Computer DrawingSummer 2011

By Kwan-Yi Chan815195

Client: Hayao Miyazaki“the great Japanese animation maker”Well-known animation pieces include:

Howl’s moving castleCastle in the sky

Whisper in my heartPonyo

From New York Times websiteTitled” Hayao Miyazaki”

http://topics.nytimes.com/topics/reference/timestop-ics/people/m/hayao_miyazaki/index.html

BackgroundHayao Miyazaki is a Japanese manga artist and prominent film director and animator of many popular anime feature films. Through a career that has spanned nearly fifty years, Miyazaki has attained international acclaim as a maker of animated feature films and, along with Isao Takahata, co-founded Studio Ghibli, an animation studio and production company. The success of Miyazaki’s films has invited comparisons with American animator Walt Disney, British animator Nick Park and Robert Zemeckis, and he has been named one of the most influential people by Time magazine.

Mr. Mayazaki is my childhood idol, even until now I still very much admire his work. His famous production such as My Neighbor Totoro, Whisper in my heart, Kiki’s Delivery Service, and Pom Poko are the ones that I got inspired at. They are not simply just other animation but the meaning behind every-one of them are an important message that Mayazaki wants to send to his audiences.

Target AudiencesPeople who admire or aware of Mr. Miyazaki

ObjectivesTo promote Mr. Miyazaki’s production

ObstaclesThe public might not be able to recognize his face

Key BenefitArise Mr. Miyazaki’s popularity by informing his production in the illustration

Support Statements/ Reasons WhyMr. Mayazaki produced amazing work that I think he deserves to be better known.His animations are educational and inspiring that benefits any age groups.

ToneWarm colorFunky text placements

MediaAdobe IllustratorMagazine Advertisement

Step -to-stepFrom 0 to +1

Hayao Miyazaki is regarded by

many people as the world's greatest maker of animated

films. In 2003, his film "Spirited Away" won the Academy Award for best animated feature.Mr. Miyazaki does not crave publicity. He was, for instance, a

no-show at the Oscar ceremony. But on July 24, 2009, he addressed a room full of

admirers at the 40th Comic-Con International, a comics, fantasy and film convention to be held in San Diego.

Mr. Miyazaki does not crave publicity. He was, for

instance, a no-show at the Oscar

In 2003, his film

"Spirited Away" won the Academy Award for best animated

feature.Mr. Miyazaki does not crave publicity. He was, for instance, a no-show at the Oscar ceremony. But on July 24, 2009, he addressed a room full of admirers at the 40th

Mr. Miyazaki does not crave

publicity. He was, for instance, a no-show at the Oscar ceremony. But on July 24, 2009, he

addressed a room full of admirers at the 40th Comic-Con International, a comics, fantasy and film convention to be held in San

Diego. Mr. Miyazaki does not crave publicity. He was, for instance, a no-show at the Oscar ceremony. But on July 24, 2009, he addressed a room full of admirers at the 40th

Comic-Con International, a comics, fantasy and film convention to be held in San Diego. Mr. Miyazaki does not crave publicity. He was, for instance, a no-show at the

Oscar ceremony. But on July 24, 2009, he addressed a room full of admirers at the 40th Comic-Con International, a comics, fantasy and film convention

to be held in San Diego. Mr. Miyazaki does not crave public-ity. He was, for instance, a no-show at the Oscar cer-

emony. But on July 24, 2009, he addressed a room full of admirers at the 40th Comic-Con

In- ternational, a comics,

Mr. Miyazaki

does not crave

public-ity. He

was, for

in-stance,

a no-show

at the Oscar

ceremony. But on July

24, 2009, he addressed a

room full of admirers at

Mr. Miyazaki does not crave

publicity. He was, for instance, a no-show at the Oscar ceremony. But on July 24,

2009, he addressed a room full of admirers at the 40th Comic-Con International, a comics, fantasy and film convention to

be held in San Diego. Mr. Miyazaki does not crave publicity. He was, for instance, a no-show at the Oscar ceremony. But on July 24, 2009, he

addressed a room full of admirers at the 40th Comic-Con International, a comics, fantasy and film convention to be held in San Diego. Mr. Miyazaki does not

crave publicity. He was, for instance, a no-show at the Oscar ceremony. But on July 24, 2009, he addressed a room full of admirers at the 40th Comic-Con International, a

comics, fantasy and film convention to be held in San Diego. Mr. Miyazaki does not crave publicity. He was, for instance, a no-show at the Oscar ceremony. But on July 24, 2009, he

addressed a room full of admirers at the 40th Comic-Con International, a comics, fantasy and film convention to be held in San Diego. Mr. Miyazaki does not crave publicity. He was, for

instance, a no-show at the Oscar ceremony. But on July 24, 2009, he addressed a room full of admirers at the 40th Comic-Con International, a comics, fantasy and film convention to be held

in San Diego. Mr. Miyazaki does not crave publicity. He was, for instance, a no-show at the Oscar ceremony. But on July 24, 2009, he addressed a room full of admirers at the 40th

Comic-Con International, a comics, fantasy and film convention to be held in San Diego. Mr. Miyazaki does not crave publicity. He was, for instance, a no-show at the Oscar

ceremony. But on July 24, 2009, he addressed a room full of admirers at the 40th Comic-Con International, a comics, fantasy and film convention to be held in San Diego. Mr.

Miyazaki does not crave publicity. He was, for instance, a no-show at the Oscar ceremony. But on July 24, 2009, he addressed a room full of admirers at the 40th Comic-Con International, a comics, fantasy and film convention to be held in San Diego. Mr. Miyazaki does not crave publicity. He was

Mr. Mi-yazaki does not crave publicity. He was,

for instance, a no-show at the Oscar ceremony. But on July 24, 2009, he addressed a room full of admirers at the 40th Comic-Con International, a

comics, fantasy and film convention to be held in San Diego. Mr. Miyazaki does not crave publicity. He was, for instance, a no-show at the Oscar ceremony. But on July 24, 2009, he addressed a room full of admirers at the 40th Comic-Con International, a comics, fantasy and film convention to be held in San Diego. Mr. Miyazaki does not crave publicity. He was, for instance, a no-show at the Oscar ceremony. But on July 24, 2009, he

addressed a room full of admirers at the 40th

Comic-

H

Hayao Miyazaki is regarded by many people as the world's greatest maker of animated films. In 2003, his film "Spirited Away" won the Academy Award for best animated feature.

Mr. Miyazaki does not crave publicity. He was, for instance, a no-show at the Oscar ceremony. But on July 24, 2009, he addressed a room full of admirers at the 40th Comic-Con International, a comics, fantasy and film convention to be held in San Diego.

The next day he received the Japan Prize of the Center for Japanese Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, awarded annually to a person who has brought the world closer to Japan. And that July 28, in Beverly Hills, he was honored by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences - the

day after the United States premiere, in Hollywood, of his "Ponyo," about a 5-year-old boy and a goldfish princess in a world gone awry.

Already a hit in many countries, "Ponyo," in an English-language version, with Tina Fey and Matt Damon among those providing the voices, was released by Walt Disney Studios on Aug. 14, 2009.

At the age of 68, with almost 20 features to his credit, Mr. Miyazaki has become a beacon for those who believe that animation has a special power to tell stories with universal appeal. "He celebrates the quiet moments," said John Lasseter, the chief creative officer of Pixar and Disney Animation Studios, in enumerating traits that make Mr. Miyazaki "one of the most original" filmmakers ever.

Mr. Miyazaki's work has often combined computer animation with traditional techniques and has provided inspiration for films like the "Toy Story" installments, "Cars" and "Up."

Mr. Miyazaki roots are in both manga and anime (comic books and animated films). Starting with his 1997 epic, "Princess Mononoke," he has used computer-generated imagery in his movies.

The conscious sense of mystery is the core of Mr. Miyazaki's art. Spend enough time in his world and you may find your perception of your own world refreshed, as it might be by a similarly intensive immersion in the oeuvre of Ansel Adams, J. M. W. Turner or Monet. After a while, certain vistas - a rolling meadow dappled with flowers and shadowed by high cumulus clouds, a range of rocky foothills rising toward snow-capped peaks, the fading

light at the edge of a forest - deserve to be called Miyazakian.

Hayao Miyazaki is regarded by many people as the world's greatest maker of animated films. In 2003, his film "Spirited Away" won the Academy Award for best animated feature.

Mr. Miyazaki does not crave publicity. He was, for instance, a no-show at the Oscar ceremony. But on July 24, 2009, he addressed a room full of admirers at the 40th Comic-Con International, a comics, fantasy and film convention to be held in San Diego. The next day he received the Japan Prize of the Center for Japanese Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, awarded annually to a person who has brought the world closer to Japan. And that July 28, in Beverly

Hills, he was honored by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences - the day after the United States premiere, in Hollywood, of his "Ponyo," about a 5-year-old boy and a goldfish princess in a world gone awry.

Already a hit in many countries, "Ponyo," in an English-language version, with Tina Fey and Matt Damon among those providing the voices, was released by Walt Disney Studios on Aug. 14, 2009.

At the age of 68, with almost 20 features to his credit, Mr. Miyazaki has become a beacon for those who believe that animation has a special power to tell stories with universal appeal. "He celebrates the quiet moments," said John Lasseter, the chief creative officer of Pixar and Disney Animation

Studios, in enumerating traits that make Mr. Miyazaki "one of the most original" filmmakers ever.

Mr. Miyazaki's work has often combined computer animation with traditional techniques and has provided inspiration for films like the "Toy Story" installments, "Cars" and "Up."

Mr. Miyazaki roots are in both manga and anime (comic books and animated films). Starting with his 1997 epic, "Princess Mononoke," he has used computer-generated imagery in his movies.

The conscious sense of mystery is the core of Mr. Miyazaki's art. Spend enough time in his world and you may find your perception of your own world refreshed, as it might be by a similarly intensive immersion in the oeuvre of Ansel Adams, J. M. W. Turner or Monet. After a while, certain vistas - a rolling meadow dappled with flowers and shadowed by high cumulus clouds, a range of rocky foothills rising toward snow-capped peaks, the fading light at the edge of a forest - deserve to be called Miyazakian.

Hayao Miyazaki is regarded by many people as the world's greatest maker of animated films. In 2003, his film "Spirited Away" won the Academy Award for best animated feature.

Mr. Miyazaki does not crave publicity. He was, for instance, a no-show at the Oscar ceremony. But on July 24, 2009, he addressed a room full of admirers at the 40th Comic-Con International, a comics, fantasy and film convention to be held in San Diego. The next day he received the Japan Prize of the Center for Japanese Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, awarded annually to a person who has brought the world closer to Japan. And that July 28, in Beverly Hills, he was honored by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences - the day after the United States premiere, in Hollywood, of his "Ponyo," about a 5-year-old boy and a goldfish princess in a world gone awry.

Already a hit in many countries, "Ponyo," in an English-language version, with Tina Fey and Matt Damon among those providing the voices, was released by Walt Disney Studios on Aug. 14, 2009.

At the age of 68, with almost 20 features to his credit, Mr. Miyazaki has become a beacon for those who believe that animation has a special power to tell stories with universal appeal. "He celebrates the quiet moments," said John Lasseter, the chief creative officer of Pixar and Disney Animation Studios, in enumerating traits that make Mr. Miyazaki "one of the most original" filmmakers ever.

Mr. Miyazaki's work has often combined computer animation with traditional techniques and has provided inspiration for films like the "Toy Story" installments, "Cars" and "Up."

Mr. Miyazaki roots are in both manga and anime (comic books and animated films). Starting with his 1997 epic, "Princess Mononoke," he has used computer-generated imagery in his movies.

The conscious sense of mystery is the core of Mr. Miyazaki's art. Spend enough time in his world and you may find your perception of your own world refreshed, as it might be by a similarly intensive immersion in the oeuvre of Ansel Adams, J. M. W. Turner or Monet. After a while, certain vistas - a rolling meadow dappled with flowers and shadowed by high cumulus clouds, a range of rocky foothills rising toward snow-capped peaks, the fading light at the edge of a forest - deserve to be called Miyazakian.Hayao Miyazaki is regarded by many people as the world's greatest maker of animated films. In 2003, his film "Spirited Away" won the Academy Award for best animated feature.

Mr. Miyazaki does not crave publicity. He was, for instance, a no-show at the Oscar ceremony. But on July 24, 2009, he addressed a room full of admirers at the 40th Comic-Con International, a comics, fantasy and film convention to be held in San Diego. The next day he received the Japan Prize of the Center for Japanese Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, awarded annually to a person who has brought the world closer to Japan. And that July 28, in Beverly Hills, he was honored by the Academy of Motion

Picture Arts and Sciences - the day after the United States premiere, in Hollywood, of his "Ponyo," about a 5-year-old boy and a goldfish princess in a world gone awry.

Already a hit in many countries, "Ponyo," in an English-language version, with Tina Fey and Matt Damon among those providing the voices, was released by Walt Disney Studios on Aug. 14, 2009.

At the age of 68, with almost 20 features to his credit, Mr. Miyazaki has become a beacon for those who believe that animation has a special power to tell stories with universal appeal. "He celebrates the quiet moments," said John Lasseter, the chief creative officer of Pixar and Disney Animation Studios, in enumerating traits that make Mr. Miyazaki "one of the most original" filmmakers ever.

Mr. Miyazaki's work has often combined computer animation with traditional techniques and has provided inspiration for films like the "Toy Story" installments, "Cars" and "Up."

Mr. Miyazaki roots are in both manga and anime (comic books and animated films). Starting with his 1997 epic, "Princess Mononoke," he has used computer-generated imagery in his movies.

The conscious sense of mystery is the core of Mr. Miyazaki's art. Spend enough time in his world and you may find your perception of your own world refreshed, as it might be by a similarly intensive immersion in the oeuvre of Ansel Adams, J. M. W. Turner or Monet. After a while, certain vistas - a rolling meadow dappled with flowers and shadowed by high cumulus clouds, a range of rocky foothills rising toward snow-capped peaks, the fading light at the edge of a forest - deserve to be called Miyazakian.

Hayao Miyazaki is regarded by many people as the world's greatest maker of animated films. In 2003, his film "Spirited Away" won the Academy Award for best animated feature.

Mr. Miyazaki does not crave publicity. He was, for instance, a no-show at the Oscar ceremony. But on July 24, 2009, he addressed a room full of admirers at the 40th Comic-Con International, a comics, fantasy and film convention to be held in San Diego. The next day he received the Japan Prize of the Center for Japanese Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, awarded annually to a person who has brought the world closer to Japan. And that July 28, in Beverly Hills, he was honored by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences - the day after the United States premiere, in Hollywood, of his "Ponyo," about a 5-year-old boy and a goldfish princess in a world gone awry.

Already a hit in many countries, "Ponyo," in an English-language version, with Tina Fey and Matt Damon among those providing the voices, was released by Walt Disney Studios on Aug. 14, 2009.

At the age of 68, with almost 20 features to his credit, Mr. Miyazaki has become a beacon for those who believe that animation has a special power to tell stories with universal appeal. "He celebrates the quiet moments," said John Lasseter, the chief creative officer of Pixar and Disney Animation Studios, in enumerating traits that make Mr. Miyazaki "one of the most original" filmmakers ever.

Mr. Miyazaki's work has often combined computer animation with traditional techniques and has provided inspiration for films like the "Toy Story" installments, "Cars" and "Up."

Mr. Miyazaki roots are in both manga and anime (comic books and animated films). Starting with his 1997 epic, "Princess Mononoke," he has used computer-generated imagery in his movies.

The conscious sense of mystery is the core of Mr. Miyazaki's art. Spend enough time in his world and you may find your perception of your own world refreshed, as it might be by a similarly intensive immersion in the oeuvre of Ansel Adams, J. M. W. Turner or Monet. After a while, certain vistas - a rolling meadow dappled with flowers and shadowed by high cumulus clouds, a range of rocky foothills rising toward snow-capped peaks, the fading light at the edge of a forest - deserve to be called Miyazakian.

Hayao Miyazaki is regarded by many people as the world's greatest maker of animated films. In 2003, his film "Spirited Away" won the Academy Award for best animated feature.

Mr. Miyazaki does not crave publicity. He was, for instance, a no-show at the Oscar ceremony. But on July 24, 2009, he addressed a room full of admirers at the 40th Comic-Con International, a comics, fantasy and film convention to be held in San Diego. The next day he received the Japan Prize of the Center for Japanese Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, awarded annually to a person who has brought the world closer to Japan. And that July 28, in Beverly Hills, he was honored by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences - the day after the United States premiere, in Hollywood, of his "Ponyo," about a 5-year-old boy and a goldfish princess in a world gone awry.

Already a hit in many countries, "Ponyo," in an English-language version, with Tina Fey and Matt Damon among those providing the voices, was released by Walt Disney Studios on Aug. 14, 2009.

At the age of 68, with almost 20 features to his credit, Mr. Miyazaki has become a beacon for those who believe that animation has a special power to tell stories with universal appeal. "He celebrates the quiet moments," said John Lasseter, the chief creative officer of Pixar and Disney Animation Studios, in enumerating traits that make Mr. Miyazaki "one of the most original" filmmakers ever.

Mr. Miyazaki's work has often combined computer animation with traditional techniques and has provided inspiration for films like the "Toy Story" installments, "Cars" and "Up."

Mr. Miyazaki roots are in both manga and anime (comic books and animated films). Starting with his 1997 epic, "Princess Mononoke," he has used computer-generated imagery in his movies.

The conscious sense of mystery is the core of Mr. Miyazaki's art. Spend enough time in his world and you may find your perception of your own world refreshed, as it might be by a similarly intensive immersion in the oeuvre of Ansel Adams, J. M. W. Turner or Monet. After a while, certain vistas - a rolling meadow dappled with flowers and shadowed by high cumulus clouds, a range of rocky foothills rising toward snow-capped peaks, the

fading light at the edge of a forest - deserve to be called Miyazakian.

Hayao Miyazaki is regarded by many people as the world's greatest maker of animated films. In 2003, his film "Spirited Away" won the Academy Award for best animated feature.

Mr. Miyazaki does not crave publicity. He was, for instance, a no-show at the Oscar ceremony. But on July 24, 2009, he addressed a room full of admirers at the 40th Comic-Con International, a comics, fantasy and film convention to be held in San Diego. The next day he received the Japan Prize of the Center for Japanese Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, awarded annually to a person who has brought the world closer to Japan. And that July 28, in Beverly Hills, he was honored by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences - the day after the United States premiere, in Hollywood, of his "Ponyo," about a 5-year-old boy and a goldfish princess in a world gone awry.

Already a hit in many countries, "Ponyo," in an English-language version, with Tina Fey and Matt Damon among those providing the voices, was released by Walt Disney Studios on Aug. 14, 2009.

At the age of 68, with almost 20 features to his credit, Mr. Miyazaki has become a beacon for those who believe that animation has a special power to tell stories with universal appeal. "He celebrates the quiet moments," said John Lasseter, the chief creative officer of Pixar and Disney Animation Studios, in enumerating traits that make Mr. Miyazaki "one of the most original"

filmmakers ever.

Mr. Miyazaki's work has often combined computer animation with traditional techniques and has provided inspiration for films like the "Toy Story" installments, "Cars" and "Up."

Mr. Miyazaki roots are in both manga and anime (comic books and animated films). Starting with his 1997 epic, "Princess Mononoke," he has used computer-generated imagery in his movies.

The conscious sense of mystery is the core of Mr. Miyazaki's art. Spend enough time in his world and you may find your perception of your own world refreshed, as it might be by a similarly intensive immersion in the oeuvre of Ansel Adams, J. M. W. Turner or Monet. After a while, certain vistas - a rolling meadow dappled with flowers and shadowed by high cumulus clouds, a range of rocky foothills rising toward snow-capped peaks, the fading light at the edge of a forest - deserve to be called Miyazakian.

Hayao Miyazaki is regarded by many people as the world's greatest maker of animated films. In 2003, his film "Spirited Away" won the Academy Award for best animated feature.

Mr. Miyazaki does not crave publicity. He was, for instance, a no-show at the Oscar ceremony. But on July 24, 2009, he addressed a room full of admirers at the 40th Comic-Con International, a comics, fantasy and film convention to be

held in San Diego. The next day he received the Japan Prize of the Center for Japanese Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, awarded annually to a person who has brought the world closer to Japan. And that July 28, in

Beverly Hills, he was honored by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences - the day after the United States premiere, in Hollywood, of his "Ponyo," about a 5-year-old boy and a goldfish princess in a world gone awry.

Already a hit in many countries, "Ponyo," in an English-language version, with Tina Fey and Matt Damon among those providing the voices, was released by Walt Disney Studios on Aug. 14, 2009.

At the age of 68, with almost 20 features to his credit, Mr. Miyazaki has become a beacon for those who believe that animation has a special power to tell stories with universal appeal. "He celebrates the quiet moments," said John Lasseter, the chief creative officer of Pixar and Disney Animation Studios, in enumerating traits that make Mr. Miyazaki "one of the most original" filmmakers ever.

Mr. Miyazaki's work has often combined computer animation with traditional techniques and has provided inspiration for films like the "Toy Story" installments, "Cars" and "Up."

Mr. Miyazaki roots are in both manga and anime (comic books and animated films). Starting with his 1997 epic, "Princess Mononoke," he has used computer-generated imagery in his movies.

The conscious sense of mystery is the core of Mr. Miyazaki's art. Spend enough time in his world and you may find your perception of your own world refreshed, as it might be by a similarly intensive immersion in the oeuvre of Ansel Adams, J. M. W. Turner or Monet. After a while, certain vistas - a rolling meadow dappled with flowers and shadowed by high cumulus clouds, a range of rocky foothills rising toward snow-capped peaks, the fading light at the edge of a forest - deserve to be called Miyazakian.

