Earth’s population could reach ten billion in the future, but of course with humans we also have to consider the possibility that it could decrease to 200 million. Just as there have been plenty of such examples in the past, any number of tragic events could happen in the future. So how do we go on living? If you ask me, the only solution is to

Tezuka-san was a rival against whom I struggled This article is supposed to be for a special issue devoted to Osamu Tezuka, so I’m assuming there will be a loud chorus of other people mourning his passing, and I do not intend to add my voice to it. I think I have probably been far more deeply involved with Mr. Tezuka than with the gang who go about

viewers are apt to be more forgiving of the animated movements of animals than they are of human movement.

In reality, in 1979, even as I write this, the boom in overexpressionism has peaked and the phenomenon has lost the mind share it once had. What survives has taken refuge in direct-to-video anime works, but despite a great deal of advertising of video as part of the “new media,” we see very little actual growth in this market. Instead, what we see

In that context, I do worry about today’s young people. When watching animation, it’s not enough to fall in love with a particular explosion or combat scene; you also need to consider what the overall work is trying express, and whether what has been expressed succeeds. I know that some animated works are pure entertainment and don’t even have a

For the past few years, I have put forth ideas for film projects with the following ethos: “To offer a sense of liberation to present-day young people who, in this suffocating, overprotective, and managed society, find their path to self-reliant independence blocked and have become neurotic.”

—What was the difference between what you and your staff were doing and what other studios were doing at that time? Miyazaki: Other studios may also have been pushing their limits. I do think they were all working very hard. But I think we were working the hardest. What I mean is not that we were just working hard, but that we consciously

There are too many animators who aren’t interested in that way of expression. Many of them didn’t enter into this field to draw everyday occurrences; they want to forget about reality and go somewhere

This definitely happens, and when it does, you may realize that although you had intended to have a character smile or laugh at a particular juncture in the story, that he or she would definitely not laugh there. What also often happens is that you realize that in the initial scenario a character does not reappear at a particular place, but that in