WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.520 When you picture the creator of, you know, the 00:00:03.520 --> 00:00:06.320 world's most beloved magical, just completely 00:00:06.320 --> 00:00:10.580 comforting animated films, what do you see? You 00:00:10.580 --> 00:00:13.619 probably imagine this gentle, grandfatherly figure. 00:00:13.859 --> 00:00:16.179 Oh, absolutely. Like someone who just looks at 00:00:16.179 --> 00:00:19.859 the world with boundless optimism and this childlike 00:00:19.859 --> 00:00:22.059 wonder. Right. But what if I told you the man 00:00:22.059 --> 00:00:24.719 behind those cozy magical worlds is actually, 00:00:24.899 --> 00:00:27.980 well, a fierce, chain -smoking pessimist? Which 00:00:27.980 --> 00:00:30.350 is pretty jarring to hear. It really is. A man 00:00:30.350 --> 00:00:32.950 who, honestly, frequently declares that the modern 00:00:32.950 --> 00:00:36.729 world is completely doomed, who absolutely despises 00:00:36.729 --> 00:00:38.649 the animation industry that he helped build, 00:00:39.210 --> 00:00:41.350 and whose films are often born from a place of 00:00:41.350 --> 00:00:43.850 profound trauma and guilt. It is the ultimate 00:00:43.850 --> 00:00:46.149 paradox, really. I mean, you have an artist whose 00:00:46.149 --> 00:00:49.170 work feels like a warm hug, but the man himself 00:00:49.170 --> 00:00:51.630 is incredibly demanding, often super cynical, 00:00:52.250 --> 00:00:54.750 and forged in the fires of literal warfare. Welcome 00:00:54.750 --> 00:00:57.060 to the Deep Dive. Today we're immersing you in 00:00:57.060 --> 00:00:59.340 the life and the mind of the legendary Japanese 00:00:59.340 --> 00:01:02.880 animator and filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki. But our 00:01:02.880 --> 00:01:05.019 mission today isn't to just, you know, recap 00:01:05.019 --> 00:01:06.920 the plots of movies you probably already love. 00:01:07.060 --> 00:01:09.189 Well, you can just go watch them for that. Exactly. 00:01:09.310 --> 00:01:11.609 We want to get to the absolute core of the man 00:01:11.609 --> 00:01:14.109 himself. We're going to break down his massive 00:01:14.109 --> 00:01:16.969 contradictions, his agonizing creative process, 00:01:17.290 --> 00:01:20.290 and how a really heavy personal history forged 00:01:20.290 --> 00:01:23.230 this completely unique worldview. It's basically 00:01:23.230 --> 00:01:25.930 your shortcut to understanding the why behind 00:01:25.930 --> 00:01:28.670 his genius. Okay, let's unpack this. Where do 00:01:28.670 --> 00:01:32.069 we even begin to make sense of a mind like Miyazaki's? 00:01:32.329 --> 00:01:34.409 Well, we really have to start in the flames of 00:01:34.409 --> 00:01:37.799 World War II. because to understand the fiercely 00:01:37.799 --> 00:01:41.000 pacifist, nature -loving world he builds on screen, 00:01:41.319 --> 00:01:44.680 you first have to understand the incredibly contradictory, 00:01:45.280 --> 00:01:47.640 mechanized world that actually built him. So 00:01:47.640 --> 00:01:50.659 he was born in 1941 in Tokyo, and his family's 00:01:50.659 --> 00:01:53.140 survival, and indeed their comfort, was directly 00:01:53.140 --> 00:01:55.519 tied to the machinery of war. And comfort is 00:01:55.519 --> 00:01:57.019 definitely the key word there, which is where 00:01:57.019 --> 00:01:59.819 all that guilt comes in later. His father, Katsuji, 00:01:59.819 --> 00:02:01.799 was the director of Miyazaki Airplane. Yeah, 00:02:01.799 --> 00:02:04.200 and they weren't just some generic factory. They 00:02:04.200 --> 00:02:06.920 manufactured the literal rudders for Japanese 00:02:06.920 --> 00:02:10.219 fighter planes. Including the infamous A6M Zeroes, 00:02:10.300 --> 00:02:12.939 right? Exactly. So while the rest of the country 00:02:12.939 --> 00:02:15.639 is plunging into unimaginable poverty and starvation 00:02:15.639 --> 00:02:19.159 during the war, the Miyazaki family remains affluent. 00:02:19.800 --> 00:02:23.479 They're essentially war profiteers. Wow. And 00:02:23.479 --> 00:02:26.400 this created a massive cognitive dissonance for 00:02:26.400 --> 00:02:29.060 young Hayao. I mean, it haunted him for decades. 