Hayao Miyazaki
Japanese animator, filmmaker, and mangaka (born 1941)
Hayao Miyazaki and the worlds of Studio Ghibli
Before the studio
Hayao Miyazaki directed Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, released in 1984 and produced by Topcraft before Studio Ghibli existed. The film gives its heroine a devastated world to navigate rather than a simple enemy to defeat. Studio Ghibli’s own catalogue identifies Miyazaki as its original author, screenwriter and director, making the film a useful starting point for his later feature work.
A sequence of Ghibli films
After the studio was founded in 1985, Miyazaki directed Castle in the Sky, My Neighbor Totoro and Kiki’s Delivery Service in successive years of the late 1980s. Princess Mononoke followed in 1997 and Spirited Away in 2001. Across these films he moved between imagined landscapes, everyday childhood and stories in which people confront the natural world; no single setting defines his work.
Later features
Miyazaki continued directing with Howl’s Moving Castle, Ponyo and The Wind Rises. The Boy and the Heron, released in Japan in 2023, added another feature to his filmography after a long interval. Ghibli’s catalogue credits him with the story, screenplay and direction, a reminder that his role has involved shaping the narrative as well as supervising its animation.
Data and sources
Studio Ghibli — Film catalogue ↗