If each of his films asks “how do you live?” with singular directness, Miyazaki is the greatest animator the cinema has ever known because his movies —“The Boy and the Heron” perhaps most of all — recognize the agony that begs that question, and the ecstasy that comes from a work...
“How Do You Live?” is not based on the famous 1937 Japanese book of the same name, but Nishioka explained that the title combined with Miyazaki’s own name recognition were strong enough in Japan to take a chance. “He thought, what would happen, in ...
How then did Miyazaki's unnatural vices lead him to kill? As Prof. Ishii at Aoyama Gakuin University pointed out, "People grow up in similar environments yet never become murderers." The trigger seems to have been the death of his grandfather in May 1988, three months before the first mur...
In a recent interview, Junya Ishizaki, the director of Elden Ring Nightreign, revealed various insights about the game and how it will be presented to the players. One of the most notable changes he revealed was the removal of the messaging feature, which had become one of the most ...
Though the director has another film, How Do You Live?, set for release in mid-2023, the most recent film he has directed at this point is The Wind Rises, which was released ten years ago. The film is an adaptation of several materials. Broadly speaking, it is a biopic about the lif...
Worldwide, few names in animation are more celebrated and revered thanHayao MiyazakiandStudio Ghibli. For many, it is not just the stories he tells, but how he tells them: with an equal eye for the epic and the intimate, the ability to make the most fantastical scenarios grounded and rela...
We can see several recurring themes in your work that are again present in Spirited Away, specifically the theme of nostalgia. How do you see this film in relation to your previous work? That's a difficult question. I believe nostalgia has many appearances and that it's not just the privi...
I think the Disney comparison is exactly right. And then it really made me realise how much of what you see produced by big studios now has clearly got this kind of, you know, an executive suit going, no, no, you can’t do that. That’s too scary. No, no, that’s too alienatin...
modern game-based culture in Japan beginning with a look at the uniquely Japanese cultural roots of gaming. He will discuss the emergence of otaku culture in the late 20th century and show how gaming in Japan has broken into new markets both domestically and internationally while still ...
There's anime that inspires gripes and nothing else. Then, there is anime that inspires gripes because, while good, it's hampered by problems. Volume one of Darker than BLACK kept me thinking throughout, but in addition to considering the plot and action, I was thinking about how the eng...