Hayao Miyazaki is regarded by many people as the world's greatest maker of animated films. In 2003, his film "Spirited Away" won the Academy Award for best animated feature.

Mr. Miyazaki does not crave publicity. He was, for instance, a no-show at the Oscar ceremony. But on July 24, 2009, he addressed a room full of admirers at the 40th Comic-Con International, a comics, fantasy and film convention to be held in San Diego. The next day he received the Japan Prize of the Center for Japanese Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, awarded annually to a person who has brought the world closer to Japan. And that July 28, in Beverly Hills, he was honored by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences - the day after the United States premiere, in Hollywood, of his "Ponyo," about a 5-year-old boy and a goldfish princess in a world gone awry.

Already a hit in many countries, "Ponyo," in an English-language version, with Tina Fey and Matt Damon among those providing the voices, was released by Walt Disney Studios on Aug. 14, 2009.

At the age of 68, with almost 20 features to his credit, Mr. Miyazaki has become a beacon for those who believe that animation has a special power to tell stories with universal appeal. "He celebrates the quiet moments," said John Lasseter, the chief creative officer of Pixar and Disney Animation Studios, in enumerating traits that make Mr. Miyazaki "one of the most original" filmmakers ever.

Mr. Miyazaki's work has often combined computer animation with traditional techniques and has provided inspiration for films like the "Toy Story" installments, "Cars" and "Up."

Mr. Miyazaki roots are in both manga and anime (comic books and animated films). Starting with his 1997 epic, "Princess Mononoke," he has used computer-generated imagery in his movies.

The conscious sense of mystery is the core of Mr. Miyazaki's art. Spend enough time in his world and you may find your perception of your own world refreshed, as it might be by a similarly intensive immersion in the oeuvre of Ansel Adams, J. M. W. Turner or Monet. After a while, certain vistas - a rolling meadow dappled with flowers and shadowed by high cumulus clouds, a range of rocky foothills rising toward snow-capped peaks, the fading light at the

edge of a forest - deserve to be called Miyazakian.

Hayao Miyazaki is regarded by many people as the world's greatest maker of animated films. In 2003, his film "Spirited Away" won the Academy Award for best animated feature.

Mr. Miyazaki does not crave publicity. He was, for instance, a no-show at the Oscar ceremony. But on July 24, 2009, he addressed a room full of admirers at the 40th

Comic-Con International, a comics, fantasy and film convention to be held in San Diego. The next day he received the Japan Prize of the Center for Japanese Studies

at the University of California, Berkeley, awarded annually to a person who has brought the world closer to Japan. And that July 28, in Beverly Hills, he was

honored by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences - the day after the United States premiere, in Hollywood, of his "Ponyo," about a

5-year-old boy and a goldfish princess in a world gone awry.

Already a hit in many countries, "Ponyo," in an English-language version, with Tina Fey and Matt Damon among those providing the

voices, was released by Walt Disney Studios on Aug. 14, 2009.

At the age of 68, with almost 20 features to his credit, Mr. Miyazaki has become a beacon for those

who believe that animation has a special power to tell stories with universal appeal. "He

celebrates the quiet moments," said John Lasseter, the chief creative officer of Pixar

and Disney Animation Studios, in enumerating traits that make Mr. Miyazaki

"one of the most original" filmmakers ever.

Mr. Miyazaki's work has often combined computer animation with traditional techniques and has provided inspiration for films like the "Toy Story" installments, "Cars" and "Up."

Mr. Miyazaki roots are in both man

Hayao Mi-yazaki is regarded by many people as the world's greatest maker of animated films. In 2003, his film "Spirited Away" won the Academy Award for best animated feature.

Mr. Miyazaki does not crave publicity. He was, for instance, a no-show at the Oscar ceremony. But on July 24, 2009, he addressed a room

full of admirers at the 40th Comic-Con International, a comics, fantasy and

film convention to be held in San Diego. The next day he received the Japan Prize of

the Center for Japanese Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, awarded annually to a person who has

brought the world closer to Japan. And that July 28, in Beverly Hills, he was honored by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences -

the day after the United States premiere, in Hollywood, of his "Ponyo," about a 5-year-old boy and a goldfish princess in a world gone awry.

Already a hit in many countries, "Ponyo," in an English-language version, with Tina Fey and Matt Damon among those providing the voices, was released by Walt Disney Studios on Aug. 14, 2009.

At the age of 68, with almost 20 features to his credit, Mr. Miyazaki has become a beacon for those who believe that animation has a special power to tell stories with universal appeal. "He

celebrates the quiet moments," said John Lasseter, the chief creative officer of Pixar and Disney Animation Studios, in enumerating traits that make Mr. Miyazaki "one of the most original"

filmmakers ever.

Mr. Miyazaki's work has often combined computer animation with traditional techniques and has provided inspiration for films like the "Toy Story" installments, "Cars" and "Up."

Mr. Miyazaki roots are in both manga and anime (comic books and animated films). Starting with his 1997 epic, "Princess Mononoke," he has used computer-generated imagery in his movies.

The conscious sense of mystery is the core of Mr. Miyazaki's art. Spend enough time in his world and you may find your perception of your own world refreshed, as it might be by a similarly intensive

immersion in the oeuvre of Ansel Adams, J. M. W. Turner or Monet. After a while, certain vistas - a rolling meadow dappled with flowers and shadowed by high cumulus clouds, a

range of rocky foothills rising toward snow-capped peaks, the fading light at the edge of a forest - deserve to be called Miyazakian.

Hayao Miyazaki is regarded by many people as the world's greatest maker of animated films. In 2003, his film "Spirited Away"

won the Academy Award for best animated feature.

Mr. Miyazaki does not crave publicity. He was, for instance, a no-show at the Oscar

ceremony. But on July 24, 2009, he addressed a room full of admirers at the 40th Comic-Con International, a comics, fantasy and film convention to be held in San Diego. The next day he received the Japan Prize of the Center for Japanese Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, awarded annually to a person who has brought the world closer to Japan. And that July 28, in Beverly Hills, he was honored by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences - the day after the United States premiere, in Hollywood, of his "Ponyo," about a 5-year-old boy and a goldfish princess in a world gone awry.

Already a hit in many countries, "Ponyo," in an English-language version, with Tina Fey and Matt Damon among those providing the

voices, was released by Walt

Disney Studios on Aug. 14, 2009.

At the age of 68, with almost 20 features to his credit, Mr. Miyazaki has become a beacon for those who believe that animation has a special power to tell stories with universal appeal. "He celebrates the quiet moments,"

said John Lasseter, the chief creative

officer of Pixar and Disney

Animation Studios, in enu-mer-ating

traits that make Mr. Miyazaki "one of the most original" filmmakers ever.

Mr. Miyazaki's work has often combined computer animation with traditional techniques and has provided inspiration for films like the "Toy Story" installments, "Cars" and "Up."

Mr. Miyazaki roots are in both manga and anime (comic books

and animated films). Starting with his 1997 epic,

"Princess Mononoke," he has used

Hayao Miyazaki is regarded by many people as the world's greatest maker of animated films. In 2003, his film "Spirited Away" won the Academy Award for best

animated feature.

Mr. Miyazaki does not crave publicity. He was, for

instance, a no-show at the Oscar ceremony. But on July 24, 2009, he

ad- dressed a room full of admirers at the 40th Comic-Con International, a comics, fantasy

and film convention to be held in San Diego. The next day he received the Japan Prize of the Center for Japanese Studies at the University of

Califor- nia, Berkeley, awarded annually to a person who has brought the world closer to Japan. And that July 28, in Beverly Hills, he was honored by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences -

the day after the United States premiere, in Hollywood, of his "Ponyo," about a 5-year-old boy and a goldfish princess in a world gone awry.

Already a hit in many countries, "Ponyo," in an English-language version, with Tina Fey and Matt Damon among those providing the voices, was released by Walt Disney Studios on Aug. 14, 2009.

So do

certain stories,

especially those involving a

resourceful, serious girl contending with the machinations of

wise old women and the sufferings of enigmatic young men. And so do certain themes: the catastrophic

irrationality of war and other violence; the folly of disrespecting nature; the moral complications that arise from ordinary acts of selfishness, vanity and even

kindness.

As a visual artist, Mr. Miyazaki is both an extravagant fantasist and an exacting naturalist; as a storyteller, he is an inventor of fables that seem at once utterly new and almost unspeakably

ancient. Their strangeness comes equally from the freshness and novelty he brings to the crowded marketplace of juvenile fantasy and from an unnerving, uncanny sense of familiarity, as if he were

resurrecting legends buried deep in the collective unconscious.

Mr. Miyazaki's world is full of fantastical creatures - cute and fuzzy, icky and creepy, handsome and noble. There are lovable forest sprites, skittering dust balls and ravenous blobs of black viscous goo, as well as

talking cats, pigs and frogs. "Howl's Moving Castle," adapted from a novel by Diana Wynne Jones, features a garrulous flame, voiced in the English-language version by Billy Crystal; "Spirited Away" (2001) had its

melancholy, wordless no-face monster; "Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind" (1984), the director's first masterpiece, was nearly overrun by enormous trilobite-shaped insects called Om.

Some of Mr. Miyazaki's creations seem to have precedents and analogues in folklore, fantasy literature and other cartoons. The porcine title character in the 1992 film "Porco Rosso," for example, is a dashing Italian pilot from the early

days of aviation, and it is just conceivable that he might have a stuttering cousin somewhere on the Warner Brothers lot, looking for a pair of pants to match his blazer. But most members of Mr. Miyazaki's ever-expanding menagerie - including Totoro, the

slow-moving, pot-bellied, vaguely feline character who has become the logo and mascot of his Studio Ghibli - come entirely from the filmmaker's own prodigious imagination. Mr. Miyazaki was once asked where he thought his work fitted within the expanding universe of

children's pop culture. "The truth is I have watched almost none of it," he said with a slightly weary smile. "The only images I watch regularly come from the weather report."

The director, a compact, white-haired man whose demeanor combines gravity with a certain impishness, was not just being flip. It is hard to think of another filmmaker who is so passionately interested in weather. Violent storms, gentle breezes and sun-filled skies are vital, active elements, bearers of mood, emotion

and meaning. His monsters and animals, who share the screen with more conventionally human-looking animated figures - adolescent girls with wind-tossed hair, short skirts and saucer eyes, mustachioed soldiers and wrinkled crones - are an integral part of Mr. Miyazaki's landscape, but the most striking feature of

his films may be the landscapes themselves. reviewers of Mr. Miyazaki's films seem helpless to avoid - or you can call it art. But it may just be that he reveals, in his quiet, moving, haunted pictures, the hidden senses of the word "animation," which after all means not only to set things in motion, but also,

mSo do certain stories, especially those involving a resourceful, serious girl contending with the machinations of wise old women and the sufferings of enigmatic young men. And so do certain themes: the catastrophic irrationality of war and other violence; the folly of disrespecting nature; the moral

complications that arise from ordinary acts of selfishness, vanity and even kindness.

As a visual artist, Mr. Miyazaki is both an extravagant fantasist and an exacting naturalist; as a storyteller, he is an inventor of fables that seem at once utterly new and almost unspeakably ancient. Their strangeness comes equally from the freshness and novelty he brings to the crowded marketplace of juvenile fantasy and from an unnerving, uncanny sense of familiarity, as if he were resurrecting legends buried deep in the collective unconscious.

Mr. Miyazaki's world is full of fantastical creatures - cute and fuzzy, icky and creepy, handsome and noble. There are lovable forest sprites, skittering dust balls and ravenous blobs of black viscous goo, as well as talking cats, pigs and frogs. "Howl's Moving Castle," adapted from a novel by Diana Wynne Jones, features a garrulous flame, voiced in the English-language version by Billy Crystal; "Spirited Away" (2001) had its melancholy, wordless no-face monster; "Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind" (1984), the director's first masterpiece, was nearly overrun by enormous trilobite-shaped insects called Om.

Some of Mr. Miyazaki's creations seem to have precedents and analogues in folklore, fantasy literature and other cartoons. The porcine title character in the 1992 film "Porco Rosso," for example, is a dashing Italian pilot from the early days of aviation, and it is just conceivable that he might have a stuttering cousin somewhere on the Warner Brothers lot, looking for a pair of pants to match his blazer. But most members of Mr. Miyazaki's ever-expanding menagerie - including Totoro, the slow-moving, pot-bellied, vaguely feline character who has become the logo and mascot of his Studio Ghibli - come entirely from the filmmaker's own prodigious imagination. Mr. Miyazaki was once asked where he thought his work fitted within the expanding universe of children's pop culture. "The truth is I have watched almost none of it," he said with a slightly weary smile. "The only images I watch regularly come from the weather report."

The director, a compact, white-haired man whose demeanor combines gravity with a certain impishness, was not just being flip. It is hard to think of another filmmaker who is so passionately interested in weather. Violent storms, gentle breezes and sun-filled skies are vital, active elements, bearers of mood, emotion and meaning. His monsters and animals, who share the screen with more conventionally human-looking animated figures - adolescent girls with wind-tossed hair, short skirts and saucer eyes, mustachioed soldiers and wrinkled crones - are an integral part of Mr. Miyazaki's landscape, but the most striking feature of his films may be the landscapes themselves.

The action in his movies takes place far from the cramped cities of modern Japan, and also from the futuristic metropolises that provide the dystopian backdrop of so much anime. His characters tend to live in hillside villages or in tidy, old-world towns where half-timbered houses huddle along cobblestone streets. As much as they can, in gliders, on broomsticks and under their own magical powers, these characters take to the sky; the evocation of flying, for metaphorical purposes and for the sheer visual fun of it, is one of Mr. Miyazaki's favorite motifs. But one reason he ventures aloft may be to offer a better view of earth and water, which he renders with cinematic precision and painterly virtuosity.

Even though his frames evoke the careful brushwork and delicate emotions of Japanese landscape painting, Mr. Miyazaki is very much a product of postwar Japan, and he sits at the artistic and commercial pinnacle of his country's churning, eclectic visual culture. Though he has concentrated almost entirely on film, his earlier career includes television cartoons and manga. Animation, which arrived in Japan with the American occupying force, has since the war become at once the embodiment of the country's antic modernity and also, in the hands of artists like Mr. Miyazaki, a vehicle for reimagining and preserving its history.

Mr. Miyazaki's movies, whose settings variously evoke medieval Japan, 19th-century Europe and the antique futures of Jules Verne and H. G. Wells, cast a sorrowful, sometimes scolding eye toward the present. The antiwar implications of "Howl's Moving Castle" are as unmistakable as the ecological warnings in "Nausicaä" and "Princess Mononoke," and in nearly every film, technological hubris, political ambition and greed are the true roots of evil. His criticism of the modern world, though, seems less topical than philosophical; his movies do not represent a point of view, but rather present a way of seeing that is radically at odds with what usually meets the eye.

It can hardly be denied that they are marvels of escapist entertainment, but this is in no small part because they offer escape from the noise and aggression that dominate so much other modern entertainment. His power to enchant can seem unlimited - the wizards, witches and sorcerers who bedevil, beguile and befriend his heroes are less his alter egos than his kinfolk - but it arises from and communicates an equally powerful sense of disenchantment.

It is not that Mr. Miyazaki's films are pessimistic, exactly; being fairy tales, they do arrive at happy endings. ("I'm not going to make movies that tell children, 'You should despair and run away,' " he said.) But the route he chooses toward happiness can be troubling, perhaps especially to an American audience that expects sentimental affirmations based on clear demarcations between good and evil. The division of the world into heroes and villains is a habit Mr. Miyazaki regards with suspicion. "The concept of portraying evil and then destroying it - I know this is considered mainstream, but I think it's rotten," he said. "This idea that whenever something evil happens someone particular can be blamed and punished for it, in life and in politics, it's hopeless." Like the natural world, which follows its own laws and rhythms - "it does what the hell it pleases," in Mr. Miyazaki's words - human nature is not something that can easily be explained or judged.

In the Miyazakian cosmos, minds change, as do bodies, rivers, forests, nations and everything else. Wizards turn into birds of prey; young girls are transformed overnight into 90-year-old women; greedy parents are changed into pigs; shooting stars mutate into fire demons. You can call this magic - a word reviewers of Mr. Miyazaki's films seem helpless to avoid - or you can call it art. But it may just be that he reveals, in his quiet, moving, haunted pictures, the hidden senses of the word "animation," which after all means not only to set things in motion, but also, more profoundly, to bring them to life.So do certain stories, especially those involving a resourceful, serious girl contending with the machinations of wise old women and the sufferings of enigmatic young men. And so do certain themes: the catastrophic irrationality of war and other violence; the folly of disrespecting nature; the moral complications that arise from ordinary acts of selfishness, vanity and even kindness.

As a visual artist, Mr. Miyazaki is both an extravagant fantasist and an exacting naturalist; as a storyteller, he is an inventor of fables that seem at once utterly new and almost unspeakably ancient. Their strangeness comes equally from the freshness and novelty he brings to the crowded marketplace of juvenile fantasy and from an unnerving, uncanny sense of familiarity, as if he were resurrecting legends buried deep in the collective unconscious.

Mr. Miyazaki's world is full of fantastical creatures - cute and fuzzy, icky and creepy, handsome and noble. There are lovable forest sprites, skittering dust balls and ravenous blobs of black viscous goo, as well as talking cats, pigs and frogs. "Howl's Moving Castle," adapted from a novel by Diana Wynne Jones, features a garrulous flame, voiced in the English-language version by Billy Crystal; "Spirited Away" (2001) had its melancholy, wordless no-face monster; "Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind" (1984), the director's first masterpiece, was nearly overrun by enormous trilobite-shaped insects called Om.

Some of Mr. Miyazaki's creations seem to have precedents and analogues in folklore, fantasy literature and other cartoons. The porcine title character in the 1992 film "Porco Rosso," for example, is a dashing Italian pilot from the early days of aviation, and it is just conceivable that he might have a stuttering cousin somewhere on

the Warner Brothers lot, looking for a pair of pants to match his blazer. But most members of Mr. Miyazaki's ever-expanding menagerie - including Totoro, the slow-moving, pot-bellied, vaguely feline character who has become the logo and mascot of his Studio Ghibli - come entirely from the filmmaker's own prodigious

imagination. Mr. Miyazaki was once asked where he thought his work fitted within the expanding universe of children's pop culture. "The truth is I have watched almost none of it," he said with a slightly weary smile. "The only images I watch regularly come from the weather report."

The director, a compact, white-haired man whose demeanor combines gravity with a certain impishness, was not just being flip. It is hard to think of another filmmaker who is so passionately interested in weather. Violent storms, gentle breezes and sun-filled skies are vital, active elements, bearers of mood, emotion

and meaning. His monsters and animals, who share the screen with more conventionally human-looking animated figures - adolescent girls with wind-tossed hair, short skirts and saucer eyes, mustachioed soldiers and wrinkled crones - are an integral part of Mr. Miyazaki's landscape, but the most striking feature of

his films may be the landscapes themselves.

The action in his movies takes place far from the cramped cities of modern Japan, and also from the futuristic metropolises that provide the dystopian backdrop of so much anime. His characters tend to live in hillside villages or in tidy, old-world towns where half-timbered houses huddle along cobblestone

streets. As much as they can, in gliders, on broomsticks and under their own magical powers, these characters take to the sky; the evocation of flying, for metaphorical purposes and for the sheer visual fun of it, is one of Mr. Miyazaki's favorite motifs. But one reason he ventures aloft may be to offer a better

view of earth and water, which he renders with cinematic precision and painterly virtuosity.

Even though his frames evoke the careful brushwork and delicate emotions of Japanese landscape painting, Mr. Miyazaki is very much a product of postwar Japan, and he sits at the artistic and commercial pinnacle of his country's churning, eclectic visual culture. Though he has concentrated almost entirely on

film, his earlier career includes television cartoons and manga. Animation, which arrived in Japan with the American occupying force, has since the war become at once the embodiment of the country's antic modernity and also, in the hands of artists like Mr. Miyazaki, a vehicle for reimagining and preserving

its history.

Mr. Miyazaki's movies, whose settings variously evoke medieval Japan, 19th-century Europe and the antique futures of Jules Verne and H. G. Wells, cast a sorrowful, sometimes scolding eye toward the present. The antiwar implications of "Howl's Moving Castle" are as unmistakable as the ecological warnings

in "Nausicaä" and "Princess Mononoke," and in nearly every film, technological hubris, political ambition and greed are the true roots of evil. His criticism of the modern world, though, seems less topical than philosophical; his movies do not represent a point of view, but rather present a way of

seeing that is radically at odds with what usually meets the eye.

It can hardly be denied that they are marvels of escapist entertainment, but this is in no small part because they offer escape from the noise and aggression that dominate so much other modern entertainment. His power to enchant can seem unlimited - the wizards, witches and sorcerers who bedevil,

beguile and befriend his heroes are less his alter egos than his kinfolk - but it arises from and communicates an equally powerful sense of disenchantment.

It is not that Mr. Miyazaki's films are pessimistic, exactly; being fairy tales, they do arrive at happy endings. ("I'm not going to make movies that tell children, 'You should despair and run away,' " he said.) But the route he chooses toward happiness can be troubling, perhaps especially to an

American audience that expects sentimental affirmations based on clear demarcations between good and evil. The division of the world into heroes and villains is a habit Mr. Miyazaki regards with suspicion. "The concept of portraying evil and then destroying it - I know this is considered mainstream,

but I think it's rotten," he said. "This idea that whenever something evil happens someone particular can be blamed and punished for it, in life and in politics, it's hopeless." Like the natural world, which follows its own laws and rhythms - "it does what the hell it pleases," in Mr. Miyazaki's words - human

nature is not something that can easily be explained or judged.

