Starting Point: 1979-1996

—You have always said that what you want to make is “films” and not “anime.” But what is popular abroad seems to be anime. What do you see as the problem with anime? MIYAZAKI: The major source for Japanese animation is manga, whose greatest characteristic is its method of expression centered on emotions. In order to express emotions, space and time

MIYAZAKI: Even if the buildings are interesting, the problem is what’s inside. No matter how resourcefully one builds a prison, it is, after all, a prison.

NAKAMURA: That is one of the points at issue. Behind the reason nature was preserved in the past was a certain sense of aesthetics, which was supported in major or minor ways by a sense of religion. Today, we live in an irreligious manner, so we have separated aesthetics from religion. This has weakened the status of beauty in our time.

it seems you have been influenced by director Akira Kurosawa. MIYAZAKI: I love director Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai. Even though I love it, the Japan that he depicts in that film is not the real Japan. My perception of Japanese history is different. That is why I felt I needed to make my own period drama with historical Japan as the setting, and