Studio Ghibli’s Hayao Miyazaki will not be retiring anytime soon. For the fourth time, the producer has failed to retire. Other people actually think that this might just be his last film, but he however does not feel that way at all.
Studio Ghibli’s Hayao Miyazaki Retiring
The Boy and the Heron, the first feature film of Hayao Miyazaki in a decade, probably will not be his last after all. Executive Junichi Nishioka of Studio Ghibli revealed to CBC News that not only does he not feel like retiring anymore, but he is actively coming into work to create yet another film very soon.
“Other people say that [The Boy and the Heron] might be his last film, but he doesn’t feel that way at all,” Nishioka revealed to CBC, via a translator, at the just concluded Toronto International Film Festival (via Gizmodo).
“He is currently working on ideas for a new film. He comes into his office every day and does that. This time, he’s not going to announce his retirement at all. He’s continuing working just as he has always done.”
That seems… pretty definitive.
Alicia Haddick’s Take on the Matter
And really, we should have at the least known better! I will leave you with the epic first three paragraphs that Alicia Haddick wrote for us on this very topic in the previous month:
“The year is 1997, and famed Studio Ghibli director Hayao Miyazaki announced plans to retire following the release of Princess Mononoke, a film that set new records at the box office for Japanese animation and revolutionized the medium. The year is 2001, and Miyazaki announced plans to retire following the release of Spirited Away, saying he can no longer work on feature-length animated films. The year is 2013, and Miyazaki announced plans to retire following the release of The Wind Rises, saying that “If I said I wanted to [make another feature film], I would sound like an old man saying something foolish.”
And now, the year is 2023, and Miyazaki is an old man saying something foolish by releasing a new film, titled How Do You Live in Japan and renamed The Boy and the Heron for the international market.
The point is, it’s hard to say with any certainty whether this will truly be the moment when Hayao Miyazaki steps away from feature animation for good (he’ll likely never step away from animation entirely, directing a new short for the Ghibli Museum during his last retirement, Boro the Caterpillar).”
“I have caused a stir in the past by saying I was quitting,” Miyazaki a decade ago reportedly stated. “But I am serious this time. There are things that I have always wanted to do, but it does not involve animation.”
And I hope he got to do them before his stipulated return.