00:02:29.300 --> 00:02:31.219 Because he actually loved the planes. Like he 00:02:31.219 --> 00:02:33.460 was obsessed with drawing battleships, tanks 00:02:33.460 --> 00:02:35.680 and fighter jets as a kid. Yeah, he admitted 00:02:35.680 --> 00:02:37.379 he mostly drew them because he felt he wasn't 00:02:37.379 --> 00:02:39.340 really good at drawing human beings yet. Yeah. 00:02:39.840 --> 00:02:42.740 But he genuinely loved the aesthetic beauty of 00:02:42.740 --> 00:02:45.419 these flying machines. But then he simultaneously 00:02:45.419 --> 00:02:48.319 experiencing the absolute horror of what those 00:02:48.319 --> 00:02:50.400 machines actually do. I mean, when he was just 00:02:50.400 --> 00:02:53.240 four years old. The devastating fire bombings 00:02:53.240 --> 00:02:56.479 of Utsunomiya and Kanuma forced his family to 00:02:56.479 --> 00:02:58.340 flee for their lives. Right in the back of the 00:02:58.340 --> 00:03:01.240 truck. Yeah, and he vividly remembered the sky 00:03:01.240 --> 00:03:03.599 being on fire and the sheer trauma of leaving 00:03:03.599 --> 00:03:05.860 other desperate people behind as they escaped. 00:03:06.259 --> 00:03:09.319 Loving the machine, but hating its purpose. It's 00:03:09.319 --> 00:03:11.280 this tension he never really fully resolved, 00:03:11.319 --> 00:03:13.199 and you see it in almost every film he makes. 00:03:13.879 --> 00:03:16.039 But there's a second pillar to his childhood 00:03:16.039 --> 00:03:18.780 that is just as crucial, and that is his mother, 00:03:18.860 --> 00:03:21.830 Yoshiko. Oh, this part is fascinating. It really 00:03:21.830 --> 00:03:25.370 is. Yeah. From 1947 to 1955, which is essentially 00:03:25.370 --> 00:03:28.229 his entire formative childhood, she was bedridden 00:03:28.229 --> 00:03:30.930 with spinal tuberculosis. Which forces him and 00:03:30.930 --> 00:03:33.469 his brothers to take on all these domestic duties 00:03:33.469 --> 00:03:35.969 and just grow up incredibly fast. But she wasn't 00:03:35.969 --> 00:03:38.629 just this, you know, tragic passive figure, right? 00:03:38.650 --> 00:03:41.150 Not at all. What's so interesting here is how 00:03:41.150 --> 00:03:44.550 her personality... completely defined the expectations 00:03:44.550 --> 00:03:47.629 of her physical condition. Yoshiko was a remarkably 00:03:47.629 --> 00:03:50.370 strict, highly intellectual woman. Right. She 00:03:50.370 --> 00:03:53.210 wasn't the stereotypical, quiet, subservient 00:03:53.210 --> 00:03:55.710 mother figure of that specific era. Exactly. 00:03:55.830 --> 00:03:58.409 She possessed this fierce skepticism of socially 00:03:58.409 --> 00:04:00.689 accepted norms and authority. And you can draw 00:04:00.689 --> 00:04:03.129 a direct straight line from her hospital bed 00:04:03.129 --> 00:04:05.389 to his movies. I mean, her strict intellect and 00:04:05.389 --> 00:04:07.789 her physical struggles directly inspired the 00:04:07.789 --> 00:04:10.129 fiercely independent, strong female protagonist 00:04:10.129 --> 00:04:13.770 that basically became his. Oh, 100%. Like, when 00:04:13.770 --> 00:04:16.009 you watch a movie like Laputa, Castle in the 00:04:16.009 --> 00:04:18.350 Sky, and you see the tough -as -nails sky pirate 00:04:18.350 --> 00:04:21.449 Captain Dola, or you see the mother Yasuko in 00:04:21.449 --> 00:04:23.610 My Neighbor Totoro watching over her kids from 00:04:23.610 --> 00:04:26.670 a hospital bed, you aren't just seeing characters. 00:04:27.040 --> 00:04:30.379 You're looking at direct echoes of Yoshiko Miyazaki. 00:04:30.600 --> 00:04:32.720 He was essentially giving his mother the ability 00:04:32.720 --> 00:04:35.879 to fly and have these grand adventures through 00:04:35.879 --> 00:04:38.660 his art, sort of compensating for the years she 00:04:38.660 --> 00:04:41.620 spent trapped in a bed. And her relentless questioning 00:04:41.620 --> 00:04:44.160 of societal norms definitely became his operating 00:04:44.160 --> 00:04:47.240 system. How so? Well, because when he finally 00:04:47.240 --> 00:04:49.839 enters the animation industry in the early 1960s, 00:04:50.040 --> 00:04:51.879 he doesn't just put his head down and conform. 00:04:52.160 --> 00:04:54.699 he becomes a massive problem for management. 