60 Fun Facts About Hayao Miyazaki

In which year did Hayao Miyazaki co-found Studio Ghibli?

He founded it with a long-time colleague as a subsidiary of the publisher Tokuma Shoten and designed its Kichijōji offices himself.

In which city was Hayao Miyazaki born in January 1941?

He was the second of four sons; his earliest memories are of bombed-out cities after the family evacuated during the war.

Miyazaki's father ran a family firm that manufactured what during World War II?

Miyazaki Airplane kept the family affluent, and planes have haunted his films ever since.

Which 1958 film, Japan's first colour animated feature, sparked the teenage Miyazaki's interest?

He sneaked out to see it instead of studying for entrance exams and later said it moved him to tears.

What did Miyazaki study at Gakushuin University, graduating in 1963?

He considered himself a poor student, spending his time on art and in the Children's Literature Research Club.

Which studio hired Miyazaki as an inbetween artist in 1963, launching his career?

He was soon a leader in a labour dispute there and became chief secretary of the union in 1964.

Which Toei union vice-chairman did Miyazaki meet in 1964 and collaborate with for the rest of his life?

Takahata directed The Great Adventure of Horus, on which Miyazaki volunteered as scene designer.

Miyazaki's wife Akemi Ōta worked in what job when they met at Toei in 1964?

She quit in 1972 to raise their sons Goro and Keisuke so he could focus on his work.

Miyazaki's directorial debut came co-directing which 1971-72 television series with Takahata?

He and Takahata were brought in to emphasise the series' humour over its violence.

Miyazaki's first trip outside Japan was to Sweden, to seek the rights to adapt which children's books?

Astrid Lindgren would not meet them, the project died, and the storyboards were recycled into the Panda! Go, Panda! shorts.

Miyazaki travelled to Switzerland in 1973 to research which World Masterpiece Theater series?

The team wanted the Johanna Spyri adaptation to set new heights for television animation.

What was Miyazaki's first self-directed TV series (1978), adapted from Alexander Key's The Incredible Tide?

He directed 24 of its 26 episodes; only eight were finished when it went on air.

What was Miyazaki's first feature film, released in December 1979?

The Lupin III caper was made in four months; Animage readers voted it the best animation of all time.

Whose 2005 wedding dress was reportedly inspired by Clarisse's gown in Miyazaki's first feature film?

The imperial bride was said to be a fan of Miyazaki's work.

Legal trouble with which estate halted Miyazaki's 1980s series about a canine Sherlock Holmes after six episodes?

Sherlock Hound resumed without him in 1984 and was his last television work.

Which Miyazaki manga, serialised in Animage 1982–94, became his breakthrough film?

The seven volumes total 1,060 pages and sold more than ten million copies in two years.

The heroine Nausicaä was partly inspired by a character from which ancient work?

The other inspiration was the Japanese folk tale The Lady who Loved Insects.

Which real environmental disaster inspired the poisoned world of Miyazaki's Nausicaä film?

He was struck by how nature responded and thrived in a poisoned environment.

Which composer, hired for Nausicaä in 1984, has scored every one of Miyazaki's feature films since?

Takahata enlisted the then-experimental minimalist musician; the pairing has lasted four decades.

Miyazaki and Takahata named their company Nibariki, 'two-horse power', after which car Miyazaki drove?

The little French car's nickname literally means 'two horses'.

The name Studio Ghibli comes from an Italian word for a hot desert wind that was also the nickname of what?

Miyazaki registered the name a year before the studio opened.

The heavily cut mid-1980s US release of Nausicaä, retitled Warriors of the Wind, had what consequence?

Almost 30 minutes of dialogue and character development had been removed.

Miyazaki drew the mining villages of which country in 1984 while researching Castle in the Sky?

He witnessed the miners' strike in the Rhondda and admired the miners' dedication to their communities.

The floating island in Castle in the Sky is borrowed from which classic novel?

Laputa was Studio Ghibli's first film, released in August 1986.

My Neighbor Totoro was released in 1988 as a double bill with which Takahata film?

Producer Toshio Suzuki reasoned that schools would take students to the historical film and they would see both.

What eventually turned My Neighbor Totoro into a money-spinner that sustained Studio Ghibli for years?

Akira Kurosawa named the film among his hundred favourites, and an asteroid, 10160 Totoro, is named after it.

Which family member inspired the character Mei in My Neighbor Totoro?

Mei Okuyama later married the animation artist Daisuke Tsutsumi.

The bedridden mother in My Neighbor Totoro echoes Miyazaki's own mother, who suffered from what?

Yoshiko Miyazaki was ill from 1947 to 1955, and her strict, questioning intellect shaped several of his heroines.

Which Swedish city was the main inspiration for the seaside town in Kiki's Delivery Service?

Staff shot eighty rolls of film there and on the island town of Visby.

Porco Rosso began life as what kind of production before growing into a feature?

The airline stayed a major investor, so the film premiered in the air before its 1992 theatrical release.

Which conflict prompted Porco Rosso's sombre tone and moved its setting away from Dubrovnik?