In the Miyazakian cosmos, minds change, as do bodies, rivers, forests, nations and everything else. Wizards turn into birds of prey; young girls are transformed overnight into 90-year-old women; greedy parents are changed into pigs; shooting stars mutate into fire demons. You can call this magic - a word reviewers of Mr.

Miyazaki's films seem helpless to avoid - or you can call it art. But it may just be that he reveals, in his quiet, moving, haunted pictures, the hidden senses of the word "animation," which after all means not only to set things in motion, but also, more profoundly, to bring them to life.So do certain stories, especially those involving

a resourceful, serious girl contending with the machinations of wise old women and the sufferings of enigmatic young men. And so do certain themes: the catastrophic irrationality of war and other violence; the folly of disrespecting nature; the moral complications that arise from ordinary acts of selfishness, vanity and even kindness.

As a visual artist, Mr. Miyazaki is both an extravagant fantasist and an exacting naturalist; as a storyteller, he is an inventor of fables that seem at once utterly new and almost unspeakably ancient. Their strangeness comes equally from the freshness and novelty he brings to the crowded marketplace of juvenile fantasy and from an unnerving, uncanny sense of

familiarity, as if he were resurrecting legends buried deep in the collective unconscious.

Mr. Miyazaki's world is full of fantastical creatures - cute and fuzzy, icky and creepy, handsome and noble. There are lovable forest sprites, skittering dust balls and ravenous blobs of black viscous goo, as well as talking cats, pigs and frogs. "Howl's Moving Castle," adapted from a novel by Diana Wynne Jones, features a garrulous flame, voiced in the English-language version by Billy Crystal;

"Spirited Away" (2001) had its melancholy, wordless no-face monster; "Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind" (1984), the director's first masterpiece, was nearly overrun by enormous trilobite-shaped insects called Om.

Some of Mr. Miyazaki's creations seem to have precedents and analogues in folklore, fantasy literature and other cartoons. The porcine title character in the 1992 film "Porco Rosso," for example, is a dashing Italian pilot from the early days of aviation, and it is just conceivable that he might have a stuttering cousin somewhere on the Warner Brothers lot, looking for a pair of pants to match his blazer. But most members of Mr. Miyazaki's

ever-expanding menagerie - including Totoro, the slow-moving, pot-bellied, vaguely feline character who has become the logo and mascot of his Studio Ghibli - come entirely from the filmmaker's own prodigious imagination. Mr. Miyazaki was once asked where he thought his work fitted within the expanding universe of children's pop culture. "The truth is I have watched almost none of it," he said with a slightly weary smile. "The only images I watch regularly come from the weather

report."

The director, a compact, white-haired man whose demeanor combines gravity with a certain impishness, was not just being flip. It is hard to think of another filmmaker who is so passionately interested in weather. Violent storms, gentle breezes and sun-filled skies are vital, active elements, bearers of mood, emotion and meaning. His monsters and animals, who share the screen with more conventionally human-looking animated figures - adolescent girls with wind-tossed hair, short skirts and saucer eyes, mustachioed

soldiers and wrinkled crones - are an integral part of Mr. Miyazaki's landscape, but the most striking feature of his films may be the landscapes themselves.

The action in his movies takes place far from the cramped cities of modern Japan, and also from the futuristic metropolises that provide the dystopian backdrop of so much anime. His characters tend to live in hillside villages or in tidy, old-world towns where half-timbered houses huddle along cobblestone streets. As much as they can, in gliders, on broomsticks and under their own magical powers, these characters take to the sky; the evocation of flying, for metaphorical purposes and for the sheer visual

fun of it, is one of Mr. Miyazaki's favorite motifs. But one reason he ventures aloft may be to offer a better view of earth and water, which he renders with cinematic precision and painterly virtuosity.

Even though his frames evoke the careful brushwork and delicate emotions of Japanese landscape painting, Mr. Miyazaki is very much a product of postwar Japan, and he sits at the artistic and commercial pinnacle of his country's churning, eclectic visual culture. Though he has concentrated almost entirely on film, his earlier career includes television cartoons and manga. Animation, which arrived in Japan with the

American occupying force, has since the war become at once the embodiment of the country's antic modernity and also, in the hands of artists like Mr. Miyazaki, a vehicle for reimagining and preserving its history.

Mr. Miyazaki's movies, whose settings variously evoke medieval Japan, 19th-century Europe and the antique futures of Jules Verne and H. G. Wells, cast a sorrowful, sometimes scolding eye toward the present. The antiwar implications of "Howl's Moving Castle" are as unmistakable as the ecological warnings in "Nausicaä" and "Princess Mononoke," and in nearly every film, technological hubris, political ambition and greed are the true roots of evil. His criticism of the modern world, though, seems less topical than philosophical; his movies do not represent a point of view, but rather present a way of seeing that is radically at odds with what usually meets the eye.

It can hardly be denied that they are marvels of escapist entertainment, but this is in no small part because they offer escape from the noise and aggression that dominate so much other modern entertainment. His power to enchant can seem unlimited - the wizards, witches and sorcerers who bedevil, beguile and befriend his heroes are less his alter egos than his kinfolk - but it arises from and communicates an equally powerful sense of disenchantment.

It is not that Mr. Miyazaki's films are pessimistic, exactly; being fairy tales, they do arrive at happy endings. ("I'm not going to make movies that tell children, 'You should despair and run away,' " he said.) But the route he chooses toward happiness can be troubling, perhaps especially to an American audience that expects sentimental affirmations based on clear demarcations between good and evil. The division of the world into heroes and villains is a habit Mr. Miyazaki regards with suspicion. "The concept of portraying evil and then destroying it - I know this is considered mainstream, but I think it's rotten," he said. "This idea that whenever something evil happens someone particular can be blamed and punished for it, in life and in politics, it's hopeless." Like the natural world, which follows its own laws and rhythms - "it does what the hell it pleases," in Mr. Miyazaki's words - human nature is not something that can easily be explained or judged.

In the Miyazakian cosmos, minds change, as do bodies, rivers, forests, nations and everything else. Wizards turn into birds of prey; young girls are transformed overnight into 90-year-old women; greedy parents are changed into pigs; shooting stars mutate into fire demons. You can call this magic - a word reviewers of Mr. Miyazaki's films seem helpless to avoid - or you can call it art. But it may just be that he reveals, in his quiet, moving, haunted pictures, the hidden senses of the word "animation," which after all means not only to set things in motion, but also, more profoundly, to bring them to life.So do certain stories, especially those involving a resourceful, serious girl contending with the machinations of wise old women and the sufferings of enigmatic young men. And so do certain themes: the catastrophic irrationality of war and other violence; the folly of disrespecting nature; the moral complications that arise from ordinary acts of selfishness, vanity and even kindness.

As a visual artist, Mr. Miyazaki is both an extravagant fantasist and an exacting naturalist; as a storyteller, he is an inventor of fables that seem at once utterly new and almost unspeakably ancient. Their strangeness comes equally from the freshness and novelty he brings to the crowded marketplace of juvenile fantasy and from an unnerving, uncanny sense of familiarity, as if he were resurrecting legends buried deep in the collective unconscious.

Mr. Miyazaki's world is full of fantastical creatures - cute and fuzzy, icky and creepy, handsome and noble. There are lovable forest sprites, skittering dust balls and ravenous blobs of black viscous goo, as well as talking cats, pigs and frogs. "Howl's Moving Castle," adapted from a novel by Diana Wynne Jones, features a garrulous flame, voiced in the English-language version by Billy Crystal; "Spirited Away" (2001) had its melancholy, wordless no-face monster; "Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind" (1984), the director's first masterpiece, was nearly overrun by enormous trilobite-shaped insects called Om.

Some of Mr. Miyazaki's creations seem to have precedents and analogues in folklore, fantasy literature and other cartoons. The porcine title character in the 1992 film "Porco Rosso," for example, is a dashing Italian pilot from the early days of aviation, and it is just conceivable that he might have a stuttering cousin somewhere on the Warner Brothers lot, looking for a pair of pants to match his blazer. But most members of Mr. Miyazaki's ever-expanding menagerie - including Totoro, the slow-moving, pot-bellied, vaguely feline character who has become the logo and mascot of his Studio Ghibli - come entirely from the filmmaker's own prodigious imagination. Mr. Miyazaki was once asked where he thought his work fitted within the expanding universe of children's pop culture. "The truth is I have watched almost none of it," he said with a slightly weary smile. "The only images I watch regularly come from the weather report."

The director, a compact, white-haired man whose demeanor combines gravity with a certain impishness, was not just being flip. It is hard to think of another filmmaker who is so passionately interested in weather. Violent storms, gentle breezes and sun-filled skies are vital, active elements, bearers of mood, emotion and meaning. His monsters and animals, who share the screen with more conventionally human-looking animated figures - adolescent girls with wind-tossed hair, short skirts and saucer eyes, mustachioed soldiers and wrinkled crones - are an integral part of Mr. Miyazaki's landscape, but the most striking feature of his films may be the landscapes themselves.

The action in his movies takes place far from the cramped cities of modern Japan, and also from the futuristic metropolises that provide the dystopian backdrop of so much anime. His characters tend to live in hillside villages or in tidy, old-world towns where half-timbered houses huddle along cobblestone streets. As much as they

can, in gliders, on broomsticks and under their own magical powers, these characters take to the sky; the evocation of flying, for metaphorical purposes and for the sheer visual fun of it, is one of Mr. Miyazaki's

favorite motifs. But one reason he ventures aloft may be to offer a better view of earth and water, which he renders with cinematic precision and painterly virtuosity.

Even though his frames evoke the careful brushwork and delicate emotions of Japanese landscape painting, Mr. Miyazaki is very much a product of postwar Japan, and he sits at the artistic and commercial pinnacle of his

country's churning, eclectic visual culture. Though he has concentrated almost entirely on film, his earlier career includes television cartoons and manga. Animation, which arrived in Japan with the American occupying force, has since

the war become at once the embodiment of the country's antic modernity and also, in the hands of artists like Mr. Miyazaki, a vehicle for reimagining and preserving its history.

Mr. Miyazaki's movies, whose settings variously evoke medieval Japan, 19th-century Europe and the antique futures of Jules Verne and H. G. Wells, cast a sorrowful, sometimes scolding eye toward the present. The antiwar implications of "Howl's Moving

Castle" are as unmistakable as the ecological warnings in "Nausicaä" and "Princess Mononoke," and in nearly every film, technological hubris, political ambition and greed are the true roots of evil. His criticism of the modern world, though, seems less

topical than philosophical; his movies do not represent a point of view, but rather present a way of seeing that is radically at odds with what usually meets the eye.

It can hardly be denied that they are marvels of escapist entertainment, but this is in no small part because they offer escape from the noise and aggression that dominate so much other modern entertainment. His power to enchant can seem unlimited - the wizards, witches and sorcerers who bedevil, beguile and befriend his heroes are less his alter egos than his kinfolk - but it arises from and communicates an equally powerful sense of disenchantment.

It is not that Mr. Miyazaki's films are pessimistic, exactly; being fairy tales, they do arrive at happy endings. ("I'm not going to make movies that tell children, 'You should despair and run away,' " he said.) But the route he chooses toward happiness can be troubling, perhaps especially to an American audience that expects sentimental affirmations based on clear demarcations between good and evil. The division of the world into heroes and villains is a habit Mr. Miyazaki regards with suspicion. "The concept of portraying evil and then destroying it - I know this is considered mainstream, but I think it's rotten," he said. "This idea that whenever something evil happens someone particular can be blamed and punished for it, in life and in politics, it's hopeless." Like the natural world, which follows its own laws and rhythms - "it does what the hell it pleases," in Mr. Miyazaki's words - human nature is not something that can easily be explained or judged.

In the Miyazakian cosmos, minds change, as do bodies, rivers, forests, nations and everything else. Wizards turn into birds of prey; young girls are transformed overnight into 90-year-old women; greedy parents are changed into pigs; shooting stars mutate into fire demons. You can call this magic - a word reviewers of Mr. Miyazaki's films seem helpless to avoid - or you can call it art. But it may just be that he reveals, in his quiet, moving, haunted pictures, the hidden senses of the word "animation," which after all means not only to set things in motion, but also, more profoundly, to bring them to life.So do certain stories, especially those involving a resourceful, serious girl contending with the machinations of wise old women and the sufferings of enigmatic young men. And so do certain themes: the catastrophic irrationality of war and other violence; the folly of disrespecting nature; the moral complications that arise from ordinary acts of selfishness, vanity and even kindness.

As a visual artist, Mr. Miyazaki is both an extravagant fantasist and an exacting naturalist; as a storyteller, he is an inventor of fables that seem at once utterly new and almost unspeakably ancient. Their strangeness comes equally from the freshness and novelty he brings to the crowded marketplace of juvenile fantasy and from an unnerving, uncanny sense of familiarity, as if he were resurrecting legends buried deep in the collective unconscious.

Mr. Miyazaki's world is full of fantastical creatures - cute and fuzzy, icky and creepy, handsome and noble. There are lovable forest sprites, skittering dust balls and ravenous blobs of black viscous goo, as well as talking cats, pigs and frogs. "Howl's Moving Castle," adapted from a novel by Diana Wynne Jones, features a

garrulous flame, voiced in the English-language version by Billy Crystal; "Spirited Away" (2001) had its melancholy, wordless no-face monster; "Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind" (1984), the director's first

masterpiece, was nearly overrun by enormous trilobite-shaped insects called Om.

Some of Mr. Miyazaki's creations seem to have precedents and analogues in folklore, fantasy literature and other cartoons. The porcine title character in the 1992 film "Porco Rosso," for

example, is a dashing Italian pilot from the early days of aviation, and it is just conceivable that he might have a stuttering cousin somewhere on the Warner Brothers lot,

looking for a pair of pants to match his blazer. But most members of Mr. Miyazaki's ever-expanding menagerie - including Totoro, the slow-moving, pot-bellied, vaguely

feline character who has become the logo and mascot of his Studio Ghibli - come entirely from the filmmaker's own prodigious imagination. Mr. Miyazaki was once

asked where he thought his work fitted within the expanding universe of children's pop culture. "The truth is I have watched almost none of it," he said with a

slightly weary smile. "The only images I watch regularly come from the weather report."

The director, a compact, white-haired man whose demeanor combines gravity with a certain impishness, was not just being flip. It is hard to think of another filmmaker who is so passionately interested in weather. Violent storms, gentle breezes and sun-filled skies are vital, active elements, bearers of mood, emotion and meaning. His monsters and animals, who share the screen with more conventionally human-looking animated figures - adolescent girls with wind-tossed hair, short skirts and

saucer eyes, mustachioed soldiers and wrinkled crones - are an integral part of Mr. Miyazaki's landscape, but the most striking

feature of his films may be the landscapes themselves.

The action in his movies takes place far from the cramped cities of modern Japan, and also from the futuristic

metropolises that provide the dystopian backdrop of so much anime. His characters tend to live in

hillside villages or in tidy, old-world towns where half-timbered houses huddle along

cobblestone streets. As much as they can, in gliders, on broomsticks and

under their own magical powers, these characters take to the

sky; the evocation of flying, for

metaphorical purposes and for

the sheer visual fun of

it, is one of Mr.

Mi-yaza

ki

So do certain stories,

especially those involving a resourceful, serious girl contending with the

machinations of wise old women and the sufferings of enigmatic young men. And so do certain themes: the

catastrophic irrationality of war and other violence; the folly of disrespecting nature; the moral complications that arise from ordinary acts

of selfishness, vanity and even kindness.

As a visual artist, Mr. Miyazaki is both an extravagant fantasist and an exacting naturalist; as a storyteller, he is an inventor of fables that seem at once utterly new and almost unspeakably ancient. Their strangeness comes equally from the freshness and novelty he brings to the crowded marketplace of juvenile fantasy and from an unnerving, uncanny sense of familiarity, as if he were resurrecting legends buried deep in the collective unconscious.

Mr. Miyazaki's world is full of fantastical creatures - cute and fuzzy, icky and creepy, handsome and noble. There are lovable forest sprites, skittering dust balls and ravenous blobs of black viscous goo, as well as talking cats, pigs and frogs. "Howl's Moving Castle," adapted from a novel by Diana Wynne Jones, features a garrulous flame, voiced in the English-language version by Billy Crystal; "Spirited Away" (2001) had its melancholy, wordless no-face monster; "Nausicaä of the

Valley of the Wind" (1984), the director's first masterpiece, was nearly overrun by enormous trilobite-shaped insects called Om.

Some of Mr. Miyazaki's creations seem to have precedents and analogues in folklore, fantasy literature and other cartoons. The porcine title character in the 1992 film "Porco Rosso," for example, is a dashing Italian pilot from the early days of

aviation, and it is just conceivable that he might have a stuttering cousin somewhere on the Warner Brothers lot, looking for a pair of pants to match his blazer. But most members of Mr.

Miyazaki's ever-expanding menagerie - including Totoro, the slow-moving, pot-bellied, vaguely feline character who has become the logo and mascot

of his Studio Ghibli - come entirely from the filmmaker's own prodigious imagination. Mr. Miyazaki was once asked where he thought his work

fitted within the expanding universe of children's pop culture. "The truth is I have watched almost none of it," he said with a slightly

weary smile. "The only images I watch regularly come from the weather report."

The director, a compact, white-haired man whose demeanor combines gravity with a certain impishness, was not just being flip. It is

hard to think of another filmmaker who is so passionately interested in weather. Violent storms, gentle breezes and

sun-filled skies are vital, active elements, bearers of mood, emotion and meaning. His monsters and animals, who share the

screen with more conventionally human-looking animated figures - adolescent girls with wind-tossed hair, short

skirts and saucer eyes, mustachioed soldiers and wrinkled crones - are an integral part of Mr. Miyazaki's

landscape, but the most striking feature of his films may be the landscapes themselves.

The action in his movies takes place far from the cramped cities of modern Japan, and also from the

futuristic metropolises that provide the dystopian backdrop of so much anime. His

characters tend to live in hillside villages or in tidy, old-world towns where

half-timbered houses huddle along cobblestone streets. As much as they can,

in gliders, on broomsticks and under their own magical powers, these

characters take to the sky; the evocation of flying, for

metaphorical purposes and for the sheer visual fun of it, is one of

Mr. Miyazaki's favorite motifs. But one reason he ventures aloft may be to offer a better view of earth and water, which he renders with cinematic precision and painterly virtuosity.

Even though his frames evoke the careful brushwork and delicate emotions of Japanese landscape painting, Mr. Miyazaki is very much a product of postwar Japan, and he sits at the artistic and commercial pinnacle of his country's churning, eclectic visual culture. Though he has concentrated almost entirely on film, his earlier career includes television cartoons and manga. Animation, which arrived in Japan with the American occupying force, has since the war become at once the embodiment of the country's antic modernity and also, in the hands of artists like Mr. Miyazaki, a

ve- hicle for re- imagining and pre- serving its his- tory.

Mr. Miyazaki's movies, whose settings variously evoke medieval Japan, 19th-century Europe and the antique futures of Jules Verne and H. G. Wells, cast a sorrowful, sometimes scolding eye toward the present. The antiwar implications of "Howl's Moving Castle" are as unmistakable as the ecological warnings in "Nausicaä" and "Princess Mononoke," and in nearly every film, technological hubris, political ambition and greed are the true roots of evil. His criticism of the modern world, though, seems less topical than philosophical; his movies do not represent

a point of view, but rather present a way of seeing that is radically at odds with what

usually meets the eye.

It can hardly be denied that they are marvels of escapist entertainment, but

this is in no small part because they offer escape from the noise and aggression that

dominate so much other modern entertainment. His power to enchant can seem unlimited - the

wizards, witches and sorcerers who bedevil, beguile and befriend his heroes are less his

alter egos than his kinfolk - but it arises from and communicates an equally powerful sense of

disenchantment.

It is not that Mr. Miyazaki's films are pessimistic, exactly; being fairy tales,

they do arrive at happy endings. ("I'm not going to make movies that tell children, 'You should

despair and run away,' " he said.) But the route he chooses toward happiness can be troubling, perhaps

especially to an American audience that expects sentimental affirmations based on clear demarcations

between good and evil. The division of the world into heroes and villains is a habit Mr. Miyazaki regards with suspicion. "The concept of

portraying evil and then destroying it - I know this is considered mainstream, but I think it's rotten," he said. "This idea that whenever something evil happens someone

particular can be blamed and punished for it, in life and in politics, it's hopeless." Like the natural world, which follows its own laws and rhythms - "it does what the hell it

pleases," in Mr. Miyazaki's words - human nature is not something that can easily be explained or judged.

In the Miyazakian cosmos, minds change, as do bodies, rivers, forests, nations and everything else. Wizards turn into birds of prey; young girls

are transformed overnight into 90-year-old women; greedy parents are changed into pigs; shooting stars mutate into fire demons. You

can call this magic - a word reviewers of Mr. Miyazaki's films seem helpless to avoid - or you can call it art.

But it may just be that he reveals, in his quiet, moving, haunted pictures, the hidden senses

of the word "animation," which after all means not only to set things

in motion, but also, more profoundly, to bring them

to life.So do certain stories, especially

those involving a resourceful,

serious girl contending

with the machi-

na-ti

So do certain stories,

especially those involving a resourceful, serious girl

contending with the machinations of wise old women and the sufferings of enigmatic young

men. And so do certain themes: the catastrophic irrationality of war and other violence; the folly of

disrespecting nature; the moral complications that arise from ordinary acts of selfishness, vanity and even kindness.

