CATDOLL: Hayao Miyazaki says Japanese anime is being destroyed by otaku

As a world-renowned animation director, what does Hayao Miyazaki think of his country's animation industry? In a recent TV interview, Hayao Miyazaki, who has announced his retirement, expressed his thoughts: " The current Japanese animation industry is on the decline because it has become the exclusive domain of otakus ."

He said that the animation industry is now basically composed of otakus or people who love animation. They never pay attention to the real people around them, but focus all their energy on the conception of virtual characters. Miyazaki defines this type of people as "indifferent to the people or things around them", and it is because of this that the Japanese animation industry has become " a system composed entirely of otakus ".

Hayao Miyazaki is completely different in this regard. His animation is inseparable from the observation and understanding of daily life. Whenever he directs a movie, he spends a lot of time observing the people around him. "When you really observe and think carefully, the audience will sigh when appreciating your work, 'Oh, such girls exist in real life.'"

Miyazaki also said that most of the current anime characters are the same, without any breakthrough or change. To create a wonderful work that can resonate with the audience, the producer must not only have rich experience and outstanding talent, but also learn to contact all kinds of people, and understand them while also understanding life better.

The style of Studio Ghibli, led by Hayao Miyazaki, has basically not changed since Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, and it insists on hand-drawing (only My Neighbor Yamada is drawn by computer), which gives people a sense of nostalgia in this era of pursuing 3DCG images, as if returning to the peaceful and diluted time of childhood. However, it is indeed difficult for current animation to give people such a sense of peace. Fast-food animation is everywhere, and good works are difficult to get good adaptations. What will the future of Japanese animation be like?