the rippling of water takes a lot of cells, and the amount used is reflected in the cost,” declared Hayao Miyazaki. Asked about his attitude regarding awards, the anime artist replied, “Prizes do not mean anything to me. I think it is more important to make a child aware of the existence of a weird creature, like a water spider that breathes through its backside.” In the same year another short film was produced called Hoshi o Katta Hi (The Day I Harvested a Star), a cinematic version of a story by Naohisa Inoue. Trading vegetables for a tiny blue rock, Nano finds himself looking after a planet which he eventually sets free. “Creators need to try hard to make their fake worlds seem as real as possible,” advised Miyazaki. “It’s not good enough to string together a bunch of clever ideas, for the effort required is fundamentally different. Lies must be layered upon lies to create a thoroughly believable fake world.”
“I like underwater life. I don’t actually scuba-dive with a tank, but I’ve liked to swim in shallow areas with a snorkel from childhood to see what’s under the water,” stated Hayao Miyazaki who chose to set a classic Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale in the Japanese port town of Tomonoura. “The story is very simple, mixing an old tale and The Little Mermaid,” remarked Toshio Suzuk as to the origins of Gake no ueno Ponyo (Ponyo or Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea, 2008). “A young female fish [Ponyo] is swimming and puts her head into a jar. She can’t pull it off, is washed ashore and found by a five-year old boy [Sosuke]. The boy helps her and they quickly fall in love with each other.” Miyazaki is quick to point out that, “When I work on a new story, I think I’m writing a new story, but when I scrape things away to its core, I realize that there are fragments of these old folk tales or legends that form my stories. It’s not that I’m trying to resurrect an old legend, but naturally it’s there at the core. I think it shows that I’m in the flow of human civilization.”
“I started out thinking Ponyo was a tin frog with a little wind-up key on the back, and tried to build a story on that,” said the animator. “But once I had finalized the character I didn’t think I could make anything unique with that so I…decided to make her into a goldfish.” When depicting the fractured father and daughter relationship in the film, Mizayaki turned to his colleagues for inspiration. “Our staff who didn’t have children for a long time finally started having children. For example, [the character of] Fujimoto, Ponyo’s father in the film, is really [animation director] Katsuya Kondo. He’s also having difficulties dealing with his daughter. He is being treated like a mule or a pony. He’s very restless, just like Fujimoto in the way he acts. That’s the kind of atmosphere that brought about Ponyo.”
“In one of my favorite scenes, Ponyo arrives at Sosuke’s house as a girl while a storm rages,” enthused John Lasseter, the Chief Creative Officer for Disney and Pixar. “Sosuke’s mother makes noodles for her — which she discovers she loves. It’s so special, because Ponyo is a little girl but she’s a brand-new little girl and everything is brand new to her.” A significant challenge for the production was in the rendering of the water. “At first I was quite hesitant about portraying water as fish but I started working on the storyboards and showed it to my staff and they didn’t seem to mind,” remarked Hayao Miyazaki. “Actually they approved. So we decided to go with this. I think I was the most hesitant about drawing eyeballs on the waves and making them look like creatures.” Lasseter was impressed with his animation idol’s ingenuity for the project which required the use of 170,000 animation cells. “It reminded me of when I was on holiday at the beach with my boys. The waves were very different—coming up out of the water and smashing right on the boys. They were scared, so I started giving the waves personality—like they’re hiding from the kids and waiting for them to come close and then they’d reach up and get them. In Ponyo, Miyazaki actually made the ocean a character. The waves become creatures and the style of the water is actually very believable for the world that he created.” The anime artist revealed the trick he employed to achieve the splashing waves, “The secret was keeping the squiggly lines moving all the time.”
“I didn’t set out trying to make an environmental-message film,” clarified Hayao Miyazaki. “The actual sea that children see is full of junk and maybe even dirtier than the sea that’s depicted in the movie. Maybe we made it a little too clean.” Miyazaki added, “The most important thing is, I think, that even within such an environment, children grow up, they learn to love and they enjoy living in that environment. I think what is most important is that parents and children see each other as being very valuable and very precious to each other, and if they can get that out of the movie that’s fine.” For John Lasseter, he has a great deal of admiration for the hand-drawn picture. “Ponyo transcends age groups, everybody enjoys this film. I’ve watched it with many audiences and people are truly entertained by it. There’s a depth and a beauty to the film; it really works for all ages.” Earning $201 million worldwide the movie won Best Animated Film and Best Film Score at the Japanese Academy Awards as well as the Ofuji Noboru Award at the Mainichi Film Concours. Outside of Japan, the picture contended for Best Animation Feature and Best Music at the Annies.
“No matter how delightful a scene is, if it only plays a tiny role in the overall story, you might find that you have to invest your energy in another, more important area,” stated the moviemaker. “And the overall balance of the film is usually determined not by a group of animators, but by someone who is in the position to see the work as a whole – the director. This need to see the big picture may explain the emergence of a division of labour between director and animator.” A sequel to Hayao Miyazaki’s Starting Point: 1979 to 1996 was published in 2008 titled Turning Point: 1997 to 2008.