As a visual artist, Mr. Miyazaki is both an extravagant fantasist and an exacting naturalist; as a storyteller, he is an inventor of fables that seem at once utterly new and almost unspeakably ancient. Their strangeness comes equally from the freshness and novelty he brings to the crowded marketplace of juvenile fantasy and from an unnerving, uncanny sense of familiarity, as if he were resurrecting legends buried deep in the collective unconscious.

Mr. Miyazaki's world is full of fantastical creatures - cute and fuzzy, icky and creepy, handsome and noble. There are lovable forest sprites, skittering dust balls and ravenous blobs of black viscous goo, as well as talking cats, pigs and frogs. "Howl's Moving Castle," adapted from a novel by Diana Wynne Jones, features a garrulous flame, voiced in the English-language version by Billy Crystal; "Spirited Away" (2001) had its melancholy, wordless no-face monster; "Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind" (1984), the director's first masterpiece, was nearly overrun by enormous trilobite-shaped insects called Om.

Some of Mr. Miyazaki's creations seem to have precedents and analogues in folklore, fantasy literature and other cartoons. The porcine title character in the 1992 film "Porco Rosso," for example, is a dashing Italian pilot from the early days of aviation, and it is just conceivable that he might have a stuttering cousin somewhere on the Warner Brothers lot, looking for a pair of pants to match his blazer. But most members of Mr. Miyazaki's ever-expanding menagerie - including Totoro, the slow-moving, pot-bellied, vaguely feline character who has become the logo and mascot of his Studio Ghibli - come entirely from the filmmaker's own prodigious imagination. Mr. Miyazaki was once asked where he thought his work fitted within the expanding universe of children's pop culture. "The truth is I have watched almost none of it," he said with a slightly weary smile. "The only images I watch regularly come from the weather report."

The director, a compact, white-haired man whose demeanor combines gravity with a certain impishness, was not just being flip. It is hard to think of another filmmaker who is so passionately interested in weather. Violent storms, gentle breezes and sun-filled skies are vital, active elements, bearers of mood, emotion and meaning. His monsters and animals, who share the screen with more conventionally human-looking animated figures - adolescent girls with wind-tossed hair, short skirts and saucer eyes, mustachioed soldiers and wrinkled crones - are an integral part of Mr. Miyazaki's landscape, but the most striking feature of his films may be the landscapes themselves.

The action in his movies takes place far from the cramped cities of modern Japan, and also from the futuristic metropolises that provide the dystopian backdrop of so much anime. His characters tend to live in hillside villages or in tidy, old-world towns where half-timbered houses huddle along cobblestone streets. As much as they can, in gliders, on broomsticks and under their own magical powers, these characters take to the sky; the evocation of flying, for metaphorical purposes and for the sheer visual fun of it, is one of Mr. Miyazaki's favorite motifs. But one reason he ventures aloft may be to offer a better view of earth and water, which he renders with cinematic precision and painterly virtuosity.

Even though his frames evoke the careful brushwork and delicate emotions of Japanese landscape painting, Mr. Miyazaki is very much a product of postwar Japan, and he sits at the artistic and commercial pinnacle of his country's churning, eclectic visual culture. Though he has concentrated almost entirely on film, his earlier career includes television cartoons and manga. Animation, which arrived in Japan with the American occupying force, has since the war become at once the embodiment of the country's antic modernity and also, in the hands of artists like Mr. Miyazaki, a vehicle for reimagining and preserving its history.

Mr. Miyazaki's movies, whose settings variously evoke medieval Japan, 19th-century Europe and the antique futures of Jules Verne and H. G. Wells, cast a sorrowful, sometimes scolding eye toward the present. The antiwar implications of "Howl's Moving Castle" are as unmistakable as the ecological warnings in "Nausicaä" and "Princess Mononoke," and in nearly every film, technological hubris, political ambition and greed are the true roots of evil. His criticism of the modern world, though, seems less topical than philosophical; his movies do not represent a point of view, but rather present a way of seeing that is radically at odds with what usually meets the eye.

It can hardly be denied that they are marvels of escapist entertainment, but this is in no small part because they offer escape from the noise and aggression that dominate so much other modern entertainment. His power to enchant can seem unlimited - the wizards, witches and sorcerers who bedevil, beguile and befriend his heroes are less his alter egos than his kinfolk - but it arises from and communicates an equally powerful sense of disenchantment.

It is not that Mr. Miyazaki's films are pessimistic, exactly; being fairy tales, they do arrive at happy endings. ("I'm not going to make movies that tell children, 'You should despair and run away,' " he said.) But the route he chooses toward happiness can be troubling, perhaps especially to an American audience that expects sentimental affirmations based on clear demarcations between good and evil. The division of the world into heroes and villains is a habit Mr. Miyazaki regards with suspicion. "The concept of portraying evil and then destroying it - I know this is considered mainstream, but I think it's rotten," he said. "This idea that whenever something evil happens someone particular can be blamed and punished for it, in life and in politics, it's hopeless." Like the natural world, which follows its own laws and rhythms - "it does what the hell it pleases," in Mr. Miyazaki's words - human nature is not something that can easily be explained or judged.

In the Miyazakian cosmos, minds change, as do bodies, rivers, forests, nations and everything else. Wizards turn into birds of prey; young girls are transformed overnight into 90-year-old women; greedy parents are changed into pigs; shooting stars mutate into fire demons. You can call this magic - a word reviewers of Mr. Miyazaki's films seem helpless to avoid - or you can call it art. But it may just be that he reveals, in his quiet, moving, haunted pictures, the hidden senses of the word "animation," which after all means not only to set things in motion, but also, more profoundly, to bring them to life.So do certain stories, especially those involving a resourceful, serious girl contending with the machinations of wise old women and the sufferings of enigmatic young men. And so do certain themes: the catastrophic irrationality of war and other violence; the folly of disrespecting nature; the moral complications that arise from ordinary acts of selfishness, vanity and even kindness.

As a visual artist, Mr. Miyazaki is both an extravagant fantasist and an exacting naturalist; as a storyteller, he is an inventor of fables that seem at once utterly new and almost unspeakably ancient. Their strangeness comes equally from the freshness and novelty he brings to the crowded marketplace of juvenile fantasy and from an unnerving, uncanny sense of familiarity, as if he were resurrecting legends buried deep in the collective unconscious.

Mr. Miyazaki's world is full of fantastical creatures - cute and fuzzy, icky and creepy, handsome and noble. There are lovable forest sprites, skittering dust balls and ravenous blobs of black viscous goo, as well as talking cats, pigs and frogs. "Howl's Moving Castle," adapted from a novel by Diana Wynne Jones, features a garrulous flame, voiced in the English-language version by Billy Crystal; "Spirited Away" (2001) had its melancholy, wordless no-face monster; "Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind" (1984), the director's first masterpiece, was nearly overrun by enormous trilobite-shaped insects called Om.

Some of Mr. Miyazaki's creations seem to have precedents and analogues in folklore, fantasy literature and other cartoons. The porcine title character in the 1992 film "Porco Rosso," for example, is a dashing Italian pilot from the early days of aviation, and it is just conceivable that he might have a stuttering cousin somewhere on the Warner Brothers lot, looking for a pair of pants to match his blazer. But most members of Mr. Miyazaki's ever-expanding menagerie - including Totoro, the slow-moving, pot-bellied, vaguely feline character who has become the logo and mascot of his Studio Ghibli - come entirely from the filmmaker's own prodigious imagination. Mr. Miyazaki was once asked where he thought his work fitted within the expanding universe of children's pop culture. "The truth is I have watched almost none of it," he said with a slightly weary smile. "The only images I watch regularly come from the weather report."

The director, a compact, white-haired man whose demeanor combines gravity with a certain impishness, was not just being flip. It is hard to think of another filmmaker who is so passionately interested in weather. Violent storms, gentle breezes and sun-filled skies are vital, active elements, bearers of mood, emotion and meaning. His monsters and animals, who share the screen with more conventionally human-looking animated figures - adolescent girls with wind-tossed hair, short skirts and saucer eyes, mustachioed soldiers and wrinkled crones - are an integral part of Mr. Miyazaki's landscape, but the most striking feature of his films may be the landscapes themselves.

The action in his movies takes place far from the cramped cities of modern Japan, and also from the futuristic metropolises that provide the dystopian backdrop of so much anime. His characters tend to live in hillside villages or in tidy, old-world towns where half-timbered houses huddle along cobblestone streets. As much as they can, in gliders, on broomsticks and under their own magical powers, these characters take to the sky; the evocation of flying, for metaphorical purposes and for the sheer visual fun of it, is one of Mr. Miyazaki's favorite motifs. But one reason he ventures aloft may be to offer a better view of earth and water, which he renders with cinematic precision and painterly virtuosity.

Even though his frames evoke the careful brushwork and delicate emotions of Japanese landscape painting, Mr. Miyazaki is very much a product of postwar Japan, and he sits at the artistic and commercial pinnacle of his country's churning, eclectic visual culture. Though he has concentrated almost entirely on film, his earlier career includes television cartoons and manga. Animation, which arrived in Japan with the American occupying force, has since the war become at once the embodiment of the country's antic modernity and also, in the hands of artists like Mr. Miyazaki, a vehicle for reimagining and preserving its history.

Mr. Miyazaki's movies, whose settings variously evoke medieval Japan, 19th-century Europe and the antique futures of Jules Verne and H. G. Wells, cast a sorrowful, sometimes scolding eye toward the present. The antiwar implications of "Howl's Moving Castle" are as unmistakable as the ecological warnings in "Nausicaä" and "Princess Mononoke," and in nearly every film, technological hubris, political ambition and greed are the true roots of evil. His criticism of the modern world, though, seems less topical than philosophical; his movies do not represent a point of view, but rather present a way of seeing that is radically at odds with what usually meets the eye.

It can hardly be denied that they are marvels of escapist entertainment, but this is in no small part because they offer escape from the noise and aggression that dominate so much other modern entertainment. His power to enchant can seem unlimited - the wizards, witches and sorcerers who bedevil, beguile and befriend his heroes are less his alter egos than his kinfolk - but it arises from and communicates an equally powerful sense of disenchantment.

It is not that Mr. Miyazaki's films are pessimistic, exactly; being fairy tales, they do arrive at happy endings. ("I'm not going to make movies that tell children, 'You should despair and run away,' " he said.) But the route he chooses toward happiness can be troubling, perhaps especially to an American audience that expects sentimental affirmations based on clear demarcations between good and evil. The division of the world into heroes and villains is a habit Mr. Miyazaki regards with suspicion. "The concept of portraying evil and then destroying it - I know this is considered mainstream, but I think it's rotten," he said. "This idea that whenever something evil happens someone particular can be blamed and punished for it, in life and in politics, it's hopeless." Like the natural world, which follows its own laws and rhythms - "it does what the hell it pleases," in Mr. Miyazaki's words - human nature is not something that can easily be explained or judged.

In the Miyazakian cosmos, minds change, as do bodies, rivers, forests, nations and everything else. Wizards turn into birds of prey; young girls are transformed overnight into 90-year-old women; greedy parents are changed into pigs; shooting stars mutate into fire demons. You can call this magic - a word reviewers of Mr. Miyazaki's films seem helpless to avoid -

or you can call it art. But it may just be that he reveals, in his quiet, moving, haunted

pictures, the hidden senses of the word "animation," which after all means not only

to set things in motion, but also, more profoundly, to bring them to life.So do

certain stories, especially those involving a resourceful, serious

girl contending with the machinations of wise old women

and the sufferings of enigmatic young men. And so do certain themes: the catastrophic irrationality of war and other violence; the folly of disrespecting nature; the moral complications that arise from ordinary acts of selfishness, vanity and even kindness.

As a visual artist,

Mr. Mi-

So do certain

stories, especially those

involving a resourceful, serious

girl contending with the machinations of

wise old women and the sufferings of

enigmatic young men. And so do certain

themes: the catastrophic

irrationality of war and other violence; the folly of disrespecting nature; the moral complications that arise from ordinary acts of

selfishness, vanity and even kindness.

As a visual artist, Mr. Miyazaki is both an extravagant fantasist and an exacting naturalist; as a storyteller, he is an inventor of fables that seem at once

utterly new and almost unspeakably ancient. Their strangeness comes equally from the freshness and novelty he brings to the

crowded marketplace of juvenile fantasy and from an

So do cer- tain sto- ries, espe- cially those involving a resourceful, serious girl contending with the machinations of wise old women and the sufferings of enigmatic young men. And so do certain themes: the catastrophic irrationality of war and other violence; the folly of disrespecting nature; the moral complications that arise from ordinary acts of selfishness, vanity and even kindness.

As a visual artist, Mr. Miyazaki is both an extravagant fantasist and an exacting naturalist; as a storyteller, he is an inventor of fables that seem at once utterly new and almost unspeakably ancient. Their strangeness comes equally from the freshness and novelty he brings to the crowded marketplace of juvenile fantasy and from an unnerving, uncanny sense of familiarity, as if he were resurrecting legends buried deep in the collective unconscious.

Mr. Miyazaki's world is full of fantastical creatures - cute and fuzzy, icky and creepy, handsome and noble. There are lovable forest sprites, skittering dust balls and ravenous blobs of black viscous goo, as well as talking cats, pigs and frogs. "Howl's Moving Castle," adapted from a novel by Diana Wynne Jones, features a garrulous flame, voiced in the English-language version by Billy Crystal; "Spirited Away" (2001) had its melancholy, wordless no-face monster; "Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind" (1984), the director's first masterpiece, was nearly overrun by enormous trilobite-shaped insects called Om.

Some of Mr. Miyazaki's creations seem to have precedents and analogues in folklore, fantasy literature and other cartoons. The porcine title character in the 1992 film "Porco Rosso," for example, is a dashing Italian pilot from the early days of aviation, and it is just conceivable that he might have a stuttering cousin somewhere on the Warner Brothers lot, looking for a pair of pants to match his blazer. But most members of Mr. Miyazaki's ever-expanding menagerie - including Totoro, the slow-moving, pot-bellied, vaguely feline character who has become the logo and mascot of his Studio Ghibli - come entirely from the filmmaker's own prodigious imagination. Mr. Miyazaki was once asked where he thought his work fitted within the expanding universe of children's pop culture. "The truth is I have watched almost none of it," he said with a slightly weary smile. "The only images I watch regularly come from the weather report."

The director, a compact, white-haired man whose demeanor combines gravity with a certain impishness, was not just being flip. It is hard to think of another filmmaker who is so passionately interested in weather. Violent storms, gentle breezes and sun-filled skies are vital, active elements, bearers of mood, emotion and meaning. His monsters and animals, who share the screen with more conventionally human-looking animated figures - adolescent girls with wind-tossed hair, short skirts and saucer eyes, mustachioed soldiers and wrinkled crones - are an integral part of Mr. Miyazaki's landscape, but the most striking feature of his films may be the landscapes themselves.

The action in his movies takes place far from the cramped cities of modern Japan, and also from the futuristic metropolises that provide the dystopian backdrop of so much anime. His characters tend to live in hillside villages or in tidy, old-world towns where half-timbered houses huddle along cobblestone streets. As much as they can, in gliders, on broomsticks and under their own magical powers, these characters take to the sky; the evocation of flying, for metaphorical purposes and for the sheer visual fun of it, is one of Mr. Miyazaki's favorite motifs. But one reason he ventures aloft may be to offer a better view of earth and water, which he renders with cinematic precision and painterly virtuosity.

Even though his frames evoke the careful brushwork and delicate emotions of Japanese landscape painting, Mr. Miyazaki is very much a product of postwar Japan, and he sits at the artistic and commercial pinnacle of his country's churning, eclectic visual culture. Though he has concentrated almost entirely on film, his earlier career includes television cartoons and manga. Animation, which arrived in Japan with the American occupying force, has since the war become at once the embodiment of the country's antic modernity and also, in the hands of artists like Mr. Miyazaki, a vehicle for reimagining and preserving its history.

Mr. Miyazaki's movies, whose settings variously evoke medieval Japan, 19th-century Europe and the antique futures of Jules Verne and H. G. Wells, cast a sorrowful, sometimes scolding eye toward the present. The antiwar implications of "Howl's Moving Castle" are as unmistakable as the ecological warnings in "Nausicaä" and "Princess Mononoke," and in nearly every film, technological hubris, political ambition and greed are the true roots of evil. His criticism of the modern world, though, seems less topical than philosophical; his movies do not represent a point of view, but rather present a way of seeing that is radically at odds with what usually meets the eye.

It can hardly be denied that they are marvels of escapist entertainment, but this is in no small part because they offer escape from the noise and aggression that dominate so much other modern entertainment. His power to enchant can seem unlimited - the wizards, witches and sorcerers who bedevil, beguile and befriend his heroes are less his alter egos than his kinfolk - but it arises from and communicates an equally powerful sense of disenchantment.

It is not that Mr. Miyazaki's films are pessimistic, exactly; being fairy tales, they do arrive at happy endings. ("I'm not going to make movies that tell children, 'You should despair and run away,' " he said.) But the route he chooses toward happiness can be

troubling, perhaps especially to an American audience that expects sentimental affirmations based on clear demarcations between good and evil. The division of the world into heroes and villains is a habit Mr. Miyazaki regards with suspicion. "The concept of

portraying evil and then destroying it - I know this is considered mainstream, but I think it's rotten," he said. "This idea that whenever something evil happens someone particular can be blamed and punished for it, in life and in politics, it's hopeless." Like the

natural world, which follows its own laws and rhythms - "it does what the hell it pleases," in Mr. Miyazaki's words - human nature is not something that can easily be explained or judged.

In the Miyazakian cosmos, minds change, as do bodies, rivers, forests, nations and everything else. Wizards turn into birds of prey; young girls are transformed overnight into 90-year-old women; greedy parents are changed into pigs; shooting stars mutate into fire demons. You can call this magic -

a word reviewers of Mr. Miyazaki's films seem helpless to avoid - or you can call it art. But it may just be that he reveals, in his quiet, moving, haunted pictures, the hidden senses of the word "animation," which after all means not only to set things in motion, but also, more profoundly, to bring

them to life.So do certain stories, especially those involving a resourceful, serious girl contending with the machinations of wise old women and the sufferings of enigmatic young men. And so do certain themes: the catastrophic irrationality of war and other violence; the folly of disrespecting nature;

the moral complications that arise from ordinary acts of selfishness, vanity and even kindness.

As a visual artist, Mr. Miyazaki is both an extravagant fantasist and an exacting naturalist; as a storyteller, he is an inventor of fables that seem at once utterly new and almost unspeakably

ancient. Their strangeness comes equally from the freshness and novelty he brings to the crowded marketplace of juvenile fantasy and from an unnerving, uncanny sense of

familiarity, as if he were resurrecting legends buried deep in the collective unconscious.

Mr. Miyazaki's world is full of fantastical creatures - cute and fuzzy, icky and

creepy, handsome and noble. There are lovable forest sprites, skittering

dust balls and ravenous blobs of black viscous goo, as well as talking cats, pigs and frogs. "Howl's Moving Castle," adapted from a novel by Diana Wynne Jones, features a garrulous flame, voiced in the English-language version by Billy Crystal; "Spirited Away" (2001) had its melan-choly, word-less no-

So do

certain stories,

especially those involving a

resourceful, serious girl contending with the machinations of

wise old women and the sufferings of enigmatic young men. And so do certain themes: the catastrophic irrationality of war and other violence; the folly of disrespecting nature; the moral complications that arise from ordinary acts of selfishness, vanity and even kindness.

As a visual artist, Mr. Miyazaki is both an extravagant fantasist and an exacting naturalist; as a storyteller, he is an inventor of fables that seem at once utterly new and almost unspeakably ancient. Their strangeness comes

equally from the freshness and novelty he brings to the crowded marketplace of juvenile fantasy and from an unnerving, uncanny sense of familiarity, as if he were resurrecting legends buried deep in the

collective unconscious.

Mr. Miyazaki's world is full of fantastical creatures - cute and fuzzy, icky and creepy, handsome and noble. There are lovable forest sprites, skittering dust balls and ravenous blobs of black viscous goo, as well as talking cats, pigs and frogs. "Howl's Moving Castle," adapted from a novel by Diana Wynne Jones, features a garrulous flame, voiced in the English-language version by Billy Crystal; "Spirited Away" (2001) had its melancholy, wordless no-face monster; "Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind" (1984), the director's first masterpiece, was nearly overrun by enormous trilobite-shaped insects called Om.

Some of Mr. Miyazaki's creations seem to have precedents and analogues in folklore, fantasy literature and other cartoons. The porcine title character

in the 1992 film "Porco Rosso," for example, is a dashing Italian pilot

from the early days of aviation, and it is just conceivable that he might have

a stuttering cousin somewhere on the Warner Brothers lot, looking for a pair

of pants to match his blazer. But most members of Mr. Miyazaki's ever-expanding

menagerie - including Totoro, the slow-moving, pot-bellied, vaguely feline

character who has become the logo and mascot of his Studio Ghibli - come

entirely from the filmmaker's own prodigious imagination. Mr. Miyazaki was

once asked where he thought his work fitted within the expanding universe of children's pop culture. "The

truth is I have watched almost none of it," he said with a slightly weary smile. "The only images I watch regularly come from the weather report."

The director, a compact, white-haired man whose demeanor combines gravity with a certain impishness, was not just being flip. It is hard to think of another filmmaker who is so passionately interested in weather. Violent storms, gentle breezes

and sun-filled skies are vital, active elements, bearers of mood, emotion and meaning. His monsters and animals, who share the screen with more conventionally human-looking animated figures - adolescent girls with wind-tossed hair, short skirts and saucer eyes, mustachioed soldiers and wrinkled crones - are an integral part of Mr. Miyazaki's landscape, but the most striking feature of his films may be the landscapes themselves.

The action in his movies takes place far from the cramped cities of modern Japan, and also from the futuristic metropolises that provide the dystopian backdrop of so much anime. His characters tend to live in hillside villages or in tidy, old-world towns where half-timbered houses huddle along cobblestone streets. As much as they can, in gliders, on broomsticks and under their own magical powers, these characters take to the sky; the evocation of flying, for metaphorical purposes and for the sheer visual fun of it, is one of Mr. Miyazaki's favorite motifs. But one reason he ventures aloft may be to offer a better view of earth and water, which he renders with cinematic precision and painterly virtuosity.

Even though his frames evoke the careful brushwork and delicate emotions of Japanese landscape painting, Mr. Miyazaki is very much a product of postwar Japan, and he sits at the artistic and commercial pinnacle of his country's churning, eclectic visual culture. Though he has concentrated almost entirely on film, his earlier career includes television cartoons and manga. Animation, which arrived in Japan with the American occupying force, has since the war become at once the embodiment of the country's antic modernity and also, in the hands of artists like Mr. Miyazaki, a vehicle for reimagining and preserving its history.

Mr. Miyazaki's movies, whose settings variously evoke medieval Japan, 19th-century Europe and the antique futures of Jules Verne and H. G. Wells, cast a sorrowful, sometimes scolding eye toward the present. The antiwar implications of "Howl's Moving Castle" are as unmistakable as the ecological warnings in "Nausicaä" and "Princess Mononoke," and in nearly every film, technological hubris, political ambition and greed are the true roots of evil. His criticism of the modern world, though, seems less topical than philosophical; his movies do not represent a point of view, but rather present a way of seeing that is radically at odds with what usually meets the eye.

It can hardly be denied that they are marvels of escapist entertainment, but this is in no small part because they offer escape from the noise and aggression that dominate so much other modern entertainment. His power to enchant can seem unlimited - the wizards, witches and sorcerers who bedevil, beguile and befriend his heroes are less his alter egos than his kinfolk - but it arises from and communicates an equally powerful sense of disenchantment.

It is not that Mr. Miyazaki's films are pessimis- tic, exactly; being fairy tales, they do arrive at happy endings.

("I'm not going to make movies that tell children, 'You should despair and run aw

So do certain stories, especially those

involving a resourceful, serious girl contending with the machinations of wise old women and the

sufferings of enigmatic young men. And so do certain themes: the catastrophic irrationality of war and other violence; the folly of disrespecting

nature; the moral complications that arise from ordinary acts of selfishness, vanity and even kindness.

As a visual artist, Mr. Miyazaki is both an extravagant fantasist and an exacting naturalist; as a storyteller, he is an inventor of fables that seem at once utterly new and almost unspeakably ancient. Their strangeness comes equally from the freshness and novelty he brings to the crowded marketplace of juvenile fantasy and from an unnerving, uncanny sense of familiarity, as if he were resurrecting legends buried deep in the collective unconscious.

Mr. Miyazaki's world is full of fantastical creatures - cute and fuzzy, icky and creepy, handsome and noble. There are lovable forest sprites, skittering dust balls and ravenous blobs of black viscous goo, as well as talking cats, pigs and frogs. "Howl's Moving Castle," adapted from a novel by Diana Wynne Jones, features a garrulous flame,

voiced in the English-language version by Billy Crystal; "Spirited Away" (2001) had its melancholy, wordless no-face monster; "Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind" (1984), the director's first masterpiece, was nearly overrun by enormous trilobite-shaped insects called Om.

Some of Mr. Miyazaki's creations seem to have precedents and analogues in folklore, fantasy literature and other cartoons. The porcine title character in the 1992 film "Porco Rosso," for example, is a dashing Italian pilot from the early days of aviation, and it is just conceivable that he might have a stuttering cousin somewhere on the Warner Brothers lot, looking for a pair of pants to match his blazer.

But most members of Mr. Miyazaki's ever-expanding menagerie - including Totoro, the slow-moving, pot-bellied, vaguely feline character who has become the logo and mascot of his Studio Ghibli - come entirely from the filmmaker's own prodigious imagination. Mr. Miyazaki was once asked where he thought his work fitted within the expanding universe of children's pop culture. "The truth is I have watched almost none of it," he said

with a slightly weary smile. "The only images I watch regularly come from the weather report."

The director, a compact, white-haired man whose demeanor combines gravity with a certain impishness, was not just being flip. It is hard to think of another filmmaker who is so passionately interested in weather. Violent storms, gentle breezes and sun-filled skies are vital, active elements, bearers of mood, emotion and meaning. His monsters and animals, who share the

screen with more conventionally human-looking animated figures - adolescent girls with wind-tossed hair, short skirts and saucer eyes, mustachioed soldiers and wrinkled crones - are an integral part of Mr. Miyazaki's landscape, but the most striking feature of his films may be the landscapes

themselves.

The action in his movies takes place far from the cramped cities of modern Japan, and also from the futuristic metropolises that provide the dystopian backdrop of so much anime. His characters tend to live in hillside villages or in tidy, old-world towns where

half- timbered houses huddle along cobblestone streets. As much as they can, in gliders, on broomsticks and under their own magical powers, these characters take to the sky; the evocation of flying, for metaphorical purposes and for the sheer

visual fun of it, is one of Mr. Miyazaki's favorite motifs. But one reason he ventures aloft may be to offer a better view of earth and water, which he renders with cinematic precision and painterly virtuosity.

Even though his frames evoke the careful brushwork and delicate emotions of Japanese landscape painting, Mr. Miyazaki is very much a product of postwar Japan, and he sits at the artistic and commercial pinnacle of his country's churning, eclectic visual culture. Though he has concentrated almost entirely on film, his earlier career includes television cartoons and manga. Animation, which arrived in Japan with the American occupying force, has since the war become at once the embodiment of the country's antic modernity and also, in the hands of artists like Mr. Miyazaki, a vehicle for reimagining and preserving its history.

Mr. Miyazaki's movies, whose settings variously evoke medieval Japan, 19th-century Europe and the antique futures of Jules Verne and H. G. Wells, cast a sorrowful, sometimes scolding eye toward the present. The antiwar implications of "Howl's Moving Castle" are as unmistakable as the ecological warnings in "Nausicaä" and "Princess Mononoke," and in nearly every film, technological hubris, political ambition and greed are the true roots of evil. His criticism of the modern world, though, seems less topical than philosophical; his movies do not represent a point of view, but rather present a way of seeing that is radically at odds with what usually meets the eye.

It can hardly be denied that they are marvels of escapist entertainment, but this is in no small part because they offer escape from the noise and aggression that dominate so much other modern entertainment. His power to enchant can seem unlimited - the wizards, witches and sorcerers who bedevil, beguile and befriend his heroes are less his alter egos than his kinfolk - but it arises from and communicates an equally powerful sense of disenchantment.

It is not that Mr. Miyazaki's films are pessimistic, exactly; being fairy tales, they do arrive at happy endings. ("I'm not going to make movies that tell children, 'You should despair and run away,' " he said.) But the route he chooses toward happiness can be troubling, perhaps especially to an American audience that expects sentimental affirmations based on clear demarcations between good and evil. The division of the world into heroes and villains is a habit Mr. Miyazaki regards with suspicion. "The concept of portraying evil and then destroying it - I know this is considered mainstream, but I think it's rotten," he said. "This idea that whenever something evil happens someone particular can be blamed and punished for it, in life and in politics, it's hopeless." Like the natural world, which follows its own laws and rhythms - "it does what the hell it pleases," in Mr. Miyazaki's words - human nature is not something that can easily be explained or judged.

In the Miyazakian cosmos, minds change, as do bodies, rivers, forests, nations and everything else. Wizards turn into birds of prey; young girls are transformed overnight into 90-year-old women; greedy parents are changed into pigs; shooting stars mutate into fire demons. You can call this magic - a word reviewers of Mr. Miyazaki's films seem helpless to avoid - or you can call it art. But it may just be that he reveals, in his quiet, moving, haunted pictures, the hidden senses of the word "animation," which after all means not only to set things in motion, but also, more profoundly, to bring them to life.So do certain stories, especially those involving a resourceful, serious girl contending with the machinations of wise old women and the sufferings of enigmatic young men. And so do certain themes: the catastrophic irrationality of war and other violence; the folly of disrespecting nature; the moral complications that

arise from ordinary acts of selfishness, vanity and even kindness.

As a visual

So do certain stories,

especially those involving a resourceful, serious girl contending

with the machinations of wise old women and the sufferings of enigmatic young men. And so do

certain themes: the catastrophic irrationality of war and other violence; the folly of disrespecting nature;

the moral complications that arise from ordinary acts of selfishness, vanity and even kindness.

As a visual artist, Mr. Miyazaki is both an extravagant fantasist and an exacting naturalist; as a storyteller, he is an inventor of fables that seem at once utterly new and almost unspeakably ancient. Their strangeness comes equally from the freshness and novelty he brings to the crowded marketplace of juvenile fantasy and from an unnerving, uncanny sense of familiarity, as if he were resurrecting legends buried deep in the collective unconscious.

Mr. Miyazaki's world is full of fantastical creatures - cute and fuzzy, icky and creepy, handsome and noble. There are lovable forest sprites, skittering dust balls and ravenous blobs of black viscous goo, as well as talking cats, pigs and frogs. "Howl's Moving Castle," adapted from a novel by Diana Wynne Jones, fea-tures a garrulous flame, voiced in the English-language version by Billy Crystal; "Spirited Away" (2001) had its melancholy, wordless no-face monster; "Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind" (1984), the director's first masterpiece, was nearly overrun by enormous trilobite-shaped insects called Om.

Some of Mr. Miyazaki's creations seem to have precedents and analogues in folklore, fantasy literature and other cartoons. The porcine title

character in the 1992 film "Porco Rosso," for example,

is a dashing

So do

certain stories,

especially those

involving a resourceful, serious

girl contending with the machinations of wise

old women and the sufferings of enigmatic young

men. And so do certain themes: the catastrophic irrationality

of war and other violence; the folly of disrespecting nature; the

moral complications that arise from ordinary acts of selfishness, vanity

and even kindness.

As a visual artist, Mr. Miyazaki is both an extravagant fantasist and an exacting

naturalist; as a storyteller, he is an inventor of fables that seem at once utterly

new and almost unspeakably ancient. Their strangeness comes equally from the freshness

and novelty he brings to the crowded marketplace of juvenile fantasy and from an

unnerving, uncanny sense of familiarity, as if he were resurrecting legends buried

deep in the collective unconscious.

Mr. Miyazaki's world is full of fantastical creatures - cute and fuzzy, icky and creepy, handsome and noble. There are lovable forest sprites, skittering dust balls and ravenous blobs of black viscous goo, as well as talking cats, pigs and frogs. "Howl's Moving Castle," adapted from a novel by Diana Wynne Jones, features a garrulous flame, voiced in the English-language version by Billy Crystal; "Spirited Away" (2001) had its melancholy,

wordless no-face monster; "Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind" (1984), the

director's first masterpiece, was nearly overrun by enormous

trilobite-shaped insects called Om.

Some of Mr. Mi-

So do certain

stories, especially those

involving a resourceful, serious girl

contending with the machinations of wise old women and

the sufferings of enigmatic young men. And so do certain themes: the catastrophic

irrationality of war and other violence; the folly of disrespecting nature; the moral complications that arise from

ordinary acts of selfishness, vanity and even kindness.

As a visual artist, Mr. Miyazaki is both an extravagant fantasist and an

exacting naturalist; as a storyteller, he is an inventor of

fables that seem at once utterly new and almost unspeakably ancient. Their strangeness comes equally from the freshness and novelty he brings to the crowded marketplace of

juvenile fantasy and from an unnerving, uncanny

sense of familiarity, as if he were resurrecting legends

buried deep in the collective unconscious.

Mr. Miyazaki's world is full of fantastical creatures - cute and fuzzy, icky and creepy, handsome and noble. There are lovable forest sprites, skittering dust balls and ravenous blobs of black viscous goo, as well as talking cats, pigs and frogs.

"Howl's Moving Castle," adapted from a novel by Diana Wynne Jones, features a garrulous flame, voiced in the English-language version by Billy Crystal; "Spirited Away" (2001) had its melancholy, wordless no-face monster; "Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind" (1984), the director's first masterpiece, was nearly overrun by enormous trilobite-shaped insects called Om.

Some of Mr. Miyazaki's creations seem to have precedents and analogues in folklore, fantasy literature and other cartoons. The porcine title character in the 1992 film "Porco Rosso," for example, is a dashing Italian pilot from the

early days of aviation, and it is just conceivable that he might have a stuttering cousin somewhere on the Warner Brothers lot, looking for a pair of pants to match his blazer. But most members of Mr. Miyazaki's ever-expanding

menagerie - including Totoro, the slow-moving, pot-bellied, vaguely feline char- acter who has become the logo and mascot of his Studio Ghibli - come entirely from the filmmaker's own prodigious

imagination. Mr. Miyazaki was once asked where he thought his work fitted within the expanding universe of children's pop culture.

"The truth is I have watched almost none of it," he said with a slightly weary smile. "The only images I watch

regularly come from the weather report."

The director, a compact, white-haired man whose demeanor combines gravity with a certain

impishness, was not just being flip. It is hard to think of another filmmaker who is so

passionately interested in weather. Violent storms, gentle breezes and sun-filled skies are vital, active

elements, bearers of mood, emotion and meaning. His monsters

So do certain stories, especially those

involving a resourceful, serious girl contending with the machinations of wise old women and the sufferings of enigmatic young men.

And so do certain themes: the catastrophic irrationality of war and other violence; the folly of disrespecting nature; the moral complications that arise from ordinary acts of

selfishness, vanity and even kindness.

As a visual artist, Mr. Miyazaki is both an extravagant fantasist and an exacting naturalist; as a storyteller, he is an inventor of fables that seem at once utterly new and almost unspeakably ancient. Their

strangeness comes equally from the freshness and novelty he brings to the crowded marketplace of juvenile fantasy and from an unnerving, uncanny sense of familiarity, as if he were resurrecting

legends buried deep in the collective unconscious.

Mr. Miyazaki's world is full of fantastical creatures - cute and fuzzy, icky and creepy, handsome and noble. There are lovable forest sprites, skittering dust

balls and ravenous blobs of black viscous goo, as well as talking cats, pigs and frogs. "Howl's Moving Castle," adapted

from a novel by Diana Wynne Jones, features a garrulous flame, voiced in the English-language version by Billy Crystal; "Spirited

Away" (2001) had its melancholy, wordless no-face monster; "Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind" (1984), the director's first

masterpiece, was nearly overrun by enormous trilobite-shaped insects called Om.

Some of Mr. Miyazaki's creations seem to have precedents and analogues in folklore, fantasy literature and other

cartoons. The porcine title character in the 1992 film "Porco Rosso," for example, is a dashing Italian pilot from the early days of aviation, and it is just conceivable that he might have a stuttering cousin somewhere on the Warner Brothers lot, looking for a pair of pants to match his blazer. But most members of Mr. Miyazaki's ever-expanding menagerie - including Totoro, the slow-moving, pot-bellied, vaguely feline character who has become the

logo and mascot of his Studio Ghibli

So do certain stories,

especially those involving a resourceful, serious

girl contending with the machinations of wise old women and the

sufferings of enigmatic young men. And so do certain themes: the catastrophic irrationality of war and other violence; the folly of disrespecting nature; the moral

complications that arise from ordinary acts of selfishness, vanity and even kindness.

As a visual artist, Mr. Miyazaki is both an extravagant fantasist and an exacting naturalist; as a storyteller, he is an inventor of fables that seem at once utterly new

and almost unspeakably ancient. Their strangeness comes equally from the freshness and novelty he brings to the crowded marketplace of juvenile fantasy and from an

unnerving, uncanny sense of familiarity, as if he were

So do certain sto-

ries, espe-cially those in-volving a re-sourceful, serious girl contending with the machi-

nations of wise old women and the sufferings of

enigmatic young men. And so do certain themes: the cata-

strophic irrationality of war and other violence; the folly of disrespecting nature; the moral complications that arise from ordinary acts of selfishness, vanity and even kindness.

As a visual artist, Mr. Miyazaki is both an extravagant fantasist and an exacting naturalist; as a storyteller, he is an inventor of fables that seem at once utterly new and almost unspeakably ancient. Their strangeness comes

equally from the freshness and novelty he brings to the crowded marketplace of juvenile fantasy and from an unnerving, uncanny sense of

fa-mil

i-a

So do certain

stories, especially those involving a

resourceful, serious girl contending with the machinations

of wise old women and the sufferings of enigmatic young men. And so do

certain themes: the catastrophic irrationality of war and other violence; the folly of disrespecting nature; the moral complications that arise from ordinary acts of selfishness, vanity and even kindness.

As a visual artist, Mr. Miyazaki is both an extravagant fantasist and an exacting naturalist; as a storyteller, he is an inven- tor of fables that seem at once utterly new and

almost unspeakably an- cient. Their strangeness

comes equally from the freshness and novelty he brings to the crowded marketplace of juvenile fantasy and from an unnerving, uncanny sense of

familiarity, as if he were resurrecting legends buried deep

in the collective unconscious.

Mr. Miyazaki's world is full of fantastical creatures - cute and fuzzy, icky and creepy, handsome and noble. There are lovable forest sprites, skittering dust balls and ravenous blobs of black viscous goo, as well as talking cats, pigs and frogs. "Howl's Moving

Castle," adapted from a novel by Diana Wynne Jones, features a garrulous

flame, voiced in the English-language version by Billy Crystal; "Spirited Away" (2001) had its melancholy, wordless no-face monster; "Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind" (1984), the director's first masterpiece, was nearly overrun by enormous trilobite-shaped insects called Om.

Some of Mr. Miyazaki's creations seem to have precedents and analogues in folklore,

fantasy literature and other cartoons. The porcine title character in the 1992 film "Porco

Rosso," for example, is a dashing Italian pilot from the early days of aviation, and it is just

conceivable that he might have a stuttering cousin somewhere on the Warner Brothers lot, looking for a pair of pants to match his blazer. But most members of Mr. Miyazaki's ever-expanding menagerie - including Totoro, the slow-moving, pot-bellied, vaguely feline character who has become the logo and mascot of his Studio Ghibli - come entirely from the filmmaker's own prodigious imagination. Mr. Miyazaki was once asked where he thought his work fitted within the expanding universe of children's pop culture. "The truth is I have watched almost none of it," he said with a slightly weary smile. "The only images I watch regularly come from the weather report."

The director, a compact, white-haired man whose demeanor combines gravity with a certain impishness, was not just being flip. It is hard to think of another filmmaker who is so passionately interested in weather. Violent storms, gentle breezes and sun-filled skies are vital, active elements, bearers of mood, emotion and meaning. His monsters and animals, who share the screen with more conventionally human-looking animated figures - adolescent girls with wind-tossed hair, short skirts and saucer eyes, mustachioed soldiers and wrinkled crones - are an integral part of Mr. Miyazaki's landscape, but the most striking feature of his films may be the landscapes themselves.

The action in his movies takes place far from the cramped cities of modern Japan, and also from the futuristic metropolises that provide the dystopian backdrop of so much anime. His characters tend to live in hillside villages or in tidy, old-world towns where half-timbered houses huddle along cobblestone streets. As much as they can, in gliders, on broomsticks and under their own magical powers, these characters take to the sky; the evocation of flying, for metaphorical purposes and for the sheer visual fun of it, is one of Mr. Miyazaki's favorite motifs. But one reason he ventures aloft may be to offer a better view of earth and water, which he renders with cinematic precision and painterly virtuosity.

Even though his frames evoke the careful brushwork and delicate emotions of Japanese landscape painting, Mr. Miyazaki is very much a product of postwar Japan, and he sits at the artistic and commercial pinnacle of his country's churning, eclectic visual culture. Though he has concentrated almost entirely on film, his earlier career includes television cartoons and manga. Animation, which arrived in Japan with the American occupying force, has since the war become at once the embodiment of the country's antic modernity and also, in the hands of artists like Mr. Miyazaki, a vehicle for reimagining and preserving its history.

Mr. Miyazaki's movies, whose settings variously evoke medieval Japan, 19th-century Europe and the antique futures of Jules Verne and H. G. Wells, cast a sorrowful, sometimes scolding eye toward the present. The antiwar implications of "Howl's Moving

Castle" are as unmistakable as the ecological warnings in "Nausicaä" and "Princess Mononoke," and in nearly every film, technological hubris, political ambition and greed are

the true roots of evil. His criticism of the modern world, though, seems less topical than philosophical; his movies do not represent a point of view, but rather present a way of seeing that is radically at odds with what usually meets the eye.

It can hardly be denied that they are marvels of escapist entertainment, but this is in no small part because they offer escape from the noise and aggression that dominate so much other modern entertainment. His power to enchant can seem unlimited - the wizards, witches and sorcerers who bedevil, beguile and befriend his heroes are less his alter egos than his kinfolk - but it arises from and communicates an equally powerful sense of disenchantment.

It is not that Mr. Miyazaki's films are pessimistic, exactly; being fairy tales, they do arrive at happy endings. ("I'm not going to make movies that tell children, 'You should despair and run away,' " he said.) But the route he chooses toward happi-ness can be troubling, perhaps especially to an American audience that expects sentimental affirmations based on clear

demarcations between good and evil. The division of the world into heroes and villains is a habit Mr. Miyazaki regards with suspicion. "The concept of portraying evil and then destroying it - I know this is considered

mainstream, but I think it's rotten," he said. "This idea that whenever something evil happens someone particular can be blamed and punished for it, in life and in politics, it's hopeless." Like the natural world, which follows its own laws and rhythms - "it does what the hell it pleases," in Mr. Miyazaki's words - human nature is not something that can easily be explained or judged.

