Styles and themes of Hayao Miyazaki
Encyclopedia
Hayao Miyazaki
is a prominent Japan
ese filmmaker and producer whose animated
works are characterised by several recurring themes and motifs.
Many of these recurrent features are notable for being so uncommon in the medium, for example the lack of evil or villain
characters, the advocacy of a pacifist
ethic and prominence of feminism
. Other features are more notable for being personal idiosyncrasies, such as the obsession with flight
and the symbolism of water
. The formal emphasis placed on these various elements constitutes a running discourse that transcends the individual works and creates a larger, ongoing meta-narrative.
and former prostitutes
that she shelters have great respect for her. The film culminates in reconciliation, rather than the vanquishing of some irredeemable evil. This theme is unusual for an animated film, as most films in the genre clearly divide good and evil.
Miyazaki stated in Spirited Away, "the heroine [is] thrown into a place where the good and bad dwell together. [...] She manages not because she has destroyed the 'evil,' but because she has acquired the ability to survive."
Miyazaki has explained that the lack of clearly defined good and evil is because of his views of the 21st century as a complex time, where old norms no longer are true and need to be re-examined. Simple stereotypes cannot be used, even in children's films. Even though Miyazaki sometimes feels pessimistic
about the world, he prefers to show children a positive world view instead.
Some of Miyazaki's early films featured distinctly evil villains, as in Castle of Cagliostro or Castle in the Sky; other films are remarkable for having no villains at all, as in Kiki's Delivery Service and My Neighbor Totoro. Some of these have a strong flavour of traditional Japanese culture and ancient animistic
spiritual beliefs.
and the Earth's fragility, especially in the context of critiquing development and pollution.
In My Neighbor Totoro, the great tree tops a hillside on which magical creatures reside, and the family worships this tree. This ecological consciousness is echoed in Princess Mononoke with the giant primordial forest, trees, flowers and wolves. In Spirited Away, Miyazaki's environmental concerns surface in the "stink spirit", a river spirit who has been polluted and who must be cleansed in the bath house. Miyazaki explains in the DVD commentary that the inspiration for this scene was a personal experience of his own when he helped to clean a polluted river near his home. This theme is also reflected in the story of the river spirit Haku, whose river had been destroyed by a building project. In Miyazaki's most recent film, Ponyo, Ponyo's father shows a strong dislike for humans and their filth. This is evidenced by the disgusting condition of the bay area where Sosuke lives and the net catching nothing but garbage that also forces Ponyo into a glass bottle.
In Princess Mononoke, Castle in the Sky and Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, the ecological paradise is threatened by military men and violent state-controlled armies. In each film, the conflict between the natural way of life and the military destruction of culture, land and resources is central to the plight of the protagonists. When battle scenes are shown in each, the militaristic music and ecological destruction is paramount to the endangerment of the inhabitants of the villages.
In an interview with The New Yorker
, Miyazaki claimed that much of modern culture is "thin and shallow and fake", and "not entirely jokingly" looked forward to an apocalyptic age in which "wild green grasses" take over. Growing up in the Shōwa period
was an unhappy time for him because "nature — the mountains and rivers — was being destroyed in the name of economic progress." Nonetheless, he suggests that adults should not "impose their vision of the world on children."
", Kamajii tells Haku that Chihiro saved him from Zeniba's curse using the power of her love for him. In "Howl's Moving Castle
" Sophie's confidence in herself and her love for Howl breaks the curse laid upon her by the Wicked Witch of the Waste. In "Porco Rosso
" he becomes human again when he is kissed by Fio. In Miyazaki's screenplay of "Whisper of the Heart
" Shizuku's love for Seiji makes her follow her passion of writing and write the book while Seiji is away in Cremona, Italy. In "Ponyo", if Sousuke's love for Ponyo was true then the world would be saved.
In 2003, when Spirited Away won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, Miyazaki did not attend the awards show personally. He later explained that it was because he "didn’t want to visit a country that was bombing Iraq".
