Influences
A number of Western authors have influenced Miyazaki's work, including
Ursula K. Le Guin,
Lewis Carroll, and
Diana Wynne Jones. Miyazaki confided to Le Guin that
Earthsea had been a great influence on all his works, and that he kept her books at his bedside.
[35] Miyazaki and French writer and illustrator
Jean Giraud (a.k.a. Moebius) have influenced each other and have become friends as a result of their mutual admiration.
Monnaie de Paris held an exhibition of their work titled
Miyazaki et Moebius: Deux Artistes Dont Les Dessins Prennent Vie (Two Artists’s Drawings Taking on a Life of Their Own) from December 2004 to April 2005. Both artists attended the opening of the exhibition.
[26][36] Moebius named his daughter Nausicaa after Miyazaki's heroine.
[37] Miyazaki has been deeply influenced by another French writer,
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. He illustrated the Japanese covers of Saint-Exupéry's
Night Flight (
Vol de nuit) and
Wind, Sand and Stars (
Terre des Hommes), and wrote an afterword for
Wind, Sand and Stars.
In an interview broadcast on
BBC Choice on 2002-06-10, Miyazaki cited the British authors
Eleanor Farjeon,
Rosemary Sutcliff, and
Philippa Pearce as influences. The filmmaker has also publicly expressed fondness for
Roald Dahl's stories about pilots and airplanes; the image in
Porco Rosso of a cloud of dead pilots was inspired by Dahl's
They Shall Not Grow Old. As in Miyazaki's films, these authors create self-contained worlds in which
allegory is often used, and characters have complex, and often ambiguous, motivations. Other Miyazaki works, such as
My Neighbor Totoro, Princess Mononoke, and
Spirited Away, incorporate elements of Japanese history and
mythology.
Miyazaki has said he was inspired to become an animator by
The Tale of the White Serpent, considered the first modern anime, in 1958. He has also said that
The Snow Queen, a Soviet animated film, was one of his earliest inspirations, and that it motivated him to stay in animation production.
[38] Yuriy Norshteyn, a Russian animator, is Miyazaki's friend and praised by him as "a great artist."
[39] Norshteyn's
Hedgehog in the Fog is cited as one of Miyazaki's favourite animated films.
[38] Miyazaki has long been a fan of the
Aardman Studios animation. In May 2006,
David Sproxton and
Peter Lord, founders of Aardman Studios, visited the
Ghibli Museum exhibit dedicated to their works, where they also met Miyazaki.
[40]
Pete Docter, director of the popular films
Up and
Monsters, Inc. as well as a co-creator of other
Pixar works, has praised Miyazaki and described him as an influence.
[41] Glen Keane, the animator for successful
Disney films such as
The Little Mermaid,
The Rescuers Down Under,
Beauty and the Beast,
Aladdin, and
Tangled, has also credited Miyazaki as a "huge influence" on his work and on Disney in general during the past two decades.
[42]
Miyazaki has also been cited as an influence on various
role-playing video games. The creator of
Square's
Final Fantasy series,
Hironobu Sakaguchi, cited Miyazaki as inspiration for elements such as the
airships and
chocobos featured in the series.
[43] The post-apocalyptic setting of
SNK's
Crystalis was inspired by Miyazaki's
Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, and
Crystalis in turn influenced Square's
Secret of Mana.
[44]