In the Miyazakian cosmos, minds change, as do bodies, rivers, forests, nations and everything else. Wizards turn into birds of prey; young girls are transformed

overnight into 90-year-old women; greedy parents are changed into pigs; shooting stars mutate into fire demons. You can call this magic - a

word reviewers of Mr. Miyazaki's films seem helpless to avoid - or you can call it art. But it may just be that he

reveals, in his quiet, moving, haunted pic-tures, the hidden senses of the

word "animation," which

So do certain stories, especially those involving a resourceful, serious girl contending with the machinations of

wise old women and the sufferings of enigmatic young men. And so do certain themes: the catastrophic irrationality of war and other violence; the folly of disrespecting nature; the moral complications that arise from ordinary acts of selfishness, vanity and

even kindness.

As a visual artist, Mr. Miyazaki is both an extravagant fantasist and an exacting naturalist; as a storyteller, he is an inventor of fables that seem at once utterly new and almost unspeakably ancient. Their strangeness comes equally from the freshness and novelty he brings to the crowded marketplace of juvenile fantasy and from an unnerving,

uncanny sense of familiarity, as if he were resurrecting legends buried deep in the collective unconscious.

Mr. Miyazaki's world is full of fantastical creatures - cute and fuzzy, icky and creepy, handsome and noble. There are lovable forest sprites, skittering dust balls and ravenous blobs of black viscous goo, as well as talking cats, pigs and frogs. "Howl's Moving Castle," adapted from a novel by Diana Wynne Jones, features a garrulous flame, voiced in the English-language version by Billy Crystal; "Spirited

Away" (2001) had its melancholy, wordless no-face monster; "Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind" (1984), the director's first masterpiece, was nearly overrun by enormous trilobite-shaped insects called Om.

Some of Mr. Miyazaki's creations seem to have precedents and analogues in folklore, fantasy literature and other cartoons. The porcine title character in the 1992 film "Porco Rosso," for example, is a dashing Italian pilot from the early days of aviation, and it is just conceivable that he might have a stuttering cousin somewhere on the Warner Brothers lot, looking for a pair of pants to match his blazer. But most members of Mr.

Miyazaki's ever-expanding menagerie - including Totoro, the slow-moving, pot-bellied, vaguely feline character who has become the logo and mascot of his Studio Ghibli - come entirely from the filmmaker's own prodigious imagination. Mr. Miyazaki was once asked where he thought his work fitted within the expanding universe of children's pop culture. "The truth is I have watched almost none of it," he said with a slightly weary smile. "The only

images I watch regularly come from the weather report."

The director, a compact, white-haired man whose demeanor combines gravity with a certain impishness, was not just being flip. It is hard to think of another filmmaker who is so passionately interested in weather. Violent storms, gentle breezes and sun-filled skies are vital, active elements, bearers of mood, emotion and meaning. His monsters and animals, who share the screen with more conventionally human-looking animated figures -

adolescent girls with wind-tossed hair, short skirts and saucer eyes, mustachioed soldiers and wrinkled crones - are an integral part of Mr. Miyazaki's landscape, but the most striking feature of his films may be the landscapes themselves.

The action in his movies takes place far from the cramped cities of modern Japan, and also from the futuristic metropolises that provide the dystopian backdrop of so much anime. His characters tend to live in hillside villages or in tidy, old-world towns where half-timbered houses huddle along

cobblestone streets. As much as they can, in gliders, on broomsticks and under their own magical powers, these characters take to the sky; the evocation of flying, for metaphorical purposes and for the sheer visual fun of it, is one of Mr. Miyazaki's favorite motifs. But one reason he ventures aloft may

be to offer a better view of earth and water, which he renders with cinematic precision and painterly virtuosity.

Even though his frames evoke the careful brushwork and delicate emotions of Japanese landscape painting, Mr. Miyazaki is very much a product of postwar Japan, and he sits at the artistic and commercial pinnacle of his country's

churning, eclectic visual culture. Though he has concentrated almost entirely on film, his earlier career includes television cartoons and manga. Animation, which arrived in Japan with the American occupying force, has since the war become at once the embodiment of the country's antic modernity and also, in the hands of artists like Mr. Miyazaki, a vehicle for reimagining and preserving its history.

Mr. Miyazaki's movies, whose settings variously evoke medieval Japan, 19th-century Europe and the antique futures of Jules Verne and H. G. Wells, cast a sorrowful, sometimes scolding eye toward the

present.

So do certain

stories, especially those involving a

resourceful, serious girl contending with the machinations of

wise old women and the sufferings of enigmatic young men. And so do certain themes: the catastrophic irrationality of war and other violence; the folly of disrespecting nature; the moral complications that arise from ordinary acts of selfishness, vanity and even kindness.

As a visual artist, Mr. Miyazaki is both an extravagant fantasist and an exacting naturalist; as a storyteller, he is an inventor of fables that seem at once utterly new and almost unspeakably ancient. Their strangeness comes equally from the freshness and novelty he brings to the crowded marketplace of juvenile fantasy and from an unnerving, uncanny sense of familiarity, as if he were resurrecting legends buried deep in the collective unconscious.

Mr. Miyazaki's world is full of fantastical creatures - cute and fuzzy, icky and creepy, handsome and noble. There are lovable forest sprites, skittering dust balls and ravenous blobs of black viscous goo, as well as talking cats, pigs and frogs. "Howl's Moving Castle," adapted from a novel by Diana Wynne Jones, features a garrulous flame, voiced in the English-language version by Billy Crystal; "Spirited Away" (2001) had its melancholy, wordless no-face monster; "Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind" (1984), the director's first masterpiece, was nearly overrun by enormous trilobite-shaped insects called Om.

Some of Mr. Miyazaki's creations seem to have precedents and analogues in folklore, fantasy literature and other cartoons. The porcine title character in the 1992 film "Porco Rosso," for example, is a dashing Italian pilot from the early days of aviation, and it is just conceivable that he might have a stuttering cousin somewhere on the Warner Brothers lot, looking for a pair of pants to match his blazer. But most members of Mr. Miyazaki's ever-expanding menagerie - including Totoro, the slow-moving, pot-bellied, vaguely feline character who has become the logo and mascot of his Studio Ghibli - come entirely from the filmmaker's own prodigious imagination. Mr. Miyazaki was once asked where he thought his work fitted within the expanding universe of children's pop culture. "The truth is I have watched almost none of it," he said with a slightly weary smile. "The only images I watch regularly come from the weather report."

The director, a compact, white-haired man whose demeanor combines gravity with a certain impishness, was not just being flip. It is hard to think of another filmmaker who is so passionately interested in weather. Violent storms, gentle breezes and sun-filled skies are vital, active elements, bearers of mood, emotion and meaning. His monsters and animals, who share the screen with more conventionally human-looking animated figures - adolescent girls with wind-tossed hair, short skirts and saucer eyes, mustachioed soldiers and wrinkled crones - are an integral part of Mr. Miyazaki's landscape, but the most striking feature of his films may be the landscapes themselves.

The action in his movies takes place far from the cramped cities of modern Japan, and also from the futuristic metropolises that provide the dystopian backdrop of so much anime. His characters tend to live in hillside villages or in tidy, old-world towns where half-timbered houses huddle along cobblestone streets. As much as they can, in gliders, on broomsticks and under their own magical powers, these characters take to the sky; the evocation of flying, for metaphorical purposes and for the sheer visual fun of it, is one of Mr. Miyazaki's favorite motifs. But one reason he ventures aloft may be to offer a better view of earth and water, which he renders with cinematic precision and painterly virtuosity.

Even though his frames evoke the careful brushwork and delicate emotions of Japanese landscape painting, Mr. Miyazaki is very much a product of postwar Japan, and he sits at the artistic and commercial pinnacle of his country's churning, eclectic visual culture. Though he has concentrated almost entirely on film, his earlier career includes television cartoons and manga. Animation, which arrived in Japan with the American occupying force, has since the war become at once the embodiment of the country's antic modernity and also, in the hands of artists like Mr. Miyazaki, a vehicle for reimagining and preserving its history.

Mr. Miyazaki's movies, whose settings variously evoke medieval Japan, 19th-century Europe and the antique futures of Jules Verne and H. G. Wells, cast a sorrowful, sometimes scolding eye toward the present. The antiwar implications of "Howl's Moving Castle" are as unmistakable as the ecological warnings in "Nausicaä" and "Princess Mononoke," and in nearly every film, technological hubris, political ambition and greed are the true roots of evil. His criticism of the modern world, though, seems less topical than philosophical; his movies do not represent a point of view, but rather present a way of seeing that is radically at odds with what usually meets the eye.

It can hardly be denied that they are marvels of escapist entertainment, but this is in no small part because they offer escape from the noise and aggression that dominate so much other modern entertainment. His power to enchant can seem unlimited - the wizards, witches and sorcerers who bedevil, beguile and befriend his heroes are less his alter egos than his kinfolk - but it arises from and communicates an equally powerful sense of disenchantment.

It is not that Mr. Miyazaki's films are pessimistic, exactly; being fairy tales, they do arrive at happy endings. ("I'm not going to make movies that tell children, 'You should despair and run away,' " he said.) But the route he chooses toward happiness can be troubling, perhaps especially to an American audience that expects sentimental affirmations based on clear demarcations between good and evil. The division of the world into heroes and villains is a habit Mr. Miyazaki regards with suspicion. "The concept of portraying evil and then destroying it - I know this is considered mainstream, but I think it's rotten," he said. "This idea that whenever something evil happens someone particular can be blamed and punished for it, in life and in politics, it's hopeless." Like the natural world, which follows its own laws and rhythms - "it does what the hell it pleases," in Mr. Miyazaki's words - human nature is not something that can easily be explained or judged.

In the Miyazakian cosmos, minds change, as do bodies, rivers, forests, nations and everything else. Wizards turn into birds of prey; young girls are transformed overnight into 90-year-old women; greedy parents are changed into pigs; shooting stars mutate into fire demons. You can call this magic - a word reviewers of Mr. Miyazaki's films seem helpless to avoid - or you can call it art. But it may just be that he reveals, in his quiet, moving, haunted pictures, the hidden senses of the word "animation," which after all means not only to set things in motion, but also, more profoundly, to bring them to life.So do certain stories, especially those involving a resourceful, serious girl contending with the machinations of wise old women and the sufferings of enigmatic young men. And so do certain themes: the catastrophic irrationality of war and other violence; the folly of disrespecting nature; the moral complications that arise from ordinary acts of selfishness, vanity and even kindness.

As a visual artist, Mr. Miyazaki is both an extravagant fantasist and an exacting naturalist; as a storyteller, he is an inventor of fables that seem at once utterly new and almost unspeakably ancient. Their strangeness comes equally from the freshness and novelty he brings to the crowded marketplace of juvenile fantasy and from an unnerving, uncanny sense of familiarity, as if he were resurrecting legends buried deep in the collective unconscious.

Mr. Miyazaki's world is full of fantastical creatures - cute and fuzzy, icky and creepy, handsome and noble. There are lovable forest sprites, skittering dust balls and ravenous blobs of black viscous goo, as well as talking cats, pigs and frogs. "Howl's Moving Castle," adapted from a novel by Diana Wynne Jones, features a garrulous flame, voiced in the English-language version by Billy Crystal; "Spirited Away" (2001) had its melancholy, wordless no-face monster; "Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind" (1984), the director's first masterpiece, was nearly overrun by enormous trilobite-shaped insects called Om.

Some of Mr. Miyazaki's creations seem to have precedents and analogues in folklore, fantasy literature and other cartoons. The porcine title character in the 1992 film "Porco Rosso," for example, is a dashing Italian pilot from the early days of aviation, and it is just conceivable that he might have a stuttering cousin somewhere on the Warner Brothers lot, looking for a pair of pants to match his blazer. But most members of Mr. Miyazaki's ever-expanding menagerie - including Totoro, the slow-moving, pot-bellied, vaguely feline character who has become the logo and mascot of his Studio Ghibli - come entirely from the filmmaker's own prodigious imagination. Mr. Miyazaki was once asked where he thought his work fitted within the expanding universe of children's pop culture. "The truth is I have watched almost none of it," he said with a slightly weary smile. "The only images I watch regularly come from the weather report."

The director, a compact, white-haired man whose demeanor combines gravity with a certain impishness, was not just being flip. It is hard to think of another filmmaker who is so passionately interested in weather. Violent storms, gentle breezes and sun-filled skies are vital, active elements, bearers of mood, emotion and meaning. His monsters and

animals, who share the screen

So do certain stories, especially those involving a resourceful,

serious girl contending with the machinations of wise old women and the sufferings of enigmatic young men. And so do certain themes: the

catastrophic irrationality of war and other violence; the folly of disrespecting nature; the moral complications that arise from ordinary acts of selfishness, vanity and even kindness.

As a visual artist, Mr. Miyazaki is both an extravagant fantasist and an exacting naturalist; as a storyteller, he is an inventor of fables that seem at once utterly new and almost unspeakably ancient. Their strangeness comes equally from the freshness

and novelty he brings to the crowded marketplace of juvenile fantasy and from an unnerving, uncanny sense of familiarity, as if he were resurrecting legends buried deep in the collective unconscious.

Mr. Miyazaki's world is full of fantastical creatures - cute and fuzzy, icky and creepy, handsome and noble. There are lovable forest sprites, skittering dust balls and ravenous blobs of black viscous goo, as well as talking cats, pigs and frogs. "Howl's Moving Castle," adapted from a novel by Diana Wynne Jones,

features a garrulous flame, voiced in the English-language version by Billy Crystal; "Spirited Away" (2001) had its melancholy, wordless no-face monster; "Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind" (1984), the director's first masterpiece, was nearly overrun by enormous trilobite-shaped insects called Om.

Some of Mr. Miyazaki's creations seem to have precedents and analogues in folklore, fantasy literature and other cartoons. The porcine title character in the 1992 film "Porco Rosso," for example, is a dashing Italian pilot from the early days of aviation, and it is just conceivable that he might have a stuttering cousin somewhere on the Warner Brothers lot, looking for a pair

of pants to match his blazer. But most members of Mr. Miyazaki's ever-expanding menagerie - including Totoro, the slow-moving, pot-bellied, vaguely feline character who has become the logo and mascot of his Studio Ghibli - come entirely from the filmmaker's own prodigious imagination. Mr. Miyazaki was once asked where he thought his work fitted within the expanding universe of children's

pop culture. "The truth is I have watched almost none of it," he said with a slightly weary smile. "The only images I watch regularly come from the weather report."

The director, a compact, white-haired man whose demeanor combines gravity with a certain impishness, was not just being flip. It is hard to think of another filmmaker who is so passionately interested in weather. Violent storms, gentle breezes and sun-filled skies are vital, active elements, bearers of mood, emotion and meaning. His monsters and animals, who share the screen with more conventionally

human-looking animated figures - adolescent girls with wind-tossed hair, short skirts and saucer eyes, mustachioed soldiers and wrinkled crones - are an integral part of Mr. Miyazaki's landscape, but the most striking feature of his films may be the landscapes themselves.

The action in his movies takes place far from the cramped cities of modern Japan, and also from the futuristic metropolises that provide the dystopian backdrop of so much anime. His characters tend to live in hillside villages or in tidy, old-world towns where half-timbered houses huddle along cobblestone streets. As much as they can, in gliders, on broomsticks and under their own magical powers, these characters take to the sky; the

evocation of flying, for metaphorical purposes and for the sheer visual fun of it, is one of Mr. Miyazaki's favorite motifs. But one reason he ventures aloft may be to offer a better view of earth and water, which he renders with cinematic precision and painterly virtuosity.

Even though his frames evoke the careful brushwork and delicate emotions of Japanese landscape painting, Mr. Miyazaki is very much a product of postwar Japan, and he sits at the artistic and commercial pinnacle of his country's churning, eclectic visual culture. Though he has concentrated almost entirely on film, his earlier career includes television cartoons and manga. Animation, which arrived in Japan with the American occupying force, has since the war

become at once the embodiment of the country's antic modernity and also, in the hands of artists like Mr. Miyazaki, a vehicle for reimagining and preserving its history.

Mr. Miyazaki's movies, whose settings variously evoke medieval Japan, 19th-century Europe and the antique futures of Jules Verne and H. G. Wells, cast a sorrowful, sometimes scolding eye toward the present. The antiwar implications of "Howl's Moving Castle" are as unmistakable as the ecological warnings in "Nausicaä" and "Princess Mononoke," and in nearly every film, technological hubris, political ambition and greed are the true roots of evil. His criticism of the modern world, though, seems less topical than philosophical; his movies do not

represent a point of view, but rather present a way of seeing that is radically at odds with what usually meets the eye.

It can hardly be denied that they are marvels of escapist entertainment, but this is in no small part because they offer escape from the noise and aggression that dominate so much other modern entertainment. His power to enchant can seem unlimited - the wizards, witches and sorcerers who bedevil, beguile and befriend his heroes are less his alter egos than his kinfolk - but it arises from and communicates an equally powerful sense of disenchantment.

It is not that Mr. Miyazaki's films are pessimistic, exactly; being fairy tales, they do arrive at happy endings. ("I'm not going to make movies that tell children, 'You should despair and run away,' " he said.) But the route he chooses toward happiness can be troubling, perhaps especially to an American audience that expects sentimental affirmations based on clear demarcations between good and evil. The division of the world into heroes and villains is a habit Mr. Miyazaki regards with suspicion. "The concept of portraying evil and then destroying it - I know this is considered mainstream, but I think it's rotten," he said. "This idea that whenever something evil happens someone particular can be blamed and punished for it, in life and in politics, it's hopeless." Like

the natural world, which follows its own laws and rhythms - "it does what the hell it pleases," in Mr. Miyazaki's words - human nature is not something that can easily be explained or judged.

In the Miyazakian cosmos, minds change, as do bodies, rivers, forests, nations and everything else. Wizards turn into birds of prey; young girls are transformed overnight into 90-year-old women; greedy parents are changed into pigs; shooting stars mutate into fire demons. You can call this magic - a word reviewers of Mr. Miyazaki's films seem helpless to avoid - or you can call it art. But it may just be that he reveals, in his quiet, moving, haunted pictures, the hidden senses of the word "animation," which after all means not only to set things in motion, but also, more profoundly, to bring them to life.So do certain stories, especially those involving a resourceful, serious girl contending with the machinations of wise old women and the sufferings of enigmatic young men. And so do certain themes: the catastrophic irrationality of war and other violence; the folly of disrespecting nature; the moral

complications that arise from ordinary acts of selfishness, vanity and even kindness.

As a visual artist, Mr. Miyazaki is both an extravagant fantasist and an exacting naturalist; as a storyteller, he is an inventor of fables that seem at once utterly new and almost unspeakably ancient. Their strangeness comes equally from the freshness and novelty he brings to the crowded marketplace of juvenile fantasy and from an unnerving, uncanny sense of familiarity, as if he were resurrecting legends buried deep in the collective unconscious.

Mr. Miyazaki's world is full of fantastical creatures - cute and fuzzy, icky and creepy, handsome and noble. There are lovable forest sprites, skittering dust balls and ravenous blobs of black viscous goo, as well as talking cats, pigs and frogs. "Howl's Moving Castle," adapted from a novel by Diana Wynne Jones, features a garrulous flame, voiced in the English-language version by Billy Crystal; "Spirited Away" (2001) had its melancholy, wordless no-face monster; "Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind" (1984), the director's first masterpiece, was nearly overrun by enormous trilobite-shaped insects called Om.

Some of Mr. Miyazaki's creations seem to have precedents and analogues in folklore, fantasy literature and other cartoons. The porcine title character in the 1992 film "Porco Rosso," for example, is a dashing Italian pilot from the early days of aviation, and it is just conceivable that he might have a stuttering cousin somewhere on the Warner Brothers lot, looking for a pair of pants to match his blazer. But most members of Mr. Miyazaki's ever-expanding menagerie - including Totoro, the slow-moving, pot-bellied, vaguely feline character who has become the logo and mascot of his Studio Ghibli - come entirely from the filmmaker's own prodigious imagination. Mr. Miyazaki was once asked where he thought his work fitted within the expanding universe of children's pop culture. "The truth is I have watched almost none of it," he said with a slightly weary

smile. "The only images I watch regularly come from the weather report."

The director, a compact, white-haired man whose demeanor combines gravity with a certain impishness, was not just being flip. It is hard to think of another filmmaker who is so passionately interested in weather. Violent storms, gentle breezes and sun-filled skies are vital, active elements, bearers of mood, emotion and meaning. His monsters and animals, who share the screen with more conventionally human-looking animated figures - adolescent girls with wind-tossed hair, short skirts and saucer eyes, mustachioed soldiers and wrinkled crones - are an integral part of Mr. Miyazaki's landscape, but the most striking feature of his films may be the landscapes themselves.

The action in his movies takes place far from the cramped cities of modern Japan, and also from the futuristic metropolises that provide the dystopian backdrop of so much anime. His characters tend to live in hillside villages or in tidy, old-world towns where half-timbered houses huddle along cobblestone streets. As much as they can, in gliders, on broomsticks and under their own magical powers, these characters take to the sky; the evocation of flying, for metaphorical purposes and for the sheer visual fun of it, is one of Mr. Miyazaki's favorite motifs. But one reason he ventures aloft may be to offer a better view of earth and water, which he renders with cinematic precision and painterly virtuosity.

