The Animé Art of Hayao Miyazaki This page intentionally left blank The Animé Art of Hayao Miyazaki D C ANI AVALLARO McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers Jefferson, North Carolina, and London LIBRARYOFCONGRESSCATALOGUING-IN-PUBLICATIONDATA Cavallaro, Dani. The animé art of Hayao Miyazaki / Dani Cavallaro. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN-¡3: 978-0-7864-2369-9 (softcover : 50# alkaline paper) ¡. Miyazaki, Hayao, 1941– —Criticism and interpretation. I. Title PN¡998.3.M577C38 2006 79¡.4302'33092—dc22 2005035065 British Library cataloguing data are available ©2006 Dani Cavallaro. All rights reserved No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying or recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Cover image: Howl’s Moving Castle(2004 Japan) © Studio Ghibli/Walt Disney Pictures (Photofest) Manufactured in the United States of America McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers Box 6¡¡, Je›erson, North Carolina 28640 www.mcfarlandpub.com To Paddy, with love and gratitude “To be a witch, to be an artist, to be a baker.... It’s an energy bestowed by the gods or someone, right? Though thanks to it, we do have to su›er at times.” —Ursula, Kiki’s Delivery Service This page intentionally left blank Table of Contents Preface 1 Introduction 5 1. The Frame of Reference 15 2. The Early Years 29 3. The Ghibli Era: A Brief History of Studio Ghibli 40 4. Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind 47 5. Laputa: Castle in the Sky 58 6. My Neighbor Totoro 68 7. Grave of the Fireflies 77 8. Kiki’s Delivery Service 81 9. Studio Ghibli, ¡990–¡99¡ 91 10. Porco Rosso 96 11. Studio Ghibli, ¡992–¡994 104 12. On Your Mark 112 13. Whisper of the Heart 114 14. Princess Mononoke 120 15. Studio Ghibli, ¡999–200¡ 131 16. Spirited Away 134 17. Studio Ghibli, 2002–2003 148 18. Howl’s Moving Castle 157 Postscript: French Connections—The Miyazaki/Moebius Exhibition 172 Epilogue 175 Filmography 181 Appendix ¡: Ancillary Products and Media Synergy 187 vii viii Table of Contents Appendix 2: Fans and Their Worlds 190 Chapter Notes 193 Bibliography 199 Index 203 Preface The escalating appeal of Hayao Miyazaki’s films across the continents, matched by the record-breaking box-o‡ce performance of his most recent productions, calls for an up-to-date evaluation of his accomplishments in a directing capacity and of his con- tributions to works involving other animation practitioners attached to his company, Studio Ghibli. This book will function as an introduction for audiences as yet only marginally familiar with Miyazaki’s oeuvre, while deepening the understanding of the director’s life, thought and creative process for those who are acquainted with his movies and are eager to move beyond the propaedeutic stage. A firm believer in the wisdom of children, Miyazaki has consistently tackled grave issues without ever sanitizing or sentimentalizing their import, let alone dishing out definitive resolutions. These issues range from environmental depletion, the horrors of war, the iniquities of totalitarian regimes and people’s enslavement to commodity fetishism, to the setbacks entailed by personal development, the loss of innocence and the cultivation of the values of loyalty, gratitude, courage, self-sacrifice and love. Con- comitantly, the director is able to immerse his perceptions of human strife in a won- drous atmosphere of visual and moral grace that invariably verges upon, and frequently achieves aesthetic sublimity. At times, this sense of the sublime is conveyed by cine- matic sequences of genuinely heroical grandeur, while at others, and no less memo- rably, Miyazaki’s vision thrives on the unparalleled merit of simplicity: the most elementary plot twist, the least a›ected facial expression or gesture, and the subtlest chromatic shift may accomplish almost imperceptibly what overtly theatrical set pieces favored by Hollywood animation could barely aspire to. Drawing on a range of sources of distinctively Japanese and Western derivation, Miyazaki situates his narratives in natural and architectural contexts characterized by stunning graphic richness, textural intricacy and scrupulous attention to the minutest and most unusual details. At all times, it is impossible not to sense the director’s ardent commitment to hands-on craftsmanship even in productions that resort to digital tools and techniques. The outcome is a luxuriant swirl of cinematic poetry wherein the homely and the surreal harmoniously coalesce. The movies’ amalgamation of disparate sources is also borne out by the presence, within their tapestries, of elements typical of diverse genres, including science fiction, action adventure, romance, comedy, horror, 1