Hayao Miyazaki

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After a lifetime of reading fantasy, I have a career professionally writing fantasy! Whether it’s for animation, video games, or children’s books, crafting adventures in worlds of whimsy and wonder is a treat. Writing has sharpened my senses to recognize and appreciate well-crafted stories in all their forms, and the books on this list are some of the very finest romps.

Runners on first and third! Keio’s batter is the team captain, Kachikawa. The fielders are on high alert, and number three, the great Kachikawa, has a heavy burden on his shoulders. There are already two outs, but with a runner on third, there’s the chance for a hit-and-run! With a single hit here, just like that, the game will be tied. The count is three and one. Perhaps the veteran pitcher Wakahara will throw a fourth ball for the intentional walk, in hopes of taking out the next batter.” This is an excellent “life in art,” or a series of chapters on the major works in a biographical context. The Walkman. Karaoke. Pikachu. Pac-Man. Akira. Emoji. We've all fallen in love with one or another of Japan's pop-culture creations, from the techy to the wild to the super-kawaii. But as Japanese-media… I am the Goldthwaite Professor of Rhetoric and Japanese at Tufts University. I’ve lived in Japan for 8 years beginning when I was 17 when I travelled to Tokyo and lived on my own, teaching English, and studying Japanese. I became a scholar of Japanese literature, and then in the 1990s became interested in Japanese animation (anime) and in animation in general. I’ve written five books on either Japanese literature or anime-related subjects, and I am currently working on a project comparing the animated films of the Walt Disney Studio with the films of Studio Ghibli. This highly entertaining business memoir describes what it was like to work for Japan's premiere animation studio, Studio Ghibli, and its reigning genius Hayao Miyazaki. Steve Alpert, a Japanese-speaking American, was the "resident foreigner" in the offices of Ghibli and its parent Tokuma Shoten and played a central role when Miyazaki's films were starting to take off in international markets. Alpert describes hauling heavy film canisters of Princess Mononoke to Russia and California, experiencing a screaming Harvey Weinstein, dealing with Disney marketers, and then triumphantly attending glittering galas celebrating the Oscar-winning Spirited Away.

Japanese culture and animation scholar Susan Napier explores the life and art of this extraordinary Japanese… I didnt finish this series, but dont let that totally discredit this review. Hayao Miyazaki is a very talented person; I love his work. Nausicaa is at times a charming story, and, as is usually the case with Miyazaki, the art is high quality. A magical, joyous read, brought to life by the most beautiful illustrations' - Harriet Muncaster, author of Isadora Moon As Miyazaki began pre-production on the film version of “Nausicaä” in 1983—though he would not complete the story to his own satisfaction until he finished the manga eleven years later—he was also wrapping up work on a watercolor manga called “ Shuna’s Journey,” about another child growing up in a deteriorating world. Like “Ponyo,” the book, published this week in its first English translation, by Alex Dudok de Wit, is an adaptation of a much older story. It is a reworking of a Tibetan folktale, “The Prince Who Turned Into a Dog,” about a prince who finds a magic grain to feed his starving people. The tale is commonly thought to be a metaphor for the momentous introduction of barley, which can survive the region’s biting cold, to the Tibetan plateau. The chapter on Princess Mononoke is particularly interesting as it includes a detailed and very funny account of negotiations between Ghibli and Disney as to how to translate the film’s elegant Japanese script and complex worldview into something that could be understood by an American audience. The Disney executives keep asking Alpert “Who’s the bad guy?” and seem unable to cope with the answer that “There is no…

But it didn’t make for a pleasant read for me. There was too much details in places and too much analyzing of a man’s life. Of someone who is still alive. It made me uncomfortable. There is also the underlying feeling of the situations depicted in this book that I might not like Miyazaki as a person. And I don’t think I’d like to take that way from this book. I’d rather watch his movies and not think about his person, instead appreciate his art and creativity. This book is really for fans new to Miyazaki-san's work and the world of Studio Ghibli. Other than a few quotes interspersed from the director himself, the chapters are mostly a break down of the films that they're centred on, a lot of conjecture about what the films mean, critical reviewer's quotes about their impressions about the film in question, and a smorgasbord of regurgitated knowledge about the stressful atmosphere and power struggles within the studio. A nerd- and generalist-friendly look at how Japan shaped the post-World War II world, from toys to Trump . . . A non-native's savvy study of Japan's wide influence in ways both subtle and profound' Kirkus