Even though his frames evoke the careful brushwork and delicate emotions of Japanese landscape painting, Mr. Miyazaki is very much a product of postwar Japan, and he sits at the artistic and commercial pinnacle of his country's churning, eclectic visual culture. Though he has concentrated almost entirely on film, his earlier career includes television cartoons and manga. Animation, which arrived in Japan with the American occupying force, has since the war become at once the embodiment of the country's antic modernity and also, in the hands of artists like Mr. Miyazaki, a vehicle for reimagining and preserving its history.

Mr. Miyazaki's movies, whose settings variously evoke medieval Japan, 19th-century Europe and the antique futures of Jules Verne and H. G. Wells, cast a sorrowful, sometimes scolding eye toward the present. The antiwar implications of "Howl's Moving Castle" are as unmistakable as the ecological warnings in "Nausicaä" and "Princess Mononoke," and in nearly every film, technological hubris, political ambition and greed are the true roots of evil. His criticism of the modern world, though, seems less topical than philosophical; his movies do not represent a point of view, but rather present a way of seeing that is radically at odds with what usually meets the eye.

It can hardly be denied that they are marvels of escapist entertainment, but this is in no small part because they offer escape from the noise and aggression that dominate so much other modern entertainment. His power to enchant can seem unlimited - the wizards, witches and sorcerers who bedevil, beguile and befriend his heroes are less his alter egos than his kinfolk - but it arises from and communicates an equally powerful sense of disenchantment.

It is not that Mr. Miyazaki's films are pessimistic, exactly; being fairy tales, they do arrive at happy endings. ("I'm not going to make movies that tell children, 'You should despair and run away,' " he said.) But the route he chooses toward happiness can be troubling, perhaps especially to an American audience that expects sentimental affirmations based on clear demarcations between good and evil. The division of the world into heroes and villains is a habit Mr. Miyazaki regards with suspicion. "The concept of portraying evil and then destroying it - I know this is considered mainstream, but I think it's rotten," he said. "This idea that whenever something evil happens someone particular can be blamed and punished for it, in life and in politics, it's hopeless." Like the natural world, which follows its own laws and rhythms - "it does what the hell it pleases," in Mr. Miyazaki's words - human nature is not something that can easily be explained or judged.

In the Miyazakian cosmos, minds change, as do bodies, rivers, forests, nations and everything else. Wizards turn into birds of prey; young girls are transformed overnight into 90-year-old women; greedy parents are changed into pigs; shooting stars mutate into fire demons. You can call this magic - a word reviewers of Mr. Miyazaki's films seem helpless to avoid - or you can call it art. But it may just be that he reveals, in his quiet, moving, haunted pictures, the hidden senses of the word "animation," which

after all means not only to set things in motion, but also, more profoundly, to bring them to life.So do certain stories, especially those involving a resourceful, serious girl contending with the machinations of wise old women and the sufferings of enigmatic young men. And so do certain themes: the catastrophic irrationality of war and other violence; the folly of disrespecting nature; the moral complications that arise

from ordinary acts of selfishness, vanity and even kindness.

As a visual artist, Mr. Miyazaki is both an extravagant fantasist and an exacting naturalist; as a storyteller, he is an inventor of fables that seem at once utterly new and almost unspeakably ancient. Their strangeness comes equally from

the freshness and novelty he brings to the crowded marketplace of juvenile fantasy and from an unnerving, uncanny sense of familiarity, as if he were resurrecting legends buried deep in the collective unconscious.

Mr. Miyazaki's world is full of fantastical creatures - cute and fuzzy, icky and creepy, handsome and noble. There are lovable forest sprites, skittering dust balls and ravenous blobs of black viscous

goo, as well as talking cats, pigs and frogs. "Howl's Moving Castle," adapted from a novel by Diana Wynne Jones, features a garrulous flame, voiced in the English-language version by Billy Crystal; "Spirited Away" (2001) had its melancholy, wordless no-face monster; "Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind" (1984), the director's first masterpiece, was nearly overrun by enormous trilobite-shaped insects called Om.

Some of Mr. Miyazaki's creations seem to have precedents and analogues in folklore, fantasy literature and other cartoons. The porcine title character in the 1992 film "Porco Rosso," for exam-ple, is a dashing Italian pilot from the early days of

aviation, and it is just conceivable that he might have a stuttering cousin somewhere on the Warner

Brothers lot, looking for a pair of pants to match his blazer. But most members of Mr.

Miyazaki's ever-expanding menagerie - including Totoro, the slow-moving,

pot-bellied, vaguely feline character who has become

the logo and

So do certain

stories, especially those involving a resourceful, serious girl contending with the machinations of wise old women and the sufferings of enigmatic young men. And so do certain themes: the catastrophic irrationality of war and other violence; the folly of disrespecting nature; the moral complications that arise from ordinary acts of selfishness, vanity and even kindness.

As a visual artist, Mr. Miyazaki is both an extravagant fantasist and an exacting naturalist; as a storyteller, he is an inventor of fables that seem at once utterly new and almost unspeakably ancient. Their strangeness comes equally from the freshness and novelty he brings to the crowded marketplace of juvenile fantasy and from an unnerving, uncanny sense of familiarity, as if he were resurrecting legends buried deep in the collective unconscious.

Mr. Miyazaki's world is full of fantastical creatures - cute and fuzzy, icky and creepy, handsome and noble. There are lovable forest sprites, skittering dust balls and ravenous blobs of black viscous goo, as well as talking cats, pigs and frogs. "Howl's Moving Castle," adapted from a novel by Diana Wynne Jones, features a garrulous flame, voiced in the English-language version by Billy Crystal; "Spirited Away" (2001) had its melancholy, wordless no-face monster; "Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind" (1984), the director's first masterpiece, was nearly overrun by enormous trilobite-shaped insects called Om.

Some of Mr. Miyazaki's creations seem to have precedents and analogues in folklore, fantasy literature and other cartoons. The porcine title character in the 1992 film "Porco Rosso," for example, is a dashing Italian pilot from the early days of aviation, and it is just conceivable that he might have a stuttering cousin somewhere on the Warner Brothers lot, looking for a pair of pants to match his blazer. But most members of Mr. Miyazaki's ever-expanding menagerie - including Totoro, the slow-moving, pot-bellied, vaguely feline character who has become the logo and mascot of his Studio Ghibli - come entirely from the filmmaker's own prodigious imagination. Mr. Miyazaki was once asked where he thought his work fitted within the expanding universe of children's pop culture. "The truth is I have watched almost none of it," he said with a slightly weary smile. "The only images I watch regularly come from the weather report."

The director, a compact, white-haired man whose demeanor combines gravity with a certain impishness, was not just being flip. It is hard to think of another filmmaker who is so passionately interested in weather. Violent storms, gentle breezes and sun-filled skies are vital, active elements, bearers of mood, emotion and meaning. His monsters and animals, who share the screen with more conventionally human-looking animated figures - adolescent girls with wind-tossed hair, short skirts and saucer eyes, mustachioed soldiers and wrinkled crones - are an integral part of Mr. Miyazaki's landscape, but the most striking feature of his films may be the landscapes themselves.

The action in his movies takes place far from the cramped cities of modern Japan, and also from the futuristic metropolises that provide the dystopian backdrop of so much anime. His characters tend to live in hillside villages or in tidy, old-world towns where half-timbered houses huddle along cobblestone streets. As much as they can, in gliders, on broomsticks and under their own magical powers, these characters take to the sky; the evocation of flying, for metaphorical purposes and for the sheer visual fun of it, is one of Mr. Miyazaki's favorite motifs. But one reason he ventures aloft may be to offer a better view of earth and water, which he renders with cinematic precision and painterly virtuosity.

Even though his frames evoke the careful brushwork and delicate emotions of Japanese landscape painting, Mr. Miyazaki is very much a product of postwar Japan, and he sits at the artistic and commercial pinnacle of his country's churning, eclectic visual culture. Though he has concentrated almost entirely on film, his earlier career includes television cartoons and manga. Animation, which arrived in Japan with the American occupying force, has since the war become at once the embodiment of the country's antic modernity and also, in the hands of artists like Mr. Miyazaki, a vehicle for reimagining and preserving its history.

Mr. Miyazaki's movies, whose settings variously evoke medieval Japan, 19th-century Europe and the antique futures of Jules Verne and H. G. Wells, cast a sorrowful, sometimes scolding eye toward the present. The antiwar implications of "Howl's Moving Castle" are as unmistakable as the ecological warnings in "Nausicaä" and "Princess Mononoke," and in nearly every film, technological hubris, political ambition and greed are the true roots of evil. His criticism of the modern world, though, seems less topical than philosophical; his movies do not represent a point of view, but rather present a way of seeing that is radically at odds with what usually meets the eye.

It can hardly be denied that they are marvels of escapist entertainment, but this is in no small part because they offer escape from the noise and aggression that dominate so much other modern entertainment. His power to enchant can seem unlimited - the wizards, witches and sorcerers who bedevil, beguile and befriend his heroes are less his alter egos than his kinfolk - but it arises from and communicates an equally powerful sense of disenchantment.

It is not that Mr. Miyazaki's films are pessimistic, exactly; being fairy tales, they do arrive at happy endings. ("I'm not going to make movies that tell children, 'You should despair and run away,' " he said.) But the route he chooses toward happiness can be troubling, perhaps especially to an American audience that expects sentimental affirmations based on clear demarcations between good and evil. The division of the world into heroes and villains is a habit Mr. Miyazaki regards with suspicion. "The concept of portraying evil and then destroying it - I know this is considered mainstream, but I think it's rotten," he said. "This idea that whenever something evil happens someone particular can be blamed and punished for it, in life and in politics, it's hopeless." Like the natural world, which follows its own laws and rhythms - "it does what the hell it pleases," in Mr. Miyazaki's words - human nature is not something that can easily be explained or judged.

In the Miyazakian cosmos, minds change, as do bodies, rivers, forests, nations and everything else. Wizards turn into birds of prey; young girls are transformed overnight into 90-year-old women; greedy parents are changed into pigs; shooting stars mutate into fire demons. You can call this magic - a word reviewers of Mr. Miyazaki's films seem helpless to avoid - or you can call it art. But it may just be that he reveals, in his quiet, moving, haunted pictures, the hidden senses of the word "animation," which after all means not only to set things in motion, but also, more profoundly, to bring them to life.So do certain stories, especially those involving a resourceful, serious girl contending with the machinations of wise old women and the sufferings of enigmatic young men. And so do certain themes: the catastrophic irrationality of war and other violence; the folly of disrespecting nature; the moral complications that arise from ordinary acts of selfishness, vanity and even kindness.

As a visual artist, Mr. Miyazaki is both an extravagant fantasist and an exacting naturalist; as a storyteller, he is an inventor of fables that seem at once utterly new and almost

unspeakably ancient. Their strangeness comes equally from the freshness and novelty he brings to the crowded marketplace of juvenile fantasy and from an unnerving, uncanny

sense of familiarity, as if he were resurrecting legends buried deep in the collective unconscious.

Mr. Miyazaki's world is full of fantastical creatures - cute and fuzzy, icky and creepy, handsome and noble. There are lovable

forest sprites, skittering dust balls and ravenous blobs of black viscous goo, as well as

talking cats, pigs and frogs. "Howl's Moving

So do certain stories,

especially those involving a resourceful, serious girl contending with the machinations of wise old

women and the sufferings of enigmatic young men. And so do certain themes: the catastrophic irrationality of war and other vio-

lence; the folly of disrespecting nature; the moral complications that arise from ordi-nary acts of selfishness, vanity and even kindness.

As a visual artist, Mr. Miyazaki is both an extravagant fantasist and an exacting naturalist; as a storyteller, he is an in-ventor of fables that seem at once utterly new and almost unspeakably ancient. Their strangeness

comes equally from the freshness and novelty he brings to the crowded marketplace of juvenile fantasy and from an unnerving, uncanny sense

of familiarity, as if he were resurrecting legends

buried deep in the collective unconscious.

Mr. Miyazaki's world is full of

fantastical creatures - cute

and fuzzy, icky and creepy,

handsome and noble. There are lovable forest sprites,

skittering dust balls and ravenous blobs of black viscous goo,

So do certain stories,

especially those involving a resourceful, serious girl

contending with the machinations of wise old women

and the sufferings of enigmatic young men. And so do

certain themes: the catastrophic irrationality of

war and other violence; the folly of disrespecting nature; the moral complications that

arise from ordinary acts of selfishness, vanity and even kindness.

As a visual artist, Mr. Miyazaki is both an extravagant fantasist and

an exacting naturalist; as a storyteller, he is an inventor of

fables that seem at once utterly new and almost unspeakably ancient. Their strangeness comes equally from the

freshness and novelty he brings to the crowded marketplace of juvenile fantasy and from an unnerving, uncanny sense of

familiarity, as if he were resurrecting

legends buried deep in the

collec-tive un

The conscious

sense of mystery is the

core of Mr. Miyazaki's art. Spend enough time in his world and you may find your perception of your own world refreshed, as it might be by a similarly intensive im-mersion in the oeuvre of Ansel Adams, J. M. W. Turner or Monet. After a while, certain vistas - a rolling meadow dappled with flowers and shadowed by high cumulus clouds, a range of rocky foothills rising toward snow-capped peaks, the fading light at the edge of a forest - deserve to be called Miyazakian.

So do certain stories, especially those involving a resourceful, serious girl contending with the machinations of wise old women and the sufferings of enigmatic young men. And so do certain themes: the catastrophic irrationality of war and other violence; the folly of disrespecting nature; the moral complications that arise from ordinary acts of selfishness, vanity and even kindness.

As a visual artist, Mr. Miyazaki is both an extravagant fantasist and an exacting naturalist; as a storyteller, he is an inventor of fables that seem at once utterly new and almost unspeakably ancient. Their strangeness comes equally from the freshness and novelty he brings to the crowded marketplace of juvenile fantasy and from an unnerving, uncanny sense of familiarity, as if he were resurrecting legends buried deep in the collective unconscious.

Mr. Miyazaki's world is full of fantastical creatures - cute and fuzzy, icky and creepy, handsome and noble. There are lovable forest sprites, skittering dust balls and ravenous blobs of black viscous goo, as well as talking cats, pigs and frogs. "Howl's Moving Castle," adapted from a novel by Diana Wynne Jones, features a garrulous flame, voiced in the English-language version by Billy Crystal; "Spirited Away" (2001) had its melancholy, wordless no-face monster; "Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind" (1984), the director's first masterpiece, was nearly overrun by enormous trilobite-shaped in- sects called Om.

Some of Mr. Miyazaki's creations seem to have prec- edents and analogues in folklore, fantasy literature and other cartoons. The porcine title character in the 1992 film "Porco Rosso," for example, is a dashing Italian pilot from the early days of aviation, and it is just conceivable that he might have a stuttering cousin somewhere on the Warner Brothers lot, looking for a pair of pants to match his blazer. But most members of Mr. Miyazaki's ever-expanding menagerie - including Totoro, the slow-moving, pot-bellied, vaguely feline character who has become the logo and mascot of his Studio Ghibli - come entirely from the filmmaker's own prodigious imagination. Mr. Miyazaki was once asked where he thought his work fitted within the expanding universe of children's pop culture. "The truth is I have watched almost none of it," he said with a slightly weary smile. "The only images I watch regularly come from the weather report."The conscious sense of mystery is the core of Mr. Miyazaki's art. Spend enough time in his world and you may find your perception of your own world refreshed, as it might be by a similarly intensive immersion in the oeuvre of Ansel Adams, J. M. W. Turner or Monet. After a while, certain vistas - a rolling meadow dappled with flowers and shadowed by high cumulus clouds, a range of rocky foothills rising toward snow-capped peaks, the fading light at the edge of a forest - deserve to be called Miyazakian.

So do certain stories, especially those involving a resourceful, serious girl contending with the machinations of wise old women and the sufferings of enigmatic young men. And so do certain themes: the catastrophic irrationality of war and other violence; the folly of disrespecting nature; the moral complications that arise from ordinary acts of selfishness, vanity and even kindness.

As a visual artist, Mr. Miyazaki is both an extravagant fantasist and an exacting naturalist; as a storyteller, he is an inventor of fables that seem at once utterly new and almost unspeakably ancient. Their strangeness comes equally from the freshness and novelty he brings to

the crowded marketplace of juvenile fantasy and from an unnerving, uncanny sense of familiarity, as if he were resurrecting legends buried deep in the collective unconscious.

Mr. Miyazaki's world is full of fantastical creatures - cute and fuzzy, icky and creepy, handsome and noble. There are lovable forest sprites, skittering dust balls and ravenous blobs of black

viscous goo, as well as talking cats, pigs and frogs. "Howl's Moving Castle," adapted from a novel by Diana Wynne Jones, features a garrulous

flame, voiced in the English-language

Some of Mr. Mi-yazaki's

creations seem to

have prec-

edents and

ana-

logues in folklore,

fan-t

as well as talking cats,

pigs and frogs. "Howl's Moving Castle," adapted from a novel by Diana Wynne Jones, features a

garrulous flame, voiced in the English-language version by Billy Crystal; "Spirited Away" (2001) had its melancholy, wordless no-face monster;

"Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind" (1984), the director's first masterpiece, was nearly overrun by enormous trilobite-shaped insects called Om.

Some of Mr. Miyazaki's creations seem to have precedents and analogues in folklore, fantasy literature and other car-toons. The porcine title character in the 1992 film "Porco Rosso," for example, is a dashing

Italian pilot from the early days of aviation, and it is just conceivable that he might have a stuttering cousin somewhere on the Warner

Brothers lot, looking for a pair of pants to match his

blazer. But most members of Mr. Miyazaki's ever-expanding

menagerie - including Totoro, the

slow-moving, pot-bellied,

vaguely feline character who

has become the logo and mascot of his

Studio Ghibli - come entirely from the filmmaker's own prodigious imagination. Mr. Miyazaki was

Already a hit in many

countries, "Ponyo," in an English-language

version, with Tina Fey and Matt Damon among those providing

the voices, was released by Walt Disney Studios on Aug. 14, 2009.

At the age of 68, with almost 20 features to his credit, Mr. Miyazaki has become a beacon for those who believe that animation has a special power to tell stories with universal appeal. "He celebrates the quiet moments," said John Lasseter, the chief creative officer of Pixar and Disney Animation Studios, in enumerating traits that make Mr. Miyazaki "one of the most original" filmmakers ever.

Already a hit in many countries, "Ponyo," in an English-language version, with Tina Fey and Matt Damon among those providing the voices, was released by Walt Disney Studios on Aug. 14, 2009.

At the age of 68, with almost 20 features to his credit, Mr. Miyazaki has become a beacon for those who believe that animation has a special power to tell stories with universal appeal. "He celebrates the quiet moments," said John Lasseter, the chief creative officer of Pixar and Disney Animation Studios, in enumerating traits that make Mr. Miyazaki "one of the most original" filmmakers ever.

Already a hit in many countries, "Ponyo," in an English-language version, with Tina Fey and Matt Damon among those providing the voices, was released by Walt Disney Studios on Aug. 14, 2009.

At the age of 68, with almost 20 features to his credit, Mr. Miyazaki has become a beacon for those who believe that animation has a special power to tell stories with universal appeal. "He celebrates the quiet moments," said John Lasseter, the chief creative officer of Pixar and Disney Animation Studios, in enumerating traits that make Mr. Miyazaki "one of the most original" filmmakers ever.

Already a hit in many countries, "Ponyo," in an English-language version, with Tina Fey and Matt Damon among those providing the voices, was released by Walt Disney Studios on Aug. 14, 2009.

At the age of 68, with almost 20 features to his credit, Mr. Miyazaki has become a beacon for those who believe that animation has a special power to tell stories with universal appeal. "He celebrates the quiet moments," said John Lasseter, the chief creative officer of Pixar and Disney Animation Studios, in enumerating traits that make Mr. Miyazaki "one of the most

original" filmmakers ever.

Already a hit in many countries, "Ponyo," in an English-language version, with Tina Fey and Matt Damon among those providing the voices, was released by Walt Disney Studios on Aug. 14, 2009.

At the age of 68, with almost 20 features to his credit, Mr. Miyazaki has become a beacon for those who believe that animation has a special power to tell stories

with universal appeal. "He celebrates the quiet moments," said John Lasseter, the chief creative officer of Pixar and Disney Animation Studios, in

enumerating traits that make Mr. Miyazaki "one of the most original" filmmakers ever.

Already a hit in many countries, "Ponyo," in an English-language version, with Tina Fey and Matt Damon among those providing the voices, was released by Walt Disney Studios on Aug. 14, 2009.

At the age of 68, with almost 20 features to his credit, Mr. Miyazaki has become a beacon for those who believe that animation has a special power to tell stories with universal appeal. "He celebrates the quiet moments," said John Lasseter, the chief creative officer of Pixar and Disney Animation

Studios, in enumerating traits that make Mr. Miyazaki "one of the most original" filmmakers ever.

Already a hit in many countries, "Ponyo," in an English-language version, with Tina Fey and Matt Damon among those providing the voices, was released by Walt Disney Studios on Aug. 14, 2009.

At the age of 68, with almost 20 features to his credit, Mr. Miyazaki has become a beacon for those who believe that animation has a special power to tell stories with universal appeal. "He celebrates the

quiet moments," said John

Al-ready a hit in many

countries, "Ponyo," in an English-language version, with Tina Fey and Matt Damon among those

providing the voices, was released by Walt Disney Studios on Aug. 14, 2009.

At the age of 68, with almost 20 features to his credit, Mr. Miyazaki has become a beacon for those who believe that animation has a special power to tell stories with

universal appeal. "He celebrates the quiet moments," said John Lasseter, the chief creative officer of Pixar and Disney Animation Studios, in enumerating traits that make

Mr. Miyazaki "one of the most original" filmmakers ever.

Already a hit in many countries, "Ponyo," in an English-language version, with Tina Fey and Matt Damon among those providing the voices, was released by Walt Disney Studios on Aug. 14, 2009.