, especially human flight
, is a recurring theme in Miyazaki's films. He thinks of flight as a form of liberation from gravity. The Studio Ghibli 2002 short film Imaginary Flying Machines is completely devoted to the wonders of flight and is voiced by Miyazaki himself.
In addition to the many aerial devices and drawings of Laputa: Castle in the Sky, which is a flying city, this theme is found in Nausicaä
piloting her Mehve and the airborne armies in Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, Kiki riding her broomstick and watching dirigibles fly over her city in Kiki’s Delivery Service, the large Totoro carrying Satsuki and Mei across the night sky in My Neighbor Totoro
, Chihiro riding on Haku's back when in his dragon form in Spirited Away
and Howl and Sophie soaring above their town in Howl's Moving Castle
. The protagonist in Porco Rosso
is a pilot and the film is focused on flying, airplanes and aerial combat, as well as the connection between flight, Ascension and the afterlife.
Interestingly, one of Miyazaki's most successful films, Princess Mononoke
, does not contain a flying sequence, or any flying characters. However, it could be argued that the scenes in which Yakul leaps across large rocks and ledges are moments of "flight".
is apparent in some of his films, such as Porco Rosso. In Castle in the Sky, the working class is portrayed in idealized terms. In Future Boy Conan
, the ideologies of the friendly town High Harbor and the antagonistic nation Industria are reversed from their source in the (Cold War
-era) Alexander Key
novel The Incredible Tide
on which the series is based—the originally Communist Industria becomes a runaway capitalist state, and the capitalist High Harbor becomes a farming commune.
Miyazaki abandoned Marxism while creating his manga Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind. However, Miyazaki still holds many socialist
ideas and is critical of capitalism
, globalization
and their impacts on modern life. Commenting on the 1954 Animal Farm animated film
, he has said that "exploitation is not only found in communism, capitalism is a system just like that. I believe a company is common property of the people that work there. But that is a socialistic
idea."
by Studio Ghibli President Toshio Suzuki, in reference to his attitude to female workers. This is evident in the all-female factories of Porco Rosso
and Princess Mononoke
, as well as the matriachal bath-house of Spirited Away
. All of Miyazaki's films are populated by strong female protagonists that go against gender roles common in Japanese animation and fiction, from pirate captains to industrialists. Even in lighter films such as Kiki's Delivery Service
, all of the leading characters are professional women such as artists (Ursula), bakers (Orsono), fashion-designers (Maki) and witches (Kiki and Kokiri).
Miyazaki has expressed strong feelings about childhood, saying that it's a paradisical time when "you're protected by your parents and unaware of the problems around you". His views of children in the modern world are a bit worried, though, as he wonders about their dependence on the "virtual
world" and the lack of contact with the natural world. Because of this, he creates his films inspired by children near himself, with an aim to "understand their world".
). Miyazaki’s characters are often on the verge of discorporating into liquid entirely: from the stink-demon, to the river dragon spirit Haku in Spirited Away
and the God-Warrior at the climax of Nausicaa
to the globular henchmen of the Witch of the Waste in Howl's Moving Castle
. This theme is pivotal throughout 2009's Ponyo. This conflict between the two themes of flight and watery dissolution is best embodied in the seaplanes of Porco Rosso
, the heroes being able to navigate through both worlds. Water symbolically represents the contradictions of entrapment and freedom, life and death.
Miyazaki has stated his warm appreciation for Shinto
water purification rituals, and these have been cited as the inspiration for the role of water in Spirited Away
: the characters of Haku the river dragon and the polluted river spirit; the setting and function of the bathhouse itself. Rain as an element is also a key plot device in both Kiki's Delivery Service
and My Neighbour Totoro.
Hayao 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,...
is a prominent Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
ese filmmaker and producer whose animated
Animation
Animation is the rapid display of a sequence of images of 2-D or 3-D artwork or model positions in order to create an illusion of movement. The effect is an optical illusion of motion due to the phenomenon of persistence of vision, and can be created and demonstrated in several ways...
works are characterised by several recurring themes and motifs.
Many of these recurrent features are notable for being so uncommon in the medium, for example the lack of evil or villain
Villain
A villain is an "evil" character in a story, whether a historical narrative or, especially, a work of fiction. The villain usually is the antagonist, the character who tends to have a negative effect on other characters...
characters, the advocacy of a pacifist
Pacifism
Pacifism is the opposition to war and violence. The term "pacifism" was coined by the French peace campaignerÉmile Arnaud and adopted by other peace activists at the tenth Universal Peace Congress inGlasgow in 1901.- Definition :...
ethic and prominence of feminism
Feminism
Feminism is a collection of movements aimed at defining, establishing, and defending equal political, economic, and social rights and equal opportunities for women. Its concepts overlap with those of women's rights...
. Other features are more notable for being personal idiosyncrasies, such as the obsession with flight
Flight
Flight is the process by which an object moves either through an atmosphere or beyond it by generating lift or propulsive thrust, or aerostatically using buoyancy, or by simple ballistic movement....
and the symbolism of water
Water
Water is a chemical substance with the chemical formula H2O. A water molecule contains one oxygen and two hydrogen atoms connected by covalent bonds. Water is a liquid at ambient conditions, but it often co-exists on Earth with its solid state, ice, and gaseous state . Water also exists in a...
. The formal emphasis placed on these various elements constitutes a running discourse that transcends the individual works and creates a larger, ongoing meta-narrative.
Good and evil
Most of Miyazaki's characters are dynamic, capable of change, and not easily caricatured into traditional good-evil dichotomies. Many menacing characters have redeeming features, and are not firmly defined as antagonists. In Princess Mononoke, Lady Eboshi destroys the forest for industrial raw materials without the concerns for animals' life; however lepersLeprosy
Leprosy or Hansen's disease is a chronic disease caused by the bacteria Mycobacterium leprae and Mycobacterium lepromatosis. Named after physician Gerhard Armauer Hansen, leprosy is primarily a granulomatous disease of the peripheral nerves and mucosa of the upper respiratory tract; skin lesions...
and former prostitutes
Prostitution
Prostitution is the act or practice of providing sexual services to another person in return for payment. The person who receives payment for sexual services is called a prostitute and the person who receives such services is known by a multitude of terms, including a "john". Prostitution is one of...
that she shelters have great respect for her. The film culminates in reconciliation, rather than the vanquishing of some irredeemable evil. This theme is unusual for an animated film, as most films in the genre clearly divide good and evil.
Miyazaki stated in Spirited Away, "the heroine [is] thrown into a place where the good and bad dwell together. [...] She manages not because she has destroyed the 'evil,' but because she has acquired the ability to survive."
Miyazaki has explained that the lack of clearly defined good and evil is because of his views of the 21st century as a complex time, where old norms no longer are true and need to be re-examined. Simple stereotypes cannot be used, even in children's films. Even though Miyazaki sometimes feels pessimistic
Pessimism
Pessimism, from the Latin word pessimus , is a state of mind in which one perceives life negatively. Value judgments may vary dramatically between individuals, even when judgments of fact are undisputed. The most common example of this phenomenon is the "Is the glass half empty or half full?"...
about the world, he prefers to show children a positive world view instead.
Some of Miyazaki's early films featured distinctly evil villains, as in Castle of Cagliostro or Castle in the Sky; other films are remarkable for having no villains at all, as in Kiki's Delivery Service and My Neighbor Totoro. Some of these have a strong flavour of traditional Japanese culture and ancient animistic
Animism
Animism refers to the belief that non-human entities are spiritual beings, or at least embody some kind of life-principle....
spiritual beliefs.
Environmentalism
Miyazaki's films often emphasize environmentalismEnvironmentalism
Environmentalism is a broad philosophy, ideology and social movement regarding concerns for environmental conservation and improvement of the health of the environment, particularly as the measure for this health seeks to incorporate the concerns of non-human elements...
and the Earth's fragility, especially in the context of critiquing development and pollution.
In My Neighbor Totoro, the great tree tops a hillside on which magical creatures reside, and the family worships this tree. This ecological consciousness is echoed in Princess Mononoke with the giant primordial forest, trees, flowers and wolves. In Spirited Away, Miyazaki's environmental concerns surface in the "stink spirit", a river spirit who has been polluted and who must be cleansed in the bath house. Miyazaki explains in the DVD commentary that the inspiration for this scene was a personal experience of his own when he helped to clean a polluted river near his home. This theme is also reflected in the story of the river spirit Haku, whose river had been destroyed by a building project. In Miyazaki's most recent film, Ponyo, Ponyo's father shows a strong dislike for humans and their filth. This is evidenced by the disgusting condition of the bay area where Sosuke lives and the net catching nothing but garbage that also forces Ponyo into a glass bottle.
In Princess Mononoke, Castle in the Sky and Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, the ecological paradise is threatened by military men and violent state-controlled armies. In each film, the conflict between the natural way of life and the military destruction of culture, land and resources is central to the plight of the protagonists. When battle scenes are shown in each, the militaristic music and ecological destruction is paramount to the endangerment of the inhabitants of the villages.
The New Yorker
The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
, Miyazaki claimed that much of modern culture is "thin and shallow and fake", and "not entirely jokingly" looked forward to an apocalyptic age in which "wild green grasses" take over. Growing up in the Shōwa period
Showa period
The , or Shōwa era, is the period of Japanese history corresponding to the reign of the Shōwa Emperor, Hirohito, from December 25, 1926 through January 7, 1989.The Shōwa period was longer than the reign of any previous Japanese emperor...
was an unhappy time for him because "nature — the mountains and rivers — was being destroyed in the name of economic progress." Nonetheless, he suggests that adults should not "impose their vision of the world on children."
Love
Many of Miyazaki's films deal with the power of love. In Miyazaki's films, the power of love is enough to break curses set upon people. In "Spirited AwaySpirited Away
is a 2001 Japanese animated fantasy-adventure film written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki and produced by Studio Ghibli. The film tells the story of Chihiro Ogino, a sullen ten-year-old girl who, while moving to a new neighborhood and after her parents are transformed into pigs by the witch Yubaba,...
", Kamajii tells Haku that Chihiro saved him from Zeniba's curse using the power of her love for him. In "Howl's Moving Castle
Howl's Moving Castle
Howl's Moving Castle is a young adult fantasy novel by British author Diana Wynne Jones, first published in 1986. It won a Boston Globe-Horn Book Award and was named an ALA Notable Book for both children and young adults. In 2004 it was adapted as an Academy Award-nominated animated film by Hayao...
" Sophie's confidence in herself and her love for Howl breaks the curse laid upon her by the Wicked Witch of the Waste. In "Porco Rosso
Porco Rosso
Porco Rosso, known in Japan as is the sixth anime film directed by Hayao Miyazaki, produced by Studio Ghibli and released in 1992, of an Italian World War I fighter ace, now living as a freelance bounty hunter chasing "air pirates" in the Adriatic Sea. The man has been cursed and transformed into...
" he becomes human again when he is kissed by Fio. In Miyazaki's screenplay of "Whisper of the Heart
Whisper of the Heart
Whisper of the Heart, known in Japan as is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Aoi Hiiragi. The manga was serialized in Shueisha's shōjo manga magazine Ribon between August and November 1989. A single bound volume was released in February 1990...
" Shizuku's love for Seiji makes her follow her passion of writing and write the book while Seiji is away in Cremona, Italy. In "Ponyo", if Sousuke's love for Ponyo was true then the world would be saved.
Pacifism
Both Nausicaä and Princess Mononoke feature strong anti-war themes. Ending the humans' hateful war with themselves and nature becomes the driving force of Ashitaka in Princess Mononoke. In the manga version of Nausicaä, Miyazaki spends much time depicting the brutality and suffering of war in graphic detail through most of the story. The post-apocalyptic world is filled with remains of the old civilizations that ended with wars and the destruction of the environment. In Laputa: Castle in the Sky, the military is portrayed as mindlessly and needlessly violent, greedy, and heavyhanded. In Howl's Moving Castle, Howl's negative view of the war is clear and he refuses to join the fight in any official capacity. Despite this, he frequently participates on the magical plane of the war as a demon bird battling "hack" wizards, in hopes he might have a positive impact.In 2003, when Spirited Away won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, Miyazaki did not attend the awards show personally. He later explained that it was because he "didn’t want to visit a country that was bombing Iraq".
Flight
FlightFlight
Flight is the process by which an object moves either through an atmosphere or beyond it by generating lift or propulsive thrust, or aerostatically using buoyancy, or by simple ballistic movement....
, especially human flight
Aviation
Aviation is the design, development, production, operation, and use of aircraft, especially heavier-than-air aircraft. Aviation is derived from avis, the Latin word for bird.-History:...
, is a recurring theme in Miyazaki's films. He thinks of flight as a form of liberation from gravity. The Studio Ghibli 2002 short film Imaginary Flying Machines is completely devoted to the wonders of flight and is voiced by Miyazaki himself.
In addition to the many aerial devices and drawings of Laputa: Castle in the Sky, which is a flying city, this theme is found in Nausicaä
Nausicaä (character)
is a fictional character from the science fiction manga series Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, created by Hayao Miyazaki, and the anime film by the same name, which was directed by Miyazaki...
piloting her Mehve and the airborne armies in Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, Kiki riding her broomstick and watching dirigibles fly over her city in Kiki’s Delivery Service, the large Totoro carrying Satsuki and Mei across the night sky in My Neighbor Totoro
My Neighbor Totoro
, is a 1988 Japanese animated fantasy film written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki and produced by Studio Ghibli. The film follows the two young daughters of a professor and their interactions with friendly wood spirits in postwar rural Japan...
, Chihiro riding on Haku's back when in his dragon form in Spirited Away
Spirited Away
is a 2001 Japanese animated fantasy-adventure film written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki and produced by Studio Ghibli. The film tells the story of Chihiro Ogino, a sullen ten-year-old girl who, while moving to a new neighborhood and after her parents are transformed into pigs by the witch Yubaba,...
and Howl and Sophie soaring above their town in Howl's Moving Castle
Howl's Moving Castle (film)
is a 2004 Japanese animated fantasy film written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki of Studio Ghibli and based on the novel of the same name by Diana Wynne Jones...
. The protagonist in Porco Rosso
Porco Rosso
Porco Rosso, known in Japan as is the sixth anime film directed by Hayao Miyazaki, produced by Studio Ghibli and released in 1992, of an Italian World War I fighter ace, now living as a freelance bounty hunter chasing "air pirates" in the Adriatic Sea. The man has been cursed and transformed into...
is a pilot and the film is focused on flying, airplanes and aerial combat, as well as the connection between flight, Ascension and the afterlife.
Interestingly, one of Miyazaki's most successful films, Princess Mononoke
Princess Mononoke
is a 1997 epic Japanese animated historical fantasy feature film written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki of Studio Ghibli. is not a name, but a general term in the Japanese language for a spirit or monster...
, does not contain a flying sequence, or any flying characters. However, it could be argued that the scenes in which Yakul leaps across large rocks and ledges are moments of "flight".
Politics
The influence of Miyazaki's early interest in MarxismMarxism
Marxism is an economic and sociopolitical worldview and method of socioeconomic inquiry that centers upon a materialist interpretation of history, a dialectical view of social change, and an analysis and critique of the development of capitalism. Marxism was pioneered in the early to mid 19th...
is apparent in some of his films, such as Porco Rosso. In Castle in the Sky, the working class is portrayed in idealized terms. In Future Boy Conan
Future Boy Conan
is an anime series, which premiered across Japan on the NHK network between April 4 and October 31, 1978 on the Tuesday 19:30-20:00 timeslot. The official English title used by Nippon Animation is Conan, The Boy in Future....
, the ideologies of the friendly town High Harbor and the antagonistic nation Industria are reversed from their source in the (Cold War
Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
-era) Alexander Key
Alexander Key
Alexander Hill Key was an American science fiction writer, most of whose books were aimed at a juvenile audience. He became a nationally known illustrator before he became an author...
novel The Incredible Tide
The Incredible Tide
The Incredible Tide is a post-apocalyptic science fiction novel written by Alexander Key, published in 1970. It was the inspiration for the Japanese animated television series Future Boy Conan, directed by Hayao Miyazaki.-Overview:...
on which the series is based—the originally Communist Industria becomes a runaway capitalist state, and the capitalist High Harbor becomes a farming commune.
Miyazaki abandoned Marxism while creating his manga Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind. However, Miyazaki still holds many socialist
Socialism
Socialism is an economic system characterized by social ownership of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy; or a political philosophy advocating such a system. "Social ownership" may refer to any one of, or a combination of, the following: cooperative enterprises,...
ideas and is critical of capitalism
Capitalism
Capitalism is an economic system that became dominant in the Western world following the demise of feudalism. There is no consensus on the precise definition nor on how the term should be used as a historical category...
, globalization
Globalization
Globalization refers to the increasingly global relationships of culture, people and economic activity. Most often, it refers to economics: the global distribution of the production of goods and services, through reduction of barriers to international trade such as tariffs, export fees, and import...
and their impacts on modern life. Commenting on the 1954 Animal Farm animated film
Animal Farm (1954 film)
Animal Farm is a 1954 British animated film by Halas and Batchelor, based on the book of the same name by George Orwell. It was the first British animated feature released worldwide, though Handling Ships was the first British animated feature ever made...
, he has said that "exploitation is not only found in communism, capitalism is a system just like that. I believe a company is common property of the people that work there. But that is a socialistic
Common ownership
Common ownership is a principle according to which the assets of an enterprise or other organization are held indivisibly rather than in the names of the individual members or by a public institution such as a governmental body. It is therefore in contrast to public ownership...
idea."
Feminism
Miyazaki has been called a feministFeminism
Feminism is a collection of movements aimed at defining, establishing, and defending equal political, economic, and social rights and equal opportunities for women. Its concepts overlap with those of women's rights...
by Studio Ghibli President Toshio Suzuki, in reference to his attitude to female workers. This is evident in the all-female factories of Porco Rosso
Porco Rosso
Porco Rosso, known in Japan as is the sixth anime film directed by Hayao Miyazaki, produced by Studio Ghibli and released in 1992, of an Italian World War I fighter ace, now living as a freelance bounty hunter chasing "air pirates" in the Adriatic Sea. The man has been cursed and transformed into...
and Princess Mononoke
Princess Mononoke
is a 1997 epic Japanese animated historical fantasy feature film written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki of Studio Ghibli. is not a name, but a general term in the Japanese language for a spirit or monster...
, as well as the matriachal bath-house of Spirited Away
Spirited Away
is a 2001 Japanese animated fantasy-adventure film written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki and produced by Studio Ghibli. The film tells the story of Chihiro Ogino, a sullen ten-year-old girl who, while moving to a new neighborhood and after her parents are transformed into pigs by the witch Yubaba,...
. All of Miyazaki's films are populated by strong female protagonists that go against gender roles common in Japanese animation and fiction, from pirate captains to industrialists. Even in lighter films such as Kiki's Delivery Service
Kiki's Delivery Service
is a 1989 Japanese animated fantasy film produced, written, and directed by Hayao Miyazaki. It was the fourth theatrically released Studio Ghibli film.The film won the Animage Anime Grand Prix prize in 1989...
, all of the leading characters are professional women such as artists (Ursula), bakers (Orsono), fashion-designers (Maki) and witches (Kiki and Kokiri).
Children and childhood
Many of Miyazaki's works deal with childhood. For example, My Neighbor Totoro has two young girls who, unlike adults, can see the spirit world, and in Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea a boy befriends a magic creature from the sea. Both Kiki's Delivery Service and Spirited Away deal with growing up.Miyazaki has expressed strong feelings about childhood, saying that it's a paradisical time when "you're protected by your parents and unaware of the problems around you". His views of children in the modern world are a bit worried, though, as he wonders about their dependence on the "virtual
Virtual
The term virtual is a concept applied in many fields with somewhat differing connotations, and also, differing denotations.The term has been defined in philosophy as "that which is not real" but may display the salient qualities of the real....
world" and the lack of contact with the natural world. Because of this, he creates his films inspired by children near himself, with an aim to "understand their world".
Water
Water, or, more specifically, retrograde fluidity, is a recurring theme in opposition to the Ascension symbolism of flight (cf. Porco RossoPorco Rosso
Porco Rosso, known in Japan as is the sixth anime film directed by Hayao Miyazaki, produced by Studio Ghibli and released in 1992, of an Italian World War I fighter ace, now living as a freelance bounty hunter chasing "air pirates" in the Adriatic Sea. The man has been cursed and transformed into...
). Miyazaki’s characters are often on the verge of discorporating into liquid entirely: from the stink-demon, to the river dragon spirit Haku in Spirited Away
Spirited Away
is a 2001 Japanese animated fantasy-adventure film written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki and produced by Studio Ghibli. The film tells the story of Chihiro Ogino, a sullen ten-year-old girl who, while moving to a new neighborhood and after her parents are transformed into pigs by the witch Yubaba,...
and the God-Warrior at the climax of Nausicaa
Nausicaa
Nausicaa is a character in Homer's Odyssey . She is the daughter of King Alcinous and Queen Arete of Phaeacia. Her name, in Greek, means "burner of ships".-Role in the Odyssey:...
to the globular henchmen of the Witch of the Waste in Howl's Moving Castle
Howl's Moving Castle
Howl's Moving Castle is a young adult fantasy novel by British author Diana Wynne Jones, first published in 1986. It won a Boston Globe-Horn Book Award and was named an ALA Notable Book for both children and young adults. In 2004 it was adapted as an Academy Award-nominated animated film by Hayao...
. This theme is pivotal throughout 2009's Ponyo. This conflict between the two themes of flight and watery dissolution is best embodied in the seaplanes of Porco Rosso
Porco Rosso
Porco Rosso, known in Japan as is the sixth anime film directed by Hayao Miyazaki, produced by Studio Ghibli and released in 1992, of an Italian World War I fighter ace, now living as a freelance bounty hunter chasing "air pirates" in the Adriatic Sea. The man has been cursed and transformed into...
, the heroes being able to navigate through both worlds. Water symbolically represents the contradictions of entrapment and freedom, life and death.
Miyazaki has stated his warm appreciation for Shinto
Shinto
or Shintoism, also kami-no-michi, is the indigenous spirituality of Japan and the Japanese people. It is a set of practices, to be carried out diligently, to establish a connection between present day Japan and its ancient past. Shinto practices were first recorded and codified in the written...
water purification rituals, and these have been cited as the inspiration for the role of water in Spirited Away
Spirited Away
is a 2001 Japanese animated fantasy-adventure film written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki and produced by Studio Ghibli. The film tells the story of Chihiro Ogino, a sullen ten-year-old girl who, while moving to a new neighborhood and after her parents are transformed into pigs by the witch Yubaba,...
: the characters of Haku the river dragon and the polluted river spirit; the setting and function of the bathhouse itself. Rain as an element is also a key plot device in both Kiki's Delivery Service
Kiki's Delivery Service
is a 1989 Japanese animated fantasy film produced, written, and directed by Hayao Miyazaki. It was the fourth theatrically released Studio Ghibli film.The film won the Animage Anime Grand Prix prize in 1989...
and My Neighbour Totoro.