00:04:55.040 --> 00:04:56.680 I still struggle to wrap my head around this 00:04:56.680 --> 00:04:58.519 part of his life. Because when you think of him 00:04:58.519 --> 00:05:01.019 today, you picture this quiet, silver -haired 00:05:01.019 --> 00:05:03.899 lone genius working in a serene cabin somewhere 00:05:03.899 --> 00:05:07.240 in the woods. Right, totally. But in 1963, when 00:05:07.240 --> 00:05:10.720 he joins Toei Animation, he's a radical industry 00:05:10.720 --> 00:05:14.399 rebel. He's furious. And to be fair, the conditions 00:05:14.399 --> 00:05:17.240 were incredibly grim. He's renting this tiny 00:05:17.240 --> 00:05:21.250 freezing apartment for, like, 6 ,000 yen a month, 00:05:21.730 --> 00:05:24.910 and his starting salary is only 19 ,500 yen. 00:05:25.029 --> 00:05:28.350 Barely surviving. And the work itself was totally 00:05:28.350 --> 00:05:30.350 soul crushing for someone with his imagination. 00:05:30.829 --> 00:05:33.449 He was stuck doing what the industry calls in 00:05:33.449 --> 00:05:35.970 -between art. Okay, for those of you listening 00:05:35.970 --> 00:05:38.410 who might not know the mechanics of that, what 00:05:38.410 --> 00:05:40.949 does in -betweening actually entail? Why did 00:05:40.949 --> 00:05:43.750 he hate it so much? So in traditional animation, 00:05:44.269 --> 00:05:46.569 the lead animators draw the keyframes. That's 00:05:46.569 --> 00:05:49.170 the start and the end of an action. The in -betweeners 00:05:49.170 --> 00:05:51.790 are the junior artists who have to draw the dozens 00:05:51.790 --> 00:05:53.889 of frames that connect those two poses to make 00:05:53.889 --> 00:05:56.639 the movement fluid. Ah, got it. It is highly 00:05:56.639 --> 00:05:59.180 technical, incredibly tedious assembly line work. 00:05:59.540 --> 00:06:01.379 You aren't creating the acting or the emotion 00:06:01.379 --> 00:06:04.279 at all. You are essentially human software just 00:06:04.279 --> 00:06:06.420 filling in the gaps. And for a guy who wants 00:06:06.420 --> 00:06:08.220 to build entire worlds, that must have felt like 00:06:08.220 --> 00:06:11.199 being a cog in a machine. Exactly. So he rebels. 00:06:11.629 --> 00:06:14.990 In 1964, he becomes the chief secretary of the 00:06:14.990 --> 00:06:17.990 company's labor union. He is actively organizing 00:06:17.990 --> 00:06:20.290 strikes and fighting management for workers' 00:06:20.370 --> 00:06:22.970 rights. And he's doing this alongside Izo Takahata, 00:06:23.189 --> 00:06:25.189 right? The man who would eventually become his 00:06:25.189 --> 00:06:27.629 lifelong creative partner. It's honestly like 00:06:27.629 --> 00:06:30.389 finding out Walt Disney spent his 20s as a radical 00:06:30.389 --> 00:06:33.089 labor leader trying to tear down the studio system. 00:06:33.370 --> 00:06:35.930 If we connect this to the bigger picture, this 00:06:35.930 --> 00:06:39.350 labor background is the skeleton key to his entire 00:06:39.350 --> 00:06:43.040 worldview. It cemented a core lifelong belief 00:06:43.040 --> 00:06:46.360 for Miyazaki. He explicitly stated that accompany 00:06:46.360 --> 00:06:48.439 a common property of the people that work there. 00:06:48.699 --> 00:06:50.620 Think about how radical that is. Right. This 00:06:50.620 --> 00:06:53.560 wasn't just some youthful rebellious phase. It 00:06:53.560 --> 00:06:56.269 became the bedrock of his storytelling. It's 00:06:56.269 --> 00:06:58.629 why you see him constantly critiquing both capitalist 00:06:58.629 --> 00:07:00.949 greed and communist exploitation in his films. 00:07:01.389 --> 00:07:03.649 He became deeply skeptical of any system, whether 00:07:03.649 --> 00:07:06.009 political or corporate, that crushes the individual 00:07:06.009 --> 00:07:08.410 worker or treats humans as disposable cogs. He 00:07:08.410 --> 00:07:11.029 was so fiercely determined to find his own authentic 00:07:11.029 --> 00:07:13.029 voice that he actually went back and destroyed 00:07:13.029 --> 00:07:15.509 his own early manga drawings. Yeah, he just ripped 00:07:15.509 --> 00:07:18.129 them up. He felt he was just mindlessly copying 00:07:18.129 --> 00:07:21.279 the popular style of Osamu Tezuka. the creator 00:07:21.279 --> 00:07:23.800 of Astro Boy, which was the dominant style of 00:07:23.800 --> 00:07:25.920 the time. He thought it was, quote unquote, bad 00:07:25.920 --> 00:07:29.939 form to just chase trends. But what was the catalyst? 