Hayao Miyazaki: Things To Know About The Spirited Away Writer And Director

Studio Ghibli Announced In 2013 That Hayao Miyazaki Would Be Retiring Following The Release Of The Wind Rises

In 2013, fans of Hayao Miyazaki, and Studio Ghibli in general, were in for a shock when the Japanese animation house announced that following the release of The Wind Rises, the acclaimed director would be stepping down and retiring from filmmaking after decades of creating large, lived-in worlds and the characters that inhabited them.

At the time of his retirement announcement, Hayao Miyazaki had been working in the animation world for 50 years, having first joining Toei Animation in 1963 as an artist on Gulliver’s Travels Beyond The Moon before later making a name for himself by directing the 1979 feature The Castle of Cagliostro. But as we would all learn just a few years after the 2013 reveal, Miyazaki wasn’t going to be gone for long.