Miyazaki later called the film 'foolish' because its mature tone was unsuitable for children.

Which period did Miyazaki pick for Princess Mononoke, feeling it was when Japan stopped worshipping nature?

He took his art directors to the forests of Yakushima for inspiration.

Princess Mononoke was the first animated feature to win which honour?

It was watched by twelve million people within four months and briefly became Japan's highest-grossing film.

Which author wrote the English-language script for Princess Mononoke's North American release?

Miramax wanted cuts to get a rating below PG-13, but Studio Ghibli refused.

Miyazaki retired from Ghibli in January 1998 but returned within days after the death of which chosen successor?

Kondō had directed Whisper of the Heart and was seen as the studio's heir apparent.

Miyazaki conceived Spirited Away after realising he had never made a film for which audience?

He based the heroine on two of the young family friends who were staying at his mountain cabin.

How many tickets did Spirited Away sell in Japan, a record that stood for almost 20 years?

It earned ¥30.4 billion and was the first Japanese film to make US$200 million abroad before even opening in America.

Spirited Away was the first animated film to win which top festival prize, shared with Bloody Sunday?

It went on to become the first Japanese film to win the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature.

Why did Miyazaki refuse to attend the 2003 Academy Awards, where Spirited Away won?

He kept the reason quiet at his producer's request until 2009, when he lifted his boycott to attend Comic-Con for John Lasseter.

The hopping lamp in Spirited Away is seen as an homage to which Pixar character?

Pixar's John Lasseter oversaw the English-language version, which Kirk Wise directed.

Howl's Moving Castle is based on a novel by which British author?

Miyazaki had read the book in 1999; Mamoru Hosoda was originally slated to direct.

Miyazaki studied Colmar and Riquewihr for Howl's Moving Castle. In which region are they?

The war in the film was coloured by his fury at the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

At the 2005 Venice Film Festival Miyazaki received which lifetime honour?

Howl's Moving Castle had taken the Golden Osella for technical excellence there the year before.

Miyazaki publicly criticised the appointment of which director for Tales from Earthsea?

After a screening he remarked, 'You shouldn't make a picture based on your emotions'; Goro once said his father 'gets zero marks as a father, but full marks as a director'.

Ponyo was initially inspired by which Hans Christian Andersen tale?

Miyazaki insisted on drawing the sea and waves himself, and the film ran to a record 170,000 frames.

The Wind Rises tells the story of Jiro Horikoshi, the designer of which aircraft?

Miyazaki was inspired by Horikoshi's line 'All I wanted to do was to make something beautiful'.

Which Evangelion creator voiced Jiro Horikoshi in The Wind Rises?

Anno had worked as an animator on Miyazaki's 1984 breakthrough film three decades earlier.

The Wind Rises was the first of Miyazaki's own films to do what to him?

Some viewers were disappointed by its lack of fantasy; it was still Japan's top-grossing film of 2013.

Miyazaki announced his retirement from features in September 2013 but returned with which 2023 film?

Its Japanese title borrows from Genzaburō Yoshino's 1937 novel, and it opened with no trailers or adverts at all.

What was unusual about the Japanese marketing campaign for Miyazaki's 2023 comeback film?

Producer Toshio Suzuki was reacting to what he saw as oversaturated marketing of mainstream films.

With his 2023 film's Oscar win at the 96th Academy Awards, Miyazaki set what record?

He did not attend the ceremony because of his advanced age.

Miyazaki received the Academy Honorary Award in which year?

It came a year after his announced retirement, at the Governors Awards.

In 2024 Miyazaki was honoured with which Asian prize, for using art to 'illuminate the human condition'?

Japan had already named him a Person of Cultural Merit in 2012.

Shown an AI-generated animated zombie in 2016, what did Miyazaki call the technology?

The clip resurfaced in 2025 when ChatGPT began churning out images in Studio Ghibli's style.

Miyazaki prefers to call Studio Ghibli's productions what, rather than 'anime'?

He uses the term ('manga films') to distance the studio from what he sees as an otaku-driven, over-expressive style.

What did Miyazaki name his private office near the Ghibli Museum?

It was meant to be his retirement office; instead he keeps turning up to plan the next film.

How did the BBC's Tessa Wong memorably describe Miyazaki in 2016?

Others have called him 'the Disney of Japan', though critic Helen McCarthy prefers 'the Kurosawa of animation'.

Miyazaki's 1983 graphic novel The Journey of Shuna was inspired by a folk tale from which region?

The tale 'Prince who became a dog' inspired the book, published by Tokuma Shoten and finally released in English in 2022.

Porco Rosso's hero Marco Pagot shares his name with an Italian animator Miyazaki worked with on which series?

The film also pays homage to Fleischer Studios and Winsor McCay, and all its planes except the Curtiss R3C-2 are Miyazaki's inventions.

In 1982 Miyazaki and Takahata quit an adaptation of which comic strip after clashing with producer Fujioka?

Yoshifumi Kondō stayed until 1985 and the film finally appeared in 1989 as Little Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland.