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The anime industry has a lot of popular creators who have earned recognition, but none of them compare to Hayao Miyazaki, anime director and co-founder of Studio Ghibli. Miyazaki is a legend in Japan and an inspiration for practically everyone who is trying to make it big in the anime industry, as he has helped shape the community on a global scale.
Hayao Miyazaki | Credit: Oscars YouTube channelBut with the passage of time, Miyazaki’s opinion about anime has changed a lot. While he is the biggest contributor to the global success of the entertaining art form, he is also the one who, in a way, essentially pointed out that anime was actually a big mistake. It was one of his biggest controversial statements and, to this day, affects a lot of fans.
However, Miyazaki’s statement about anime being a mistake was proved wrong by another popular anime filmmaker. It was none other than Makoto Shinkai, the creator of widely popular anime films like Suzume, Your Name, 5 Centimeters per Second, etc.
Hayao Miyazaki’s Opinion of the Anime Industry
A few years ago, Miyazaki gave a special interview where he talked about the problems he had with the anime industry. Golden Times posted some glimpses of the interview where the popular director was seen explaining how people cannot create a story without experiencing some essence of it from the real world. But now this aspect has been totally ignored by creators.
He stated:
If you don’t spend time watching real people, you can’t do this, because you’ve never seen it. Some people spend their lives interested only in themselves. Almost all Japanese animation is produced with hardly any basis taken from observing real people, you know. It’s produced by humans who can’t stand looking at other humans.
According to Hayao Miyazaki, creating something without observing it with your own eyes does not make it real enough for the viewers. This in a way degrades the quality of the movie or series.
Hayao Miyazaki | Credit: Oscars YouTube ChannelIn spite of that, there are many creators who are moving forward anyway without following this approach and releasing content that does not seem realistic. This is why he feels that anime is moving away from its reality.
Makoto Shinkai Proved Hayao Miyazaki Wrong
In 2022, Shinkai’s Suzume was released and he was interviewed by Slashfilm regarding his depiction of natural disasters within his different works. Shinkai pointed out that although he had not experienced these disasters firsthand, he felt like he should portray them through his art to explain the situation of the people who were actually affected by them.
Suzume Anime | Credit: Toho AnimationShinkai stated:
I think for me personally, I needed to make this film in some ways because after the disaster struck, there was a certain amount of kind of regret or lingering feelings that I had and that I don’t consider myself a direct victim of it, but I was still affected.
In doing so, the three films I made over the next 10 years, “Your Name,” “Weathering With You” and “Suzume,” was perhaps myself trying to understand what an animation director can do in a time when it didn’t seem like a necessary good or service. So that resolution and understanding, I think, shaped in the form of these three films.
Shinkai wanted to create something that could add value and somehow explain the pain and suffering of the people who were directly and indirectly affected by it. And evidently, he did a great job as his works were very much appreciated by the viewers.
Thus, in a way by not experiencing the disasters firsthand and still making their aftereffects look real for fans, Makoto Shinkai proved Miyazaki wrong, in thinking that something should only be created after experiencing it.
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