Several years ago when I was a student at the University of Arizona, a friend of mine named Toru–an international student from Japan and also an incorrigible film buff–invited me to a Hayao Miyazaki film festival that was being put on by the campus animation club. Not having anything better to do and always being game for exploring the work of unknown filmmakers, I cheerfully tagged along.
Nothing prepared me for what I encountered. As I recall the festival, the exact plots and narrative details of the fantasy films elude me, but the colors and compositions, the visual sweep and gloriously-rendered worlds remain vivid. Huge, mysterious, beetle-like creatures, and castles suspended in the sky were revealed through imaginative stories with striking ecological themes–a far cry from the sort of sunny children’s musicals I associated with popular animation.
Nevertheless, I learned that Miyazaki was considered the “Disney of Japan.” But while he’s one of the most financially successful animators in his country (his latest film, Spirited Away, is the highest grossing movie of all time in Japan), his artistry seems unquestionably more pronounced than his Western counterpart. For starters, not only does he not turn every creature in his films into a cutesy anthropomorphic caricature but his ideas of mythical bedrocks like good and evil seem altogether more nuanced and complex.
Ironically enough, Disney acquired the US distribution rights to his films, and even though his last two theatrical features didn’t exactly set the box office on fire in this country, Disney has committed to releasing Miyazaki’s previous work on video over the coming months.
Recently, two of his earlier films debuted with the DVD release of Spirited Away, Castle in the Sky (1986) and Kiki’s Delivery Service (1989). I watched the latter film on DVD last night, and although it’s a simple story about an adolescent girl who dreams of becoming a good witch (shades of Harry Potter) in an urban seaside town, it’s told with such whimsy, human warmth, and visual delight that it kept me completely enthralled throughout its running time.
In the next few weeks, we’ll be expanding this site to include some information on the animation genre. In the meantime, be sure to check out Miyazaki central at Nausicaa.net.