00:07:30.220 --> 00:07:33.040 What takes him from being an angry, frustrated 00:07:33.040 --> 00:07:36.379 union rep to a visionary storyteller? It was 00:07:36.379 --> 00:07:39.240 a very specific cinematic experience. He snuck 00:07:39.240 --> 00:07:42.139 out to see Japan's first feature length color 00:07:42.139 --> 00:07:45.279 animated film. The White Snake Enchantress. Oh, 00:07:45.279 --> 00:07:46.879 right. Yeah, he was supposed to be studying for 00:07:46.879 --> 00:07:49.540 exams, but the film completely derailed his life. 00:07:49.579 --> 00:07:51.819 It moved him to tears. And not just because it 00:07:51.819 --> 00:07:53.819 was pretty to look at. It made him realize that 00:07:53.819 --> 00:07:55.819 animation didn't have to be this cynical, mass 00:07:55.819 --> 00:07:58.420 -produced product. It could be a vehicle to create 00:07:58.420 --> 00:08:01.819 a pure, earnest world. And that relentless pursuit 00:08:01.819 --> 00:08:04.740 of pure, uncompromised creative control is what 00:08:04.740 --> 00:08:06.899 eventually leads him and Takahata to break away 00:08:06.899 --> 00:08:10.040 entirely. In 1985, they build their own Empire 00:08:10.040 --> 00:08:12.399 Studio Ghibli. And the name itself is so telling. 00:08:12.759 --> 00:08:15.779 Yeah. It's named after an Italian aircraft, the 00:08:15.779 --> 00:08:20.220 Caproni K -309. The word Ghibli literally means 00:08:20.220 --> 00:08:23.019 a hot wind that blows in the desert. Their stated 00:08:23.019 --> 00:08:25.439 goal was to blow a hot new wind through the entire 00:08:25.439 --> 00:08:27.579 animation industry. They wanted to burn down 00:08:27.579 --> 00:08:29.660 the old establishment and build something pure. 00:08:29.860 --> 00:08:33.299 But here's the catch. By creating his own studio, 00:08:33.880 --> 00:08:36.139 Miyazaki essentially became the management he 00:08:36.139 --> 00:08:39.480 used to fight against. Oh, the irony. Yeah. He 00:08:39.480 --> 00:08:41.980 established a highly rigid, fiercely traditionalist 00:08:41.980 --> 00:08:44.879 philosophy about what animation must be. And 00:08:44.879 --> 00:08:47.179 he holds the modern industry in absolute contempt. 00:08:47.340 --> 00:08:48.620 And here's where it gets really interesting. 00:08:49.159 --> 00:08:51.820 The undisputed god of anime, a man worshipped 00:08:51.820 --> 00:08:54.779 by millions of fans globally. kind of despises 00:08:54.779 --> 00:08:57.299 hardcore anime culture. He really does. He has 00:08:57.299 --> 00:08:59.320 this famous critique where he claims that modern 00:08:59.320 --> 00:09:01.759 anime is produced by humans who can't stand looking 00:09:01.759 --> 00:09:04.480 at other humans. He argues this is exactly why 00:09:04.480 --> 00:09:07.259 the industry is overrun by otaku, which is a 00:09:07.259 --> 00:09:09.440 term he uses with heavy disdain to describe this 00:09:09.440 --> 00:09:12.559 obsessive insular fanaticism. Yes, he draws a 00:09:12.559 --> 00:09:15.059 very hard, very hostile line in the sand against 00:09:15.059 --> 00:09:17.039 that culture. But I have to push back on this 00:09:17.039 --> 00:09:18.779 a little. Isn't he basically biting the hand 00:09:18.779 --> 00:09:20.620 that feeds him? I mean, he makes his millions 00:09:20.620 --> 00:09:24.419 off these exact fans. Why is he so fiercely opposed 00:09:24.419 --> 00:09:27.000 to a culture that reveres his every pencil stroke? 00:09:27.320 --> 00:09:30.440 Because he views that insular fandom as a creative 00:09:30.440 --> 00:09:34.039 death trap. For Miyazaki, true art absolutely 00:09:34.039 --> 00:09:37.039 must be a reflection of lived physical experience. 00:09:37.620 --> 00:09:39.820 He demands that his animators spend their time 00:09:39.820 --> 00:09:42.500 observing real people in the real world. So like 00:09:42.500 --> 00:09:45.679 how a person actually moves? Exactly. How does 00:09:45.679 --> 00:09:48.259 a tired man shift his weight on a train? How 00:09:48.259 --> 00:09:49.980 does a child pull their arm away when they're 00:09:49.980 --> 00:09:53.129 frustrated? If you only watch anime and then 00:09:53.129 --> 00:09:55.690 you sit down to draw anime, you are making a 00:09:55.690 --> 00:09:58.789 copy of a copy. You are referencing another artist's 00:09:58.789 --> 00:10:00.370 interpretation of a human rather than looking 00:10:00.370 --> 00:10:02.330 at a human yourself. If you lose the humanity, 00:10:02.549 --> 00:10:04.789 you just end up repeating genre tropes. Exactly. 