Studio Ghibli, like its co-founder, is currently experiencing a turning point. “The greatest challenge we have right now is that my staff has aged along with me, and so we need to get some fresh blood into our studio,” remarked Miyazaki. “We want to use…younger directors because we’ll disappear if we keep relying on old people.” Among the new talent recruited was Gorô Miyazaki, the son of the legendary animator who directed the critically divisive cinematic adaptation of the fantasy novels by Ursula K. Le Guin called Gedo Senki (Tales from Earthsea, 2006). Another individual making his directorial debut for Studio Ghibli is Hiromasa Yonebayashi with Karigurashi no Arrietty (The Borrowers, 2010) based on the book by Mary Norton about a tiny group of people dwelling under a kitchen floor, who secretly borrow everything they need from the humans inhabiting an old house.
“About forty years ago this project was once considered by both Miyazaki and [Isao] Takahata, and Miyazaki suddenly recalled it and recommended me to read the book,” explained Toshio Suzuki on how he became familiar with the British-set tale authored by Norton. “He strong-armed me into accepting his idea…We often have this kind of trouble at Studio Ghibli. So why The Borrowers now? To that question Miya-san answered, ‘The situation of “karigurashi” [borrowing life] is very nice. It just fits into our present age.”
In the original project plan dated July 30, 2008, Hayao Miyazaki wrote, “They can’t use magic, nor are they fairies. Instead, they fight against mice, suffer termites, dodge pesticide spray attacks, escape cockroach traps and live cautiously in order not to be seen.” Describing the 10cm-tall family, the anime artist remarked, “The father has enough bravery and patience to go hunting for his family, the mother is responsible for keeping the house with creative thinking, and the daughter Arrietty is a curious girl with a rich sensibility.” Miyazaki added, “The story starts with the tiny people’s life. Arrietty meets a boy, makes a fellowship…Finally, they escape from the storm blown up by the callous humans, and go into the field. The wish for this film is to comfort and encourage people who live in this chaotic and anxious time.”
Also in the works is a new ten minute short film by Hayao Miyazaki which will feature no dialogue; recruiting the help of major Japanese advertising agency Denstu, Studio Ghibli is exploring such options as releasing the production on YouTube. “To my way of thinking, creating animation means creating a fictional world,” began Miyazaki. “That world soothes the spirit of those who are disheartened and exhausted from dealing with the sharp-edges of reality, or are suffering from a nearsighted distortion of their emotions. When the audience is watching animation, they are apt to feel either light and cheerful or purified and refreshed.”
To emotionally connect with audience members, Hayao Miyazaki believes a movie requires a couple of key elements. “What’s really important, I think, is to have fully fleshed-out characters, characters who are life-affirming and have clear hopes and goals, and then to make sure that the story develops as efficiently and simply as possible. If the scenario fulfills these requirements, then the animator’s job consists of applying the decoration. He or she must accurately grasp the meaning or intent of the particular scenes, and conceive some drama and action that makes sense of the way the characters in the story would think.” The other essential factor is the conclusion. “A film has to have an ending. There are those who claim that a film can be anything the director wants, or a film should be like this or that. But if you show a paying audience something that seems to say, ‘The rest is up to you to think about,’ you’re liable to hear people cry, ‘I’ve paid my money to have you think about it. So you come up with the answer.’ If I were in the audience, I know I’d make the same demand.”
As much as Hayao Miyazaki likes to develop unconventional stories, he maintains a pragmatic philosophy. “We are in the entertainment business, so our projects should be entertainment projects. I have quite a few scripts and ideas that wouldn’t be that entertaining, that are more serious, but if I insist on making those, then Studio Ghibli would sink.” Contemplating future projects, he would like to produce, Miyazaki remarked, “If I were told I could make a film on any theme I liked, I would like to do the legendary story of the people who escaped the fire during the Great Kanto Earthquake in 1923. Those people took refuge on the Sumidagawa River aboard small boats tied up in the Fukagawa area of Tokyo. It is said that the people worked together to cool down the wooden boats, which were crackling in the intense heat, by showering them with water. I would love to re-create those scenes in an animation.” Miyazaki went on to say, “There’s one unreleased screenplay I’ve already completed. It’s the story of transportation at the end of Meiji era [1868-1912] on the Shinkashigawa River. I’ve had our staff animators visit local museums and read books to research the techniques of boatmen of the time…I’ve wanted to make a movie with that scenario so reference libraries could use it as educational material. But it’s too long–30 minutes long–so I had to give up on the idea. I’m still ready to produce it if there’s someone willing to fund the rest of the project.”
Hayao Miyazaki is proud of his chosen profession. “Being allowed to make films for young children is a wonderful gift that other generations haven’t been able to experience. This is priceless to me. I doubt that I would have wanted to make films for little children if I hadn’t become a parent. Most of all we want to make films to satisfy ourselves.” After forty-seven years, life as a moviemaker remains a constant creative challenge for Miyazaki. “It takes great effort to create significant work, given the current flood of animation. It is like pouring clear water drop by drop into muddy flood waters. I can’t help but feel lonely that, just because it is such an effort, some decide to settle for sending out mediocre work to be pushed along with the rest of the deluge. Having chosen animation as my occupation, I think it would be better if I risked my life for it – though that is an exaggeration – and continued to look for solutions.”
Starting Point 1979 to 1996 – a collection of essays and sketches by Hayao Miyazaki.
Ghibli Museum – Official Website
For more, visit Studio Ghibli fansites Online Ghibli, StudioGhibli.net and GhibliWorld.com, along with the GhibliWiki.
Movies… For Free! Howl’s Moving Castle (2004)
The Wind Rises (2013)
Trevor Hogg is a freelance video editor and writer who currently resides in Canada.