The title character is a young girl who wants to help all living things as best she can. Her spirit has a way of comforting and her kindness is inspiring which makes her an oddity outside her valley that is protected by certain winds allowing her people to live near the sea of corruption. An old friend of her father comes to visit after an exciting rescue from Nausicaä when he angered the large insects that live in the of corruption including an Ohmu which is one of the largest and seemingly most intelligent of the insects. In this beloved modern classic, young Sophie Hatter from the land of Ingary catches the unwelcome attention of the Witch of the Waste and is put under a spell...

I had not seen a single Miyasaki film before 2021. Now I've seen all of them. What can I say other than I'm thrilled I finally listened to the person who hounded me for the better part of a decade to watch them. They are delightful pieces of art and I was thoroughly entranced. This first-ever English-language translation of a Japanese classic about finding one’s place in a world both infinitely large and unimaginably small is perfect for readers of philosophical fiction like The Alchemist and The Little Prince, as well as Hayao Miyazaki fans eager to understand one of his most important influences, and the basis for his next movie. Two dominant nations go to war in already war ravaged world where life is precariously balanced but still not respected, (the lesson that we may actually never learn). The smaller vassals to these nations get dragged along in the power struggle of tyrants and political strategists, and a gigantic relentless wave of bloodshed turns into a beast without any purpose other than that of feeding its own hunger. Factions form, alliances change, and cascading affects of collateral damage affect even those who have nothing to gain (or lose) from the conflict. The ultimate end game for dominance is geared towards controlling the remnants of old-world technology, that may or may not have been preserved for considerate motives. Once the battles start rolling out, action becomes relentless, all of which has been exceptionally well done without ever being over the top. There's no deus ex machina or cliched last minute heroic interceptions. People die of hunger, of war, of diseases, of sheer tiredness. Meanwhile, planet churns out the poison that seeped into its very womb, spewing up deadly miasma, secreted from giant forests of fungus. Great hordes of titanic insects move into what seems to be final migration towards lands far away. Signs of once-in-centuries type of catastrophic event start showing up. A tsunami of mold devours everything in its path, almost having a mind of its own. In deeper forests, tribes of humans that either lived shielded from their kin, or in despised grudge of acceptance, get ready to make their moves. When a friend pointed me out to this being a read now on Netgalley, I knew I had to give this ago. Unfortunately this book turned out not to be for me and I ended up dnf-ing it at about 30%. This problem lies in part with me and I don’t think this is a bad book at all. It just didn’t work for me.An all-watercolor manga based on the fictional adventures of Hans, a German chief tank mechanic, at the end of World War II. It was serialized in Model Graphix, a monthly magazine about scale models, as a part of Miyazaki's Daydream Data Notes series. But rereading it as an adult and having knowledge of Miyazaki's politics and themes, it sort of cast a shade over the experience a little bit? I couldn't just get into the story the way I could if I had known less, I think. Nausicaa is just a little too perfect and a little too right all the time. I thought I'd cap off my immersion into Miyasakiworld this year by reading Susan Napier's excellent overview of Miyasaki's life and work. I'd thoroughly recommend it to anyone that wants to delve a little deeper into the many wonders of Miyasaki's world. In 1971, he moved to A Pro with Isao Takahata, then to Nippon Animation in 1973, where he was heavily involved in the World Masterpiece Theater TV animation series for the next five years. In 1978, he directed his first TV series, Conan, The Boy in Future, then moved to Tokyo Movie Shinsha in 1979 to direct his first movie, the classic Lupin III: The Castle of Cagliostro. Outside it was a perfect autumn day, crisp and clear. Framed by the trees in the garden, the roofs of the neighboring houses were just barely visible through the wide-open sliding shoji doors at the end of the hall, and over the fence was the bright-blue autumn sky. Across the sky, clouds as light as spun silk flowed slowly by, their shapes shifting as they went.