00:10:04.950 --> 00:10:07.789 The art becomes incredibly thin. This is why 00:10:07.789 --> 00:10:10.470 his fantastical worlds feel so uniquely heavy 00:10:10.470 --> 00:10:13.090 and grounded. When you watch Chihiro running 00:10:13.090 --> 00:10:15.149 breathlessly through the bathhouse and spirited 00:10:15.149 --> 00:10:18.190 away, or you watch the cumbersome clanking machinery 00:10:18.190 --> 00:10:20.909 of Howl's Moving Castle, the physics and the 00:10:20.909 --> 00:10:23.350 emotional weight feel completely real. They aren't 00:10:23.350 --> 00:10:26.129 built on algorithms or popular trends. They're 00:10:26.129 --> 00:10:30.009 built on raw, genuine human observation. Right. 00:10:30.230 --> 00:10:32.529 Which perfectly explains a moment that recently 00:10:32.529 --> 00:10:35.970 went viral, his absolute visceral hatred for 00:10:35.970 --> 00:10:38.620 artificial intelligence and art. There's this 00:10:38.620 --> 00:10:41.399 famous incident where a tech team eagerly showed 00:10:41.399 --> 00:10:44.700 him an AI -generated zombie animation where the 00:10:44.700 --> 00:10:47.360 zombie was moving in these grotesque, physically 00:10:47.360 --> 00:10:50.379 impossible ways. Oh, that video is intense. It 00:10:50.379 --> 00:10:52.580 is. And he didn't just politely nod and say it 00:10:52.580 --> 00:10:55.259 wasn't for him. He completely annihilated them. 00:10:55.620 --> 00:10:58.200 He called the AI animation an insult to life 00:10:58.200 --> 00:11:00.460 itself. He looked the creator in the eye and 00:11:00.460 --> 00:11:02.379 told him he clearly had no idea what pain is 00:11:02.379 --> 00:11:05.299 whatsoever. It's a brutal takedown. It's honestly 00:11:05.299 --> 00:11:07.750 incredibly uncomfortable to watch. That's a classic 00:11:07.750 --> 00:11:10.149 case of an older artist being a Luddite. Like, 00:11:10.389 --> 00:11:12.409 when photography was invented, painters panicked 00:11:12.409 --> 00:11:14.470 and called it soulless. When digital animation 00:11:14.470 --> 00:11:17.649 arrived, hand -drawn purists hated it. Isn't 00:11:17.649 --> 00:11:19.950 he just an old man yelling at a new tool? It 00:11:19.950 --> 00:11:21.889 goes much deeper than just protecting a medium. 00:11:22.590 --> 00:11:24.750 It's a profound philosophical violation for him. 00:11:25.289 --> 00:11:27.950 For Miyazaki, the root of all artistic empathy 00:11:27.950 --> 00:11:30.490 is the capacity to experience and understand 00:11:30.490 --> 00:11:34.190 pain. Wow. Physical pain, emotional pain, exhaustion, 00:11:34.590 --> 00:11:38.100 grief. Because a machine cannot feel pain, it 00:11:38.100 --> 00:11:40.779 cannot empathize. And if it cannot empathize, 00:11:41.039 --> 00:11:43.419 anything it generates is inherently hollow. It's 00:11:43.419 --> 00:11:45.960 just a statistical arrangement of pixels mimicking 00:11:45.960 --> 00:11:48.340 an emotion it doesn't actually understand. To 00:11:48.340 --> 00:11:51.679 him, accepting AI as art means surrendering our 00:11:51.679 --> 00:11:54.259 own humanity. That makes total sense when you 00:11:54.259 --> 00:11:56.379 frame it like that. He demands that his teams 00:11:56.379 --> 00:11:59.399 observe real, complex, suffering humans. And 00:11:59.399 --> 00:12:01.899 because of that, the worlds he creates totally 00:12:01.899 --> 00:12:04.179 reject the simple black and white morality we 00:12:04.179 --> 00:12:06.620 are so used to seeing. You don't get that standard 00:12:06.620 --> 00:12:09.139 Hollywood blockbuster setup where the pure, flawless 00:12:09.139 --> 00:12:11.840 hero punches the purely evil villain into a laser 00:12:11.840 --> 00:12:14.279 beam and saves the universe. Not at all. His 00:12:14.279 --> 00:12:16.919 characters are profoundly morally ambiguous. 00:12:17.399 --> 00:12:19.769 They are messy, They make mistakes and they hold 00:12:19.769 --> 00:12:21.809 contradictory beliefs, just like the man who 00:12:21.809 --> 00:12:24.549 draws them. Even his most terrifying antagonists 00:12:24.549 --> 00:12:27.529 usually have deep redeeming qualities or completely 00:12:27.529 --> 00:12:30.289 understandable motivations. And those motivations 00:12:30.289 --> 00:12:33.190 are almost always tied to real world crises. 