International audiences will have the opportunity to see The Never Ending Man: Hayao Miyazaki, a new documentary providing an insight into the life of the celebrated Japanese animation, artist, writer and filmmaker Hayaoiyazaki, the heart and soul of legendary Studio Ghibli. Autobiographically, the film revolves around the theme of relentless creativity and the urge to ask questions when it seemed impossible that Miyazaki would ever retire.
Never Ending reached British shores last year via NHK World TV. Leading cinema distributor Fathom Events is distributing the film, and press news has revealed that more than 500 cinemas have already shown the film. The film will be shown in the USA from 13 to 18 December with English subtitles.
One of the most memorable scenes is when Miyazaki drops a hard but clever truth bomb over the coffee. The song “Let It Go” is also very popular.
We always push to outdo ourselves. Self-satisfied people are so boring, that’s why I do what I do.
Anyone who knows anything about animation knows how important Miyazaki is to the world of fantastic hand-drawn animation. Like many of Japan’s best-known artists, Miyazaki undoubtedly belongs in the front row, whose work has made a decisive contribution to popularizing various aspects of Japanese culture. At the 2017 Never Ending Man UK screening, Vice took the opportunity to talk to documentary director Kaku Arakawa to explain why people who know Miyazaki find him so interesting in his films : “People think he’s a little scary and difficult, but he’s actually very friendly. He tells a lot of interesting stories and I think one of them will be his next film.
Miyazaki and his influential colleagues have led many other formats of entertainment media to follow in their aesthetic footsteps by using Japanese themes to communicate and influence new audiences. Conan O’Brien’s recent series Remote Segment, in which he leads a film crew on a tour of many cultