The Impact of a Ghibli Film Scene on Hayao Miyazaki’s Son: A Poignant Story

Ghibli: a legendary animation studio

Founded in 1985 by Hayao Myazaki and Isao Takahata, Studio Ghibli is today a true world reference in terms of animation. Since 1986, The castle in the Sky collects the votes, partly riding on the success of Nausicâa of the Valley of the Wind even if the latter was released before the official creation of the studio. Since then, almost one film per year has been produced by Studio Ghibli, with My Neighbor Totoro, Tomb of the Fireflies, Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away, Howl’s Moving Castle and, much more recently, The Boy and the Heron.

This last film enjoyed great critical success, winning the BAFTA, Golden Globe and Oscar for best animated film. She follows in the footsteps of Mahito, a young man who lost his mother in a fire. His father remarried his deceased wife's younger sister, and everyone moved to the countryside. From there, Mahito is regularly disturbed by a supernatural gray heron, who seems to live in a ruined tower. We won't say more so that you can experience the film as a whole, but it is important because it is in The Boy and the Heron that Goro Miyazaki, son of the “master”, finds the scene that seems to touch him most.

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A scene from The Boy and the Heron seems to particularly resonate with Goro Miyazaki

Interviewed by France TV on the occasion of the Cannes Film Festival where he is came to collect an honorary Palme d'Or awarded to Studio GhibliGoro Miyazaki spoke about the scene that touched him the most:

In fact, I don't identify with a particular character, but with a moment in the film. This would be one of the last scenes from The Boy and the Heron. (This is when a character says) “Are you ready to continue and succeed my work and my worldview”, and Mahito says “no”. At that moment, I really identified with this character. Mr. Susuki, the producer, actually asks me to succeed Studio Ghibli and my fear is also to find the means to avoid being the successor and heir of the Studio.

Goro Miyazaki always hinted that being the son of the legendary director was far from obvious. Recently, he even indicated that the relationship with his father was complex, and that it was “annoying to be his son“.”My father is not an easy man. When I made my first film. He walked out in the middle of the screening telling me it was rubbish” he said, adding: “we have a lot of suggestions for developing our characters. We develop little because my father and his partner are very selective.”

Goro Miyazaki adds that everything about the studio's future is “really foggy“, and that his father, if he was happy to receive the Palme d'Or, feels like this marks the end of his career and that the golden age of Japanese animation has passed. For his part, Goro Miyazaki runs the museum and the park he designed itself in order to honor the history and heritage of the studio.