????Hayao Miyazaki, born Jan. 5, 1941, is a revered Japanese film director, animator, screenwriter and manga artist. The animated films produced through his company, Studio Ghibli, commonly smash box office records in Japan and achieve international acclaim. Miyazaki is particularly well known for imaginative fantasy-themed productions including “My Neighbor Totoro” (1998) and “Spirited Away” (2001).WHAT exactly prompted the world’s most revered animation director, Hayao Miyazaki, to retire after a five-decade career may be a mystery, but the 72-year-old director has been hinting at calling it quits for a long time, according to The Japan News. ????The official announcement came Sept. 1 when Studio Ghibli President Koji Hoshino told reporters at the Venice International Film Festival, held on Lido Island in Venice, that the director’s festival entry, “Kaze Tachinu” (“The Wind Rises”), will be his last film. ????The current release is the third of his works to be shown at the festival. ????In 2005, Miyazaki was awarded the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement for his outstanding contribution to film. ????“Miyazaki has been invited to the festival many times, and he loves Lido Island,” Hoshino said during the press conference. “Miyazaki has decided to make ‘Kaze Tachinu’ his last film.” ????The room hushed at the unexpected news. But as the press conference ended, the reporters broke into a round of applause. ????Miyazaki himself had hinted at retirement before, The Japan News said. ????During the production of “Mononoke Hime” (“Princess Mononoke”) in 1997, the director said he would not mind making the film his last, not only of the 20th century, but also of his career. ????Just before the release of “Kaze Tachinu,” he told The Yomiuri Shimbun that though he believed he was ahead of the times when he was making “Kaze no Tani no Naushika” (“Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind”) in 1984, he had gradually come to feel “the times had caught up” with him by the end of the last millennium and the dawn of the 21st century. ????Creating countless storyboards and drawing each frame of an animation by hand is time-consuming and labor-intensive. ????Because of the grueling work involved, Miyazaki said: “I get stiff shoulders. I get eyestrain and lose a lot of my ability to focus.” ????He shed tears at a preview of “Kaze Tachinu.” Speaking to reporters before the film’s release in July, he said with an air of embarrassment: “A director shouldn’t cry while watching his own films. That’s a no-no.” ????Miyazaki had been under attack in Japan for “Kaze Tachinu,” a South China Morning Post report in August said. The film was launched in Japan in July in the midst of a Japanese political environment that has taken a hawkish stance on foreign policy. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s denial of Japanese war crimes in World War II and his aggressive policies on the disputed Diaoyu Islands have sparked criticism in Asia. Miyazaki himself has expressed disapproval. ????“One can only be appalled by the lack of historical sense and fixed convictions on the part of top political leaders,” Miyazaki wrote in a July editorial put out by his studio’s magazine. “People who have not thought enough should not be messing around with our constitution.” ????Miyazaki also wrote that a “proper apology” should be given to Korean comfort women who serviced the Japanese army during World War II, and suggested that the Diaoyu Islands be “either split in half” or controlled jointly between China and Japan. ????Such remarks have generated ire from right-wing Japanese conservatives, many of whom have taken to the Internet to express their approval of Abe’s nationalistic policies. On the Yahoo Japan profile for “Kaze Tachinu,” over 2,000 comments are visible, and many netizens are lashing out at the film’s pacifist message, calling it overly “l(fā)eft-wing.” Others have labeled Miyazaki “anti-Japanese” and a “traitor.” ????(SD-Agencies) | 