00:12:33.470 --> 00:12:35.169 Environmentalism isn't just a background theme 00:12:35.169 --> 00:12:39.090 for him. It's the core conflict. Nausicaä of 00:12:39.090 --> 00:12:40.929 the Valley of the Wind was directly inspired 00:12:40.929 --> 00:12:43.350 by the tragic Minamata Bay disaster in Japan, 00:12:43.870 --> 00:12:46.190 where industrial mercury poisoning devastated 00:12:46.190 --> 00:12:49.090 a local community. examining how nature violently 00:12:49.090 --> 00:12:52.289 responds to a toxic environment. Yeah, and Princess 00:12:52.289 --> 00:12:54.269 Mononoke is heavily rooted in the historical 00:12:54.269 --> 00:12:57.070 Morimachi period, which he pinpointed as the 00:12:57.070 --> 00:12:59.809 exact era when humanity stopped worshipping nature 00:12:59.809 --> 00:13:02.730 as a divine force and started trying to aggressively 00:13:02.730 --> 00:13:05.009 dominate and extract from it. And this bleeds 00:13:05.009 --> 00:13:07.690 directly into his real -world political stances. 00:13:07.929 --> 00:13:10.429 Because he demands authenticity in his art, he 00:13:10.429 --> 00:13:13.029 refuses to play the role of the polite, neutral 00:13:13.029 --> 00:13:15.870 entertainer in his public life. Right. And just 00:13:15.870 --> 00:13:17.909 as a quick reminder to everyone listening, we 00:13:17.909 --> 00:13:19.990 are just looking at his documented worldview 00:13:19.990 --> 00:13:22.529 here neutrally as facts from the source material. 00:13:22.590 --> 00:13:25.070 We aren't endorsing any specific political side. 00:13:25.269 --> 00:13:27.509 We're simply reporting on what he said and did. 00:13:27.610 --> 00:13:29.730 Right. Exactly. But looking at those statements, 00:13:30.009 --> 00:13:32.570 his politics are just as messy and vocal as his 00:13:32.570 --> 00:13:35.590 characters. He doesn't fit neatly into any modern 00:13:35.590 --> 00:13:38.529 political box, and he refuses to stay quiet. 00:13:38.750 --> 00:13:41.730 He openly and harshly criticized Japanese Prime 00:13:41.730 --> 00:13:44.889 Minister Shinzo Abe's attempts to revise Japan's 00:13:44.889 --> 00:13:47.570 pacifist constitution. arguing that a nation 00:13:47.570 --> 00:13:50.649 must own its dark history. And at the same time, 00:13:50.649 --> 00:13:53.990 he completely boycotted the 2003 Academy Awards. 00:13:54.490 --> 00:13:56.610 He refused to travel to the U .S. to accept his 00:13:56.610 --> 00:13:59.529 Oscar for Spirited Away in direct protest of 00:13:59.529 --> 00:14:02.009 the U .S. invasion of Iraq. He is remarkably 00:14:02.009 --> 00:14:04.429 consistent in his antiwar beliefs, regardless 00:14:04.429 --> 00:14:06.230 of who is actually fighting. But he also isn't 00:14:06.230 --> 00:14:08.529 afraid to criticize movements that others might 00:14:08.529 --> 00:14:10.789 champion. That's right. After the tragic terrorist 00:14:10.789 --> 00:14:13.429 attacks on the French satirical magazine Charlie 00:14:13.429 --> 00:14:16.330 Hebdo, while much of the world was around the 00:14:16.330 --> 00:14:19.330 publication in the name of free speech, Miyazaki 00:14:19.330 --> 00:14:22.269 criticized the magazine. He argued that while 00:14:22.269 --> 00:14:24.870 parodying politicians is fair game and necessary, 00:14:25.389 --> 00:14:27.830 caricaturing other people's deeply held cultures 00:14:27.830 --> 00:14:30.490 and religions is a fundamental mistake. He just 00:14:30.490 --> 00:14:33.570 calls it exactly as he sees it, constantly risking 00:14:33.570 --> 00:14:35.669 his own popularity. So what does this all mean 00:14:35.669 --> 00:14:38.279 for the viewer? When you sit down for a Miyazaki 00:14:38.279 --> 00:14:40.539 deep dive, you aren't just rooting for the bad 00:14:40.539 --> 00:14:42.740 guy to be defeated. You're rooting for everyone 00:14:42.740 --> 00:14:45.340 to step back, look at the damage they're causing, 00:14:45.539 --> 00:14:48.279 and reach an understanding. And to really grasp 00:14:48.279 --> 00:14:51.179 that dynamic, we have to recognize the deep, 00:14:51.320 --> 00:14:53.980 goodest roots of his storytelling. In the Western 00:14:53.980 --> 00:14:56.899 narrative tradition, evil is usually an external 00:14:56.899 --> 00:15:00.480 entity like... a dark lord, a corrupt king, a 00:15:00.480 --> 00:15:02.820 specific person you can destroy to fix the world. 00:15:02.980 --> 00:15:05.059 Right, the bad guy you have to defeat. Exactly. 00:15:05.700 --> 00:15:08.139 But in Miyazaki's films, evil is an internal 00:15:08.139 --> 00:15:11.419 state. It is greed, it is ill will, it is delusion. 