At the age of 68, with almost 20 features to his credit, Mr. Miyazaki has become a beacon for those who believe that animation has a special power to tell stories with universal appeal. "He celebrates the quiet moments," said John Lasseter, the chief creative officer of Pixar and Disney Animation Studios, in enumerating traits that make Mr. Miyazaki "one of the most original" filmmakers ever.

Already a hit in many countries, "Ponyo," in an English-language version, with Tina Fey and Matt Damon among those providing the voices, was released by Walt Disney Studios on Aug. 14, 2009.

At the age of 68, with almost 20 features to his credit, Mr. Miyazaki has become a beacon for those who believe that animation has a special power to tell stories with universal appeal. "He celebrates the quiet moments," said John Lasseter, the chief creative officer of Pixar and Disney Animation Studios, in enumerating traits that make Mr. Miyazaki "one of the

most original" filmmakers ever.

Already a hit in many countries, "Ponyo," in an English-language version, with Tina Fey and Matt Damon among those providing the voices, was released by Walt Disney Studios on Aug. 14, 2009.

At the age of 68, with almost 20 features to his credit, Mr. Miyazaki has become a beacon for those who believe that animation has a special power to tell stories with universal appeal. "He celebrates the quiet moments," said John

Lasseter, the chief creative officer of Pixar and Disney Animation Studios, in enumerating traits that make Mr. Miyazaki "one of the most original" filmmakers ever.

Already a hit in many countries, "Ponyo," in an English-language version, with Tina Fey and Matt Damon among those providing the voices, was released by Walt Disney

Studios on Aug. 14, 2009.

At the age of 68, with almost 20 features to his credit, Mr. Miyazaki has become a beacon for those who believe that

animation has a special power to tell stories with universal appeal. "He celebrates the quiet

moments," said John Lasseter, the chief creative officer of Pixar and

Disney Animation Studios, in enumerating

traits

Mr. Miyazaki does not crave

publicity. He was, for instance, a no-show at the Oscar ceremony.

But on July 24, 2009, he addressed a room full of

admirers at the 40th Comic-Con International, a comics, fantasy and film convention to

be held in San Diego. The next day he received the Japan Prize of the Center for

Japanese Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, awarded annually to a person who has brought the

world closer to Japan. And that July 28, in Beverly Hills, he was honored by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences - the day after

the United States premiere, in Hollywood, of his "Ponyo," about a 5-year-old boy and a goldfish princess in a world gone awry.

Already a hit in many countries, "Ponyo," in an English-language version, with Tina Fey and Matt Damon among those providing the voices, was released by Walt Disney Studios on Aug. 14, 2009.Mr. Miyazaki does not crave publicity. He was, for instance, a no-show at the Oscar

ceremony. But on July 24, 2009, he addressed a room full of admirers at the 40th Comic-Con International, a comics, fantasy and film convention to be held in San

Diego. The next day he received the Japan Prize of the Center for Japanese Studies at the University of California,

Berkeley, awarded annually to a person who has brought the world closer to Japan. And

that July 28, in Beverly Hills, he was honored by the Academy of

Motion Picture Arts and Sci-

Mr. Miyazaki does not

crave publicity. He was, for instance, a

no-show at the Oscar ceremony. But on July 24,

2009, he addressed a room full of admirers at the 40th Comic-Con

International, a comics, fantasy and film convention to be held in San

Diego. The next day he received the Japan Prize of the Center for Japanese Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, awarded annually to a person who has brought

the world closer to Japan. And that July 28, in Beverly Hills, he was honored by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences - the day after the United States premiere, in Hollywood, of his "Ponyo," about a 5-year-old boy and a goldfish princess in a world gone awry.

Already a hit in many countries, "Ponyo," in an English-language version, with Tina Fey and Matt Damon among those providing the voices, was released by Walt Disney Studios on Aug. 14, 2009.Mr. Miyazaki does not crave

publicity. He was, for instance, a no-show at the Oscar ceremony. But on July 24, 2009, he addressed a room full of admirers at the 40th Comic-Con International, a comics, fantasy and film convention to be

held in San Diego. The next day he received the Japan Prize of the Center for Japanese Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, awarded annually to a person who has brought the world closer to Japan. And that July 28, in Beverly Hills, he was honored by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences - the day after the United States premiere, in Hollywood, of his "Ponyo," about a 5-year-old boy and a

goldfish princess in a world gone awry.

Already a hit in many countries, "Ponyo,"

Hayao Miyazaki is

regarded by many people as the world's

greatest maker of animated films. In 2003,

his film "Spirited Away" won the Academy Award for

best animated feature.

Hayao Miyazaki is regarded by many people as the

world's greatest maker of animated films. In 2003, his film "Spirited Away" won the Academy Award for best animated feature.

Hayao Miyazaki is regarded by many people as the world's greatest maker of animated films. In 2003, his film "Spirited Away" won the Academy Award for best animated fea-ture.

Mr. Miyazaki does

not crave publicity. He was, for instance, a no-show at the Oscar ceremony. But on July 24, 2009, he addressed a room full of admirers at the 40th Comic-Con International, a comics, fantasy and film convention to be held in San Diego. The next day he received the Japan Prize of the Center for Japanese Studies

at the University of California, Berkeley, awarded annually to a person who has brought the world closer to Japan. And that July 28, in Beverly Hills, he was honored by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences - the day after the United States premiere, in Hollywood, of his "Ponyo," about a 5-year-old boy and a goldfish princess in a world gone awry.

Already a hit in many countries, "Ponyo," in an English-language version, with Tina Fey and Matt Damon among those providing the voices, was released by Walt Disney Studios on Aug. 14, 2009.Mr. Miyazaki does not crave publicity. He was, for instance, a no-show at the Oscar ceremony. But on July 24, 2009, he addressed a room full of admirers at the 40th Comic-Con International, a comics, fantasy and film convention to be held in

San Diego. The next day he received the Japan Prize of the Center for Japanese Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, awarded annually to a person who has brought the world closer to Japan. And that July 28, in Beverly

Hills, he was honored by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences - the day after the United States premiere, in Hollywood, of his

"Ponyo," about a 5-year-old boy and a goldfish princess in a world gone awry.

Already a hit in many countries, "Ponyo," in an English-language version,

with Tina Fey and Matt Damon among those providing the voi

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H a y a o M i y a z a k i i s r e g a r d e d b y m a n y p e o p l e a s t h e w o r l d ' s g r e a t e s t m a k e r o f a n i m a t e d � l m s . I n 2 0 0 3 , h i s � l m " S p i r i t e d A w a y " w o n t h e A c a d e m y A w a r d f o r b e s t a n i m a t e d f e a t u r e .M r . M i y a z a k i d o e s n o t c r a v e p u b l i c i t y . H e w a s , f o r i n s t a n c e , a n o - s h o w a t t h e O s c a r c e r e m o n y . B u t o n J u l y 2 4 , 2 0 0 9 , h e a d d r e s s e d a r o o m f u l l o f a d m i r e r s a t t h e 4 0 t h C o m i c - C o n I n t e r n a t i o n a l , a c o m i c s , f a n t a s y a n d � l m c o n v e n t i o n t o b e h e l d i n S a n D i e g o . T h e n e x t d a y h e r e c e i v e d t h e J a p a n P r i z e o f t h e C e n t e r f o r J a p a n e s e S t u d i e s a t t h e U n i v e r s i t y o f C a l i f o r n i a , B e r k e l e y , a w a r d e d a n n u a l l y t o a p e r s o n w h o h a s b r o u g h t t h e w o r l d c l o s e r t o J a p a n . A n d t h a t J u l y 2 8 , i n B e v e r l y H i l l s , h e w a s h o n o r e d b y t h e A c a d e m y o f M o t i o n P i c t u r e A r t s a n d S c i e n c e s - t h e d a y a f t e r t h e U n i t e d S t a t e s p r e m i e r e , i n H o l l y w o o d , o f h i s " P o n y o , " a b o u t a 5 - y e a r - o l d b o y a n d a g o l d � s h p r i n c e s s i n a w o r l d g o n e a w r y .

H a y a o M i y a z a k i i s

r e g a r d e d b y m a n y p e o p l e a s t h e w o r l d ' s g r e a t e s t m a k e r o f

a n i m a t e d � l m s . I n 2 0 0 3 , h i s � l m " S p i r i t e d A w a y " w o n t h e A c a d e m y A w a r d f o r b e s t a n i m a t e d

f e a t u r e .M r . M i y a z a k i d o e s n o t c r a v e p u b l i c i t y . H e w a s , f o r i n s t a n c e , a n o - s h o w a t t h e O s c a r c e r e m o n y . B u t o n J u l y 2 4 , 2 0 0 9 , h e a d d r e s s e d a r o o m f u l l o f a d m i r e r s a t t h e 4 0 t h C o m i c - C o n I n t e r n a t i o n a l , a c o m i c s , f a n t a s y a n d � l m c o n v e n t i o n t o b e h e l d i n S a n D i e g o . T h e n e x t d a y h e r e c e i v e d t h e J a p a n P r i z e o f t h e C e n t e r f o r J a p a n e s e S t u d i e s a t t h e U n i v e r s i t y o f C a l i f o r n i a , B e r k e l e y , a w a r d e d a n n u a l l y t o a p e r s o n w h o h a s b r o u g h t t h e w o r l d c l o s e r t o J a p a n . A n d t h a t J u l y 2 8 , i n B e v e r l y H i l l s , h e w a s h o n o r e d b y t h e A c a d e m y o f M o t i o n P i c t u r e A r t s a n d S c i e n c e s - t h e d a y a f t e r t h e U n i t e d S t a t e s p r e m i e r e , i n H o l l y w o o d , o f h i s " P o n y o , " a b o u t a 5 - y e a r - o l d b o y a n d a g o l d � s h p r i n c e s s i n a w o r l d g o n e a w r y .

Hayao Miyazaki is

regarded by many people as the world's

greatest maker of animated �lms. In 2003, his �lm "Spirited

Away" won the Academy Award for best

animated feature.Mr. Miyazaki

does no

h ay a o hayao the

world'

s great

est maker

the wo

rld' s

grea

test make

r

grea

te

st mak

er

gr

eates

t ma

ke

r

of ani

mated

films.

In 2

003,

his film

In

200

3,

his

In 2003, h

is

his film "Spirited

won the Academy

for be

st ani

mated

animated

Mr.

Mi

yazaki

Mr. Miy

azaki

does not

crave publicity.

He was, for i

nsta

nce,

a no-show

a no-show at

the Os

car

the Os

car

ceremony. But

ceremony. But

ceremony. But

on July

24,

2009, he add

ressed

a

room

full

of admirers

at the 40th

Comic-Co

n

Comic-Co

n

Interna

ti

onal

a comics,

fan

tasy

a comics,

fan

tasy

convention to be

he

ld in Sa

n Di

ego.

The

ne

xt day

he received

he received

the

Japa

n Prize

the

Japa

n Prize

the

Japa

n Prize

Center f

or

Center f

or

Japa

nese Studi

es

Japa

nese Studi

es

at the Universit

y

at the Universit

y

at the Universit

y

of

California, Berkele

y,

awarded annually to a person who

has brought th

e worl

d closer to Japan

And that July 28, in

Beverl

y Hills, he was honored by the Academy of

the day after the United States premiere, in Hollywood, of his "Ponyo,"

about a 5-year-

old

boy and a goldfish princess in

Al

ready a

hit in many countries,

w ith Tin

a Fe

y and Matt

w ith Tin

a Fey

and Matt

wa

s released

b

y Walt Disney

wa

s released

b

y Walt Disney

At

t

he age o

f 68

, with almost

20 features to his credit,

20 features to his credit,

20 features to his credit,

20 features to his credit,

Mr. Miyazaki

has

become a beacon

Mr. Miyazaki has become a

Mr. Miyazaki has become a

Mr. Miyazaki has become a

Mr. Miyazaki has become a

for th

ose who beli

eve that

animation has a special power

animation has a special power

to tell stories with unive

rsal

to tell stories with universal

to tel

l

stories with universal

appeal

. "H

e celebrates the

appeal. "He celebrates the

appeal. "He celebrates the

said John

Lasset

er, the chief

Disney A nimation Studios,

traits that make Mr. Miyazaki

traits that make Mr. Miyazaki

traits that make Mr.

traits that make Mr. Miyazaki "one of

traits that make Mr. Miyazaki "one

of "one of the most original"

"one of the most

Mr. Miyazaki's work ha

s

Mr. Miyazaki's work has often combined

traditional techniques

tradition

a

traditional techniques and has provided

tradition

tradition

al technique

s

traditional tech

niqu

es and

has provided

"Toy S

t

ory"

"Toy S

t

ory"

Mr. Miyazaki roo

ts are i

n both

manga and anime

(comic books and ani

mated

manga and anim

e (comic books and anim

ated

Starting with

his 19

97 epic,

"Princess Mononoke

," he has used comput

er-generated

"Princess Mononoke

," he has used comput

er-generated

The conscious

sense

of mystery

is the core

The conscious

sense

of mystery

is the core

The conscious

sense of mys

tery

The conscious s

ense of mystery

is the core of M

r. Miyaza

ki's

The conscious sense of mystery is the core of Mr.

Miyazaki's

Spend enough time in

his

world

and you

may find

Spend enough time in his world

and

you may find

Spend enough time in his world and you may find

Spend eno

ugh time in

his world

and you may fi

nd your

percepti

on of

and you may find y

our

percep

ti

on o

f your

and you may find

your perception

of your own world

wn world refreshed, as i

t might

be by a

wn world refreshed

, as i

t mi

ght be

by a similarly

wn world refreshed, a s it might be by a similarly

w

n world re

f

reshed, as

w

n world refreshed, as

wn

world r

efre

shed, as it might be by

wn world refreshed, as it might

wn world refreshed, as it might be by

wn world re

freshed, as

it might be by a similarly intensive

wn world refreshed, as it might be by a similarly intensive

similarly intensive immersion in

simi

larl

y intensive immersion in the oeuvre

similarly intensive immersion in the oeuvre

similarly intensive immers

ion in the

similarly intensive immersion in the oeuvre

Afte

r a while, certain vist as - a rolling

Af

ter a while, certain vistas -

After a while, certain vistas - a rolling meadow dappled with flowers and

certain vistas - a rolling meadow

certain vistas - a rolling meadow dapple

d

a rolling meadow

a rolling meadow dappled with flowers

a rolling meadow dappled with flowers and shadowe

d

shadowed by high cumulus clouds,

shadowed by high s

hadowed by

shadowed by high cumulus clouds,

shadowed by high cumulus

shadowed b

y hi

gh cumulus

shadowed by h

igh cumulus

shadowed by high cumulus cloud

s,

shadowed by high cumul

us

shadowed by high cumulu

s clouds

,

shadowed by high cumul

us

range of rocky foothills

range of rocky

range of rocky

r a n g e o f r o c k y

r a n g e o f r o c k y

ra

nge of rocky

range of

rocky

range

of

rock

y

peaks, the fading

peaks, the fa

di

ng

peaks, the fading light at the

peaks, the fading light at the edge of a

peaks, the fading light

at the edge of a

deserve to be called

d e serve to be

shadowed by high cumulus clouds,

Mr. Miyazaki's world

is full of fantastical creatures - cute and fuzzy, icky and

creepy, handsome and noble. There are lovable forest sprites, skittering dust balls and ravenous blobs of black viscous goo, as well as

talking cats, pigs and frogs. "Howl's Moving Castle," adapted from a novel by Diana Wynne Jones,

features a garrulous flame, voiced in the English-language version by Billy Crystal; "Spirited Away"

(2001) had its melancholy, wordless no-face monster; "Nausicaä of the Valley of the

Wind" (1984), the director's first masterpiece, was nearly

overrun by enor-

Mr. Miyazaki's world is full of fantastical creatures - cute and fuzzy, icky and creepy, handsome and noble. There are lovable forest sprites, skittering dust balls and ravenous blobs of black viscous goo, as well as talking cats, pigs and frogs. "Howl's Moving Castle," adapted from a novel by Diana Wynne Jones, features a garrulous flame, voiced in the English-language version by Billy Crystal; "Spirited Away" (2001) had its melancholy, wordless no-face mon-ster; "Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind" (1984), the direc-tor's first masterpiece, was nearly overrun by enormous trilobite-shaped insects called Om.

Some of Mr. Miyazaki's creations seem to have precedents and analogues in folklore, fantasy literature and other cartoons. The porcine title character in the 1992 film "Porco Rosso," for example, is a dashing Italian pilot from the early days of aviation, and it is just conceivable that he might have a stuttering cousin somewhere on the Warner Brothers lot, looking for a pair of pants to match his blazer. But most members of Mr. Miyazaki's ever-expanding menagerie - including Totoro, the slow-moving, pot-bellied, vaguely feline character who has become the logo and mascot of his Studio Ghibli - come entirely from the filmmaker's own prodigious imagination. Mr. Miyazaki was once asked where he thought his work fitted within the expanding universe of children's pop culture. "The truth is I have watched almost none of it," he said with a slightly weary smile. "The only images I watch regularly come from the weather report." Some of Mr. Miyazaki's creations seem to have precedents and analogues in folklore, fantasy literature and other cartoons. The porcine title character in the 1992 film "Porco Rosso," for example, is a dashing Italian pilot from the early days of aviation, and it is just conceivable that he might have a stuttering cousin somewhere on the Warner Brothers lot, looking for a pair of pants to match

Some of Mr. Miyazaki's creations seem to have precedents and analogues in folklore, fantasy literature and other cartoons. The porcine title character in the 1992 film "Porco Rosso," for exam-ple, is a dashing Italian pilot from the early days of aviation, and it is just conceivable that he might have a stuttering cousin somewhere on the Warner Brothers lot, looking for a pair of pants to match his blazer. But most members of Mr. Miyazaki's ever-expanding menagerie - including Totoro, the slow-moving, pot-bellied, vaguely feline character who has become the logo and mascot of his Studio Ghibli - come entirely from the filmmaker's own prodigious imagina-tion. Mr. Miyazaki was once asked where he thought his work fitted within the expanding universe of children's pop culture. "The truth is I have watched almost none of it," he said with a slightly weary smile. "The only images I watch regularly come

The director, a com-pact, white-haired man whose demeanor com-bines gravity with a certain impishness, was not just being flip. It is hard to think of an-other filmmaker who is so passionately inter-ested in weather. Vio-lent storms, gentle breezes and sun-filled skies are vital, active elements, bearers of mood, emotion and meaning. His monsters and animals, who share the screen with more conventionally human-looking ani-mated figures - adoles-

The director, a compact, white-haired man whose demeanor com-bines gravity with a certain impish-ness, was not just being flip. It is hard to think of another filmmaker who is so passionately interested in weather. Violent storms, gentle breezes and sun-filled skies are vital, active ele-ments, bearers of mood, emotion and meaning. His mon-sters and animals,

T h e a c t i o n i n h i s m o v i e s

t a k e s p l a c e f a r f r o m t h e

c r a m p e d c i t i e s o f m o d e r n

J a p a n , a n d a l s o f r o m t h e f u t u r -

i s t i c m e t r o p o -l i s e s t h a t p r o -

v i d e t h e d y s t o -p i a n

The action in his

movies takes place far from the cramped cities

of modern Japan, and also from the futuristic metropolises that provide

the dystopian backdrop of so much anime. His characters tend to live in

hillside villages or in tidy, old-world towns where half-timbered

houses huddle along cobblestone

streets. As mu

T h e a c t i o n i n

h i s m o v i e s t a k e s p l a c e f a r f r o m

t h e c r a m p e d c i t i e s o f m o d e r n J a p a n , a n d a l s o

f r o m t h e f u t u r i s t i c m e -t r o p o l i s e s t h a t p r o v i d e

t h e d y s t o p i a n b a c k d r o p o f

s o m u c h a n i

The action in his movies takes place far from the cramped cities of modern Japan, and also from the futuristic metropolises that provide the dystopian backdrop of so much anime. His characters tend to live in hillside villages or in tidy, old-world towns where half-timbered houses huddle along cob-blestone streets. As much

Mr. Miyazaki's movies, whose set-tings variously evoke medieval Japan, 19th-century Europe and the antique futures of Jules Verne and H. G. Wells, cast a sorrowful, some-times scolding eye toward the pre-sent. The antiwar implications of "Howl's Moving Castle" are as un-mistakable as the ecological warn-ings in "Nausicaä" and "Princess Mononoke," and in nearly every film, technological hubris, political ambition and greed are the true roots of evil. His criticism of the modern world, though, seems less topical than philosophical; his movies do not represent a point of view, but rather present a way of

Mr. Miyazaki's movies, whose set-tings variously evoke medieval Japan, 19th-century Europe and the antique futures of Jules Verne and H. G. Wells, cast a sorrowful, some-times scolding eye toward the pre-sent. The antiwar implications of "Howl's Moving Castle" are as un-mistakable as the ecological warn-ings in "Nausicaä" and "Princess Mononoke," and in nearly every film, technological hubris, political ambition and greed are the true roots of evil. His criticism of the modern world, though, seems less topical than philosophical; his movies do not represent a point of view, but rather present a way of

t can hardly be denied that they are mar vels of es-capist enter tain-ment , but this is in no small par t be-cause they offer escape from the noise and aggres-

t can hardly be denied that they are mar vels of es-capist enter tain-ment , but this is in no small par t be-cause they offer escape from the noise and aggres-

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www.elmalpensante.comhttp://topics.nytimes.com/topics/reference/timestopics/

people/m/hayao_miyazaki/index.htmlmikeedwards.co.uk

weburbanist.comwww.mediacircus.co.nz

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