The Daily Yomiuri 

August 28, 1997, Thursday 

SECTION: Pg. 7 

LENGTH: 677 words 

HEADLINE: The future of animation illustrated by the master 

BYLINE: Kanta Ishida Yomiuri Shimbun Staff Writer ; Yomiuri 

BODY: 


Japanimation, manga (comic strips) and anime (animation). These words have 
become universal and point to the increasing appeal of Japanese animation in the 
international community. Has animation become a part of Japanese pop culture 
that the country should be proud of? Ironically, Hayao Miyazaki, creator of this 
summer's box office hit Princess Mononoke, thinks otherwise. 

Miyazaki said the fact that Japanese animation has found a place in youth 
culture everywhere does not necessarily "open a new chapter in the history of 
Japanimation." He goes so far as to call the belief that Japanese animation will 
change the world an illusion reflecting "an inferiority complex on the part of 
the Japanese as an ethnic group." 

For an animator whose latest work is to be distributed worldwide, Miyazaki is 
awfully coolheaded. The distribution deal was made between Walt Disney Co. and 
Tokuma Shoten Publishing Co., parent company of Miyazaki's Studio Ghibli. 

"(Disney) will pull out of the deal if it doesn't pay off. Just like the 
deception of Japanimation as a global phenomenon, this is also something that's 
been blown out of proportion. I never understood why people made so much fuss 
about the deal." 

Miyazaki may be approaching the issue of Japanese animation's popularity from 
the standpoint of a filmmaker, rather than an animator. 

"The chief inspiration for Japanese animation is manga. Manga's main mode of 
expression is emotions. Time and space are often skewed to convey these 
emotions." Miyazaki believes that there are discernable patterns of evolution in 
Japanese animation. "It ended up becoming something else in the process of being 
influenced and changed by manga," he said. 

Miyazaki said there are tacit rules to animation that animators and devoted fans 
of the genre understand but the average moviegoer does not, which makes it 
impossible for him or her to fully enjoy the medium. 

"It's only a few Westerners who are beginning to join a group of people who like 
that kind of peculiar touch. Should that make us happy? Some people 
misunderstand this, thinking otaku (people with a mania for a certain subject or 
activity, who are becoming more visible in Japan these days) are spreading 
worldwide." 

Miyazaki said he strived to achieve a universal appeal in setting the time and 
space in his films so that "an old country bumpkin watching them for the first 
time can still understand them." This was part of his effort to create a film, 
and not an animation, he said. 

He contends that Japanese pop culture as we know it today has its roots in 
manga. Comic strips, which were initially influenced by movies, became a common 
denominator of our culture with "an amazing assimilative power," he said. 

Despite his sense of crisis about manga's powerful influence on pop culture, he 
is not entirely disparaging of manga. He said the possibilities manga opened up 
for self-expression are immeasurable, and it's ridiculous to throw the whole 
legacy away. 

"But when people use the world depicted in manga as a reference point, it leads 
to a lack of realism," he said. "Take a situation requiring people to let it all 
out and face one another. Somehow it wouldn't seem real if it involved the 
Japanese. That's also one of my favorite traits about the Japanese, though, I 
must add." 

With the release of Princess Mononoke, Miyazaki is retiring from mainstream 
filmmaking. But he is far from being content with what he has achieved. Will 
Miyazaki pin his hopes on the younger generations? 

He said he doesn't want to anoint anyone as his successor. "Just as (cartoonist 
Osamu) Tezuka was bound by Disney's spell, I couldn't break the spell cast by 
director Akira Kurosawa. It is time for the next generation to free themselves 
(from the legacy of such artists)." 

Creating unconventional characters and digging deeper into human expressions of 
a universal nature is the direction Miyazaki believes the country's filmmakers 
should go--regardless of whether the Japanese animation succeeds commercially in 
the world market.