Hayao Miyazaki: The Greatest Storyteller in Animation
Hayao Miyazaki changed what animation means. I do not say that lightly. Before his films, Western audiences largely assumed that animated stories were for children who needed simple lessons. Miyazaki proved, film by film, that animation could carry the full weight of human experience — grief, wonder, moral ambiguity, and quiet beauty. This site exists because his work deserves that kind of attention.
Who is Hayao Miyazaki?
Born in Tokyo in 1941, Hayao Miyazaki spent his childhood drawing aircraft — his father ran a company that made parts for Zero fighter planes. However, he did not become an engineer. Instead, he fell in love with animation at the age of seventeen after watching The Tale of the White Serpent and reportedly cried for hours. That, he later said, was the moment he knew.
He joined Toei Animation in 1963. It was unglamorous work — cleaning up other artists’ frames, filling in motion sequences. Yet he treated it like a craft school. Furthermore, he used those years to study everything: Soviet animation, Disney, and European illustration. By the time he co-founded Studio Ghibli in 1985, he had spent twenty years quietly becoming one of the best animators alive.
A Philosophy, Not Just a Style
Most directors have a theme. Hayao Miyazaki has a philosophy. His films return, again and again, to a handful of questions: What do humans owe to nature? What does war cost the people who fight it? How do young women find their strength in a world that does not make it easy?
These are not light subjects. However, Miyazaki wraps them in worlds so visually extraordinary — floating castles, bathhouses full of gods, valleys thick with toxic spores — that you absorb the questions without realising you are thinking at all. In other words, his films do not argue with you. Instead, they show you something beautiful and let you draw your own conclusions. Consequently, each viewing tends to leave you with something different.
Where to Start on This Site
This site covers everything worth knowing about Hayao Miyazaki: the films, the philosophy, the music, the fan theories, and the people behind Studio Ghibli. Therefore, whether you have seen every film or none of them, there is something here for you. If you are new, start with our blog — it covers everything from pacifism in his films to the food scenes that make everyone hungry.
Moreover, if you want to go deeper, read the full biography of Hayao Miyazaki — it traces his life from wartime Tokyo to his final films. Alternatively, if you just want to talk about Totoro or share a theory, we are right here.
External reference: Hayao Miyazaki on Wikipedia.