Hayao Miyazaki: The Life Of A Hardworking Tyrant | Full Biography (Howl's Moving Castle)

Hayao Miyazaki: A Brilliant but Contradictory Figure

The biography presents Hayao Miyazaki as a lifelong lover of flying machines troubled by their connection to war, a tireless animator whose career came at a cost to family life, and an artist known for strong characters despite his own famously forceful personality.

A Difficult Childhood and the Roots of His Films

Born in Tokyo in 1941, Miyazaki grew up around his family’s aircraft-parts business. He loved drawing planes but later felt uneasy that his family had profited from military production. His childhood was also shaped by wartime bombing and his mother Yoshiko’s long illness. With his father often away working, Hayao and his brothers learned to manage household tasks early.

The biography connects these experiences to recurring themes in Miyazaki’s films: vivid flying machines, close attention to nature, and capable children and women who don’t need rescuing. His mother’s blunt saying that people were “hopeless” also became one of his favorite quotes.

Miyazaki recalled feeling lonely and ashamed as a child, and said drawing offered an escape. He was moved to tears by the animated film The White Snake Enchantress. At the same time, he was determined to develop his own style. When someone pointed out that his drawings resembled those of manga artist Osamu Tezuka, Miyazaki burned the drawings he thought were too similar.

He found people harder to draw than machinery, so he began carefully observing how they moved and what motivated them.

A Bold Newcomer at Toei

After studying political economy at university, Miyazaki joined Toei Animation in 1963 as an in-between artist, drawing the frames between key poses. He initially disliked the work but quickly earned a reputation for persistence and talent. His mentor, Yasuo Ōtsuka, said Miyazaki charged ahead “like a heavy tank.”

Even as a junior animator, Miyazaki proposed a new ending for Gulliver’s Travels Beyond the Moon. His idea was accepted.

At Toei, he met Isao Takahata, who became his close creative partner, and animator Akemi Ōta, whom he later married. Miyazaki and Takahata also became involved in the animators’ union, with Miyazaki eventually serving as its general secretary. His activism and left-wing views brought him into conflict with studio management.

From Project to Project—and a First Feature Film

After leaving Toei with Takahata, Miyazaki worked across several studios. A planned Pippi Longstocking film fell through when Astrid Lindgren refused permission, though the trip to Sweden provided sketches and ideas for later work.

Miyazaki took on increasingly ambitious projects, including Future Boy Conan, where he handled directing, storyboards, characters, settings, and mechanical designs.

His first feature as director was Lupin III: The Castle of Cagliostro. Miyazaki gave the familiar thief a more heroic, mature character—a change that some viewers, and even the original creator, criticized. The production was rushed, and Miyazaki spent so much time at the studio that his family barely saw him.

His wife, Akemi, took on much of the parenting. She eventually gave up her own animation career after Miyazaki asked her to stay home, a decision he later regretted.

The film initially struggled at the box office but was later acclaimed and became influential among animators, including Pixar’s John Lasseter. The account then turns to Miyazaki’s manga and the beginnings of Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, introducing editor Toshio Suzuki just as the excerpt ends.

Notable People Mentioned

Hayao Miyazaki, Isao Takahata, Akemi Ōta (Miyazaki), Yoshiko Miyazaki, Katsuji Miyazaki, Yasuo Ōtsuka, Osamu Tezuka, Toshio Suzuki, Astrid Lindgren, and John Lasseter.