Lesson 1: Hayao
Miyazaki: Master of Japanese Animation : Films, Themes, Artistry1
(Citation from Helen McCarthy, Hayao
Miyazaki: Master of Japanese Animation: Films, Themes, Artistry, Stone Bridge
Press, revised edition 2002)
以下の文章は宮崎駿の映画のワンシーンを説明しています。それぞれ何の映画でしょう？
選択肢[Castle in the Sky, Kiki’s Delivery
Service, My Neighbor Totoro, Nausicaa of the Valley of wind, Porco Rosso,
Princess Mononoke,]
(A) []
A young girl falls
from the clouds, buoyed up by the power of the glowing blue pendant she wears.
A mineworker, coming back from an errand with his boss's supper, watches her float
right into his arms, and together they embark on the adventure of a lifetime.
(B) []
She fights desperately
to stop the baby worm from plunging into the AcidSea.
The Acid might not kill the little creature, but it would cause terrible pain.
It's not only her sympathy for the terrified baby that makes her act so bravely―she
knows that unless she can save it, she won’t be able to save her people from
the worm stampede.
(C)[]
She flies along
the coast toward Koriko accompanied by her black cat and some friendly
seagulls. She looks the very picture of the modern young business witch out to
make her mark in the world.
(D)[]
With twochildren,andhisowntwosiblingsclingingtohisfur,hesoarsaloftand
ridesthenightwinds onhisspinningtop,roaringlikethewindashecrossesthefieldsandwoodsofruralJapan.Thesceneryisbasedonreallandscape,butmuchofitsbeautifulwoodlandhasbeenbuiltovertoaccommodate
the growth of Tokyo in the last thirty years.
A man, riding his
faithful steed, shoots his deadly arrow. The pace of this dramatic sequence is
reminiscent of the horseback action sequences in Kurosawa’s seminal film The
Hidden Fortress, which was an early influence on Star Wars. Costume details
such as his straw cape and the style of weaponry were based on the best
available research into this early period of Japan’s history.
The Hidden Fortress 隠しとりでの三悪人 straw cape蓑 weaponry 兵器類
Western views on
Hayao Miyazaki
The Western world
hasn't been entirely unaware of Hayao Miyazaki, in the same way that it hasn’t
been unaware of Japanese animation, but few outside Asia
have really appreciated the depth and scope of either phenomenon. In conversation with Western
animators and comic artists about the creative craftsmen they most admire, Miyazaki,s name comes up again and again. My Neighbor Totoro had a U.S. video
release in 1995 and won considerable critical acclaim. Academics and writers with a broad cultural
perspective have long since acknowledged that the Japanese animation industry
is not only the largest commercial animation industry in the world, but also a powerhouse of skills and inspiration. Yet most of us remained
convinced of the hegemony of Western―read
American―animation until America’s animation giant Disney
signed a deal for world distribution rights of a group of acclaimed Japanese theatrical releases with the Japanese production and publishing company
Tokuma. These include movies by Miyazaki
himself, his distinguished colleague Isao Takahata, and their colleague, the late
Yoshifumi Kondo, who died at the tragically early age of forty-seven in January
1998.
“Manga movies” have
become notorious in Britain
and America for reasons that
have little to do with the Japanese animation industry and much with the condition
of U.S. and U.K. video
markets. Disney has chosen to avoid contentious areas of the Japanese industry altogether and go
straight to the one production house that can demonstrate a record of commitment to artistic quality and integrity that equals, and in my opinion exceeds, their own.
Studio Ghibli, the animation studio founded by Takahata and Miyazaki, has
earned a reputation for an attention to detail and quality in every aspect of a
production that borders on the fanatical: Miyazaki is one of the few directors in the industry
who personally checks every key frame and redraws any he doesn't find suitable, a task most leave to
the senior animators. Their productions are expensive in local industry terms, but every yen shows on screen. The quality of their animation work
is matched in every area of each production, from writing to design and
marketing. It was this commitment to a particular vision that captured my
admiration while the seductive beauty of the on-screen images awakened the sense of
wonder that lies dormant in all of us from childhood to life's end.