00:15:11.679 --> 00:15:14.440 The perfect example of that is the no -face spirit 00:15:14.440 --> 00:15:17.899 in Spirited Away. It's this terrifying gluttonous 00:15:17.899 --> 00:15:20.720 monster, but it isn't inherently evil. It's like 00:15:20.720 --> 00:15:24.279 a sponge. It just absorbs the greed, the stress, 00:15:24.379 --> 00:15:26.580 and the toxicity of the bathhouse environment 00:15:26.580 --> 00:15:29.820 around it. Precisely. And so, survival for a 00:15:29.820 --> 00:15:31.779 character like Chihiro isn't about acquiring 00:15:31.779 --> 00:15:34.720 a magic sword to vanquish No -Face. It's about 00:15:34.720 --> 00:15:37.919 acquiring the internal resilience to survive 00:15:37.919 --> 00:15:40.120 a corrupt environment without losing her own 00:15:40.120 --> 00:15:43.460 identity. It's about finding the empathy to understand 00:15:43.460 --> 00:15:46.019 what the monster actually needs to heal. Which 00:15:46.019 --> 00:15:49.179 is incredible. It is a radically different, profoundly 00:15:49.179 --> 00:15:52.210 mature narrative structure disguised as a children's 00:15:52.210 --> 00:15:54.250 movie. But achieving that level of narrative 00:15:54.250 --> 00:15:56.870 maturity, pouring that intense moral philosophy, 00:15:57.049 --> 00:15:58.990 and putting that staggering amount of hand -drawn 00:15:58.990 --> 00:16:01.809 detail into every single frame, it comes at a 00:16:01.809 --> 00:16:04.429 massive, massive cost. An almost unimaginable 00:16:04.429 --> 00:16:06.730 physical and emotional toll. You have to remember, 00:16:06.789 --> 00:16:08.350 he doesn't just write the script and hand it 00:16:08.350 --> 00:16:11.669 off. His process is notoriously obsessive. He 00:16:11.669 --> 00:16:14.440 oversees every single frame. Take a movie like 00:16:14.440 --> 00:16:17.840 Ponyo. To capture the chaotic, fluid nature of 00:16:17.840 --> 00:16:20.460 water without relying on computers, his team 00:16:20.460 --> 00:16:25.159 had to draw a record 170 ,000 individual hand 00:16:25.159 --> 00:16:27.759 -painted frames. And he is in the trenches for 00:16:27.759 --> 00:16:30.259 all of it. Yeah, destroying his eyesight, destroying 00:16:30.259 --> 00:16:33.080 the nerves in his hands, which completely explains 00:16:33.080 --> 00:16:34.899 why he has publicly announced his retirement 00:16:34.899 --> 00:16:37.200 so many times. Yes, it became a bit of a running 00:16:37.200 --> 00:16:39.580 joke. He finished Princess Mononoke and said 00:16:39.580 --> 00:16:41.960 he was done. He finished Spirited Away and said 00:16:41.960 --> 00:16:44.600 he was done. He finished The Wind Rises, gave 00:16:44.600 --> 00:16:46.879 a massive press conference, and said his time 00:16:46.879 --> 00:16:49.159 as a feature director was definitively over. 00:16:49.360 --> 00:16:52.019 He continually pushes himself to the absolute 00:16:52.019 --> 00:16:54.600 brink of physical collapse, declares he can't 00:16:54.600 --> 00:16:57.139 go on, and then his own mind pulls him back to 00:16:57.139 --> 00:16:59.399 the drawing board. This is an addiction. It reminds 00:16:59.399 --> 00:17:01.980 me of a master watchmaker who refuses to use 00:17:01.980 --> 00:17:04.380 automated tools. He knows the machine could do 00:17:04.380 --> 00:17:07.160 it faster, but he believes the tiny, agonizing 00:17:07.160 --> 00:17:09.740 imperfections of doing it by hand are the only 00:17:09.740 --> 00:17:12.380 proof that a human soul was involved in the creation. 00:17:12.539 --> 00:17:15.289 It's a great analogy. But the tragic part of 00:17:15.289 --> 00:17:17.670 this obsessive dedication isn't just his physical 00:17:17.670 --> 00:17:20.690 health. The real tragedy is the cost to his family. 00:17:21.269 --> 00:17:24.170 He spent his entire life painstakingly animating 00:17:24.170 --> 00:17:26.750 these perfect, magical, resilient families on 00:17:26.750 --> 00:17:29.190 screen. He comforted millions of children around 00:17:29.190 --> 00:17:32.170 the world. But to do that, he was largely absent 00:17:32.170 --> 00:17:35.049 for his own children. It was a profound, painful 00:17:35.049 --> 00:17:38.640 irony. His singular dedication deeply fractured 00:17:38.640 --> 00:17:41.599 his relationship with his sons. His eldest son, 00:17:41.839 --> 00:17:43.700 Goro, who actually became a director at Studio 00:17:43.700 --> 00:17:46.480 Ghibli himself under immense pressure, once gave 00:17:46.480 --> 00:17:48.660 a truly heartbreaking assessment of his dad. 00:17:48.759 --> 00:17:50.900 What did he say? He said Hayao Miyazaki gets 00:17:50.900 --> 00:17:53.720 zero marks as a father, but full marks as a director 00:17:53.720 --> 00:17:57.369 of animated films. Wow. Zero marks as a father. 