Miyazaki Hayao

Hayao Miyazaki is a Japanese animator, filmmaker and manga artist. As co-founder of Studio Ghibli, he has gained international acclaim as a master storyteller and creator of Japanese animation, and is widely regarded as one of the most accomplished filmmakers in the history of animation.

Born in Tokyo, Imperial Japan, Hayao Miyazaki showed an interest in manga and animation from an early age and joined Toei Animation in 1963. During his early years at Toei Animation, he worked as an intermediate artist and later collaborated with director Takahata Hoon. Notable films produced by Miyazaki at Toei include The Puppy March and Gulliver's Travels Beyond the Moon. He provided key animation for other Toei films, such as Puss in Boots and Animal Treasure Island, before moving to A-Pro in 1971, where he co-directed Lupin the Third Part I with Takahata. After moving to Mizuno Eizo (later Nippon Animation) in 1973, Miyazaki worked as an animator at the World Masterpiece Theater and directed the TV series Future Teen Conan (1978). In 1979, he joined Tokyo Film Shinsha and directed his first feature film, The Castle of Cagliostro, as well as the TV series Sherlock the Hound. During the same period, he also began writing and illustrating the manga Valley of the Wind (1982-1994) and directed the 1984 film adaptation produced by Topcraft.

Hayao Miyazaki co-founded Studio Ghibli in 1985. He directed several films with Ghibli, including Castle in the Sky: Castle in the Sky (1986), Totoro (1988), The Witch's House (1989), and Red Pig (1992). These movies were critical and commercial successes in Japan. Hayao Miyazaki's The Phantom Princess was the first animated film to win the Japanese Academy Award for Best Picture of the Year and was the highest-grossing film in Japan for a time after its release in 1997; its release in the Western world greatly increased Ghibli's popularity and influence outside Japan. His 2001 film A Thousand and One became the highest-grossing film in Japanese history, won an Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, and is often cited as one of the greatest films of the 2000s. Hayao Miyazaki's later films - Howl's Moving Castle (2004), Hime the Golden Fish (2008), and The Wind Rises (2013) - were also critical and commercial successes. After the release of The Wind Rises, Miyazaki announced his retirement from feature films, but he later returned to write and direct his twelfth feature film, The Boy and the Heron (2023).

In November 2012, he was named a Person of Cultural Merit for outstanding cultural contributions, and in November 2014, he received an Academy Honor Award for his influence on animation and film. Hayao Miyazaki is often cited as an inspiration to many animators, directors and writers.