Some Western fans
and journalists have called Miyazaki
“the Disney of Japan” (a title previously bestowed on the late Osamu Tezuka,
who died ten years ago). This says more about our need to label creative
talents in ways we find acceptable than about Miyazaki or his work. Such comparisons give
us a quick frame of reference, but they also prevent us from having to think too
deeply about the content of the work or the individual views of the artist. If
I had to label him in this fashion, I would prefer to call Miyazaki “the Kurosawa of animation." Not
only does his work have the same rare combination of epic sweep
and human sensitivity that the great live-action director possessed, but it also fails to fit into any
of the neat, child-sized boxes into which the West still tends to
stuff the animated art form.
The purpose of
this book is simply to introduce Miyazaki
and his work to Western audience. For this reason it focuses primarily on the feature films
being distributed by the Disney organization. It also sketches his earlier
works and the careers of his colleagues, and briefly mentions his involvements
outside directing and screenplays, but these areas are not covered in detail.
Life and career
Hayao Miyazaki was
born into a well-to-do family living on the outskirts of Tokyo
in January 1941. His father, Katsuji, who was then twenty-six years old, was a
director of the family firm, Miyazaki Airplane. Headed by Katsuji’s elder
brother, the company was active in the war effort, making parts for Zero fighters. The war had an early
impact on the young Hayao's life―he
was three years old when the family was evacuated to safer districts, and he started school as an evacuee
in 1947. It was another three years before the Miyazakis moved back to their
old hometown, and then he changed schools again after only a year, moving to
one of Japan’s brand-new, American-influenced elementary schools.
But the biggest
impact was probably the long illness of his mother, which commenced in the same year he started school. She was a woman of very strong
character and intellectual interests. Although he says that he cannot trace his
parents’ influences on him, and that as a teenager he consciously sought to find
his own path rather than follow his family’s, the legacy of her powerful personality lives on in his work. His
youngest brother once commented that the determined, no-nonsense character of Ma
Dola in Castle in the Sky reminded him of their mother.
Mrs. Miyazaki
suffered from spinal tuberculosis. She was bedridden from 1947, two years after the birth of her fourth
child, to 1955. The first few years of her illness were spent largely in the
hospital, but she was able to be nursed at home thereafter and lived to old age.
Despite her absence from home and her long illness, she played a huge part in
forming her son’s view of the world.
Like many children
in postwar Japan,
the youngster decided he wanted to become a comic artist while in high school.
His abilities at that time were limited―he couldn't draw people well, having (like
war babies all over Europe) only drawn planes, tanks, and battle-ships for years.
It was an exciting time to be a young comic reader in Japan, and
there was plenty of encouragement and inspiration. The teenage Osamu Tezuka had
leapt to comic stardom in 1947 with his seminal manga New Treasure
Island and started a powerful wave of enthusiasm. Established artists began
to try new styles and techniques, and throughout the fifties there was an
increase in comics consumption.
Like comics,
animation enjoyed a peacetime renaissance. The experimentation of the early years of the century had brought
Japanese animators into contact with their Western counterparts. Interrupted by
war, this contact was now resumed with the active encouragement of the occupying
American authorities, and Japan’s
animation industry once again began to produce entertainment for the cinema
audience rather than overt war propaganda. From the 1960s this mass entertainment
included material for the new medium of television.
Miyazaki's youthful interest in animation was kindled
by the first Japanese color animated feature, Taiji Yabushitd’s Legend of the White Serpent. He had been
considering a career as a manga author, a path that he was not to reject
entirely.
It seemed his
career path was moving away from the arts when he entered GakushuinUniversity,
a prestigious institution with imperial connections, to study
political science and economics. His final-year thesis was on the theory of
Japanese industry. He could easily have been another pioneer of Japan’s economic
revival, but he wanted to find his own path in life and his interest in graphic
entertainment and its possibilities was still strong. Among the many clubs and
societies on offer at the university was a children’s literature research
society, which he joined. The group read children's books and comics, including
many European texts. When he left the university in 1963, he did not take up an
academic post or a business opportunity. Instead he joined Toei-Animation, the
animation studio of the Toei Company, moved into an apartment near the studio, and
after three months training did his first professional work.
