Hayao Miyazaki (宮崎 駿, Miyazaki Hayao) (Born January 5, 1941 in Tokyo, Japan) is a director of animated films and a co-founder of the animation studio and production company Studio Ghibli.
Miyazaki is the creator of many popular animated feature films, as well as manga. Although largely unknown in the West outside of animation communities until Miramax released his film Princess Mononoke in 1999, his films have enjoyed both commercial and critical success in Japan and East Asia. Miyazaki’s Spirited Away is the highest-grossing film of all time in Japan; Princess Mononoke held the same title for a short period until the release of Titanic later in the same year.
Miyazaki’s films are distinguished by recurring themes such as humanity’s relationship to nature and technology, and the difficulty of maintaining a pacifist ethic. The protagonists of his films are often strong, independent girls or young women; the villains, when present, are often morally ambiguous characters and have redeeming qualities.
Miyazaki’s films have generally been financially successful, and this success has invited comparisons with American animator Walt Disney. However, Miyazaki does not see himself as a person building an animation empire, but as an animator fortunate enough to have been able to make films with complete creative control. In 2006, Time magazine voted Miyazaki as one of the most influential Asians in the past 60 years.
Miyazaki, the second of four brothers, was born in the town of Akebono-cho, part of Tokyo’s Bunkyō-ku. During World War II, Miyazaki’s father Katsuji was director of Miyazaki Airplane, owned by his brother (Hayao Miyazaki’s uncle), which made rudders for the Zero fighter plane. During this time, Miyazaki drew airplanes and other aspects of flight, and developed a lifelong fascination with aviation which became a recurring theme in his artistic works.
Miyazaki’s mother was a voracious reader and an intelligent woman, who often questioned socially accepted norms. Miyazaki later said that he inherited his questioning and skeptical mind from her.[citation needed]
Miyazaki moved frequently throughout his childhood, in part because his mother was undergoing treatment for spinal tuberculosis from 1947 until 1955 . Miyazaki’s film My Neighbor Totoro features a family whose mother is similarly afflicted.