00:17:57.849 --> 00:18:00.150 That is gut -wrenching to hear. Goro even admitted 00:18:00.150 --> 00:18:01.710 that when he was growing up, the only way he 00:18:01.710 --> 00:18:03.470 could try to understand what his dad was thinking 00:18:03.470 --> 00:18:05.750 or feeling was by going to the theater and watching 00:18:05.750 --> 00:18:07.849 his movies. Because the man himself was simply 00:18:07.849 --> 00:18:10.529 never home to talk to. And Miyazaki knew this. 00:18:10.839 --> 00:18:14.019 He carried that guilt just as heavily as he carried 00:18:14.019 --> 00:18:17.039 the guilt of his family's wartime business. He 00:18:17.039 --> 00:18:19.559 knew he owed his son an apology. And how does 00:18:19.559 --> 00:18:21.859 a man who only knows how to speak through animation 00:18:21.859 --> 00:18:25.279 apologize? He makes another movie. Yes. Even 00:18:25.279 --> 00:18:27.920 in his 80s, long after his definitive retirement, 00:18:28.380 --> 00:18:30.779 he returned to the studio every single day to 00:18:30.779 --> 00:18:34.299 create The Boy and the Heron. It was an agonizing 00:18:34.299 --> 00:18:37.200 process that won him a second Oscar at age 83. 00:18:37.519 --> 00:18:40.279 This raises an important question. Is this relentless 00:18:40.279 --> 00:18:42.420 compulsion to create a gift to the world, or 00:18:42.420 --> 00:18:45.259 is it a curse on the artist? For Miyazaki, his 00:18:45.259 --> 00:18:47.400 films aren't just entertainment products. They 00:18:47.400 --> 00:18:50.519 act as his ultimate, most profound personal expression. 00:18:51.000 --> 00:18:53.259 They are his primary way of communicating with 00:18:53.259 --> 00:18:55.720 the world at large. And in the case of The Boy 00:18:55.720 --> 00:18:57.740 and the Heron, it feels like a very specific, 00:18:58.180 --> 00:19:00.759 painstakingly animated apology to his son when 00:19:00.759 --> 00:19:03.039 simple conversations failed him. It's the ultimate 00:19:03.039 --> 00:19:05.420 sacrifice of the artist. He essentially fed his 00:19:05.420 --> 00:19:07.619 own reality, his own health, in his own family 00:19:07.619 --> 00:19:10.660 life into the furnace to keep the fantastical 00:19:10.660 --> 00:19:13.099 worlds burning brightly for the rest of us. And 00:19:13.099 --> 00:19:15.279 that brings us full circle on the magnificent 00:19:15.279 --> 00:19:18.980 messy contradictions of Hayao Miyazaki. He is 00:19:18.980 --> 00:19:21.579 the lifelong pacifist who never stopped abiring 00:19:21.579 --> 00:19:24.700 the sleek deadly design of war planes. He is 00:19:24.700 --> 00:19:27.579 the absent father who became a comforting paternal 00:19:27.579 --> 00:19:30.720 figure to generations of children. And the undisputed 00:19:30.720 --> 00:19:33.039 legend of anime who practically begs his own 00:19:33.039 --> 00:19:35.720 animators and his fans to look away from their 00:19:35.720 --> 00:19:37.500 screens and actually look at the real world. 00:19:37.920 --> 00:19:40.119 Exactly. Which leaves us with one final thing 00:19:40.119 --> 00:19:41.880 to ponder especially for all of you listening 00:19:41.880 --> 00:19:44.819 right now. Miyazaki deeply believes that relying 00:19:44.819 --> 00:19:47.440 on modern technology and referencing other media 00:19:47.440 --> 00:19:50.740 makes our culture thin and fake. He insists that 00:19:50.740 --> 00:19:54.059 true, enduring art requires the creator to closely, 00:19:54.339 --> 00:19:57.559 painfully observe real, breathing life. So what 00:19:57.559 --> 00:19:59.420 happens to the artist's storytelling, and more 00:19:59.420 --> 00:20:01.079 importantly, what happens to our basic human 00:20:01.079 --> 00:20:03.700 empathy, when the next generation grows up observing 00:20:03.700 --> 00:20:06.279 life almost entirely through the filter of screens? 00:20:06.619 --> 00:20:09.319 If we only ever look at reflections, we eventually 00:20:09.319 --> 00:20:12.329 forget what the real thing looks like. Keep that 00:20:12.329 --> 00:20:14.970 in mind the next time you marvel at a beautifully 00:20:14.970 --> 00:20:18.009 animated meadow and remember the agonizing human 00:20:18.009 --> 00:20:20.390 effort it took to draw every single blade of 00:20:20.390 --> 00:20:22.569 crass. Thank you for taking this deep dive with 00:20:22.569 --> 00:20:23.569 us. We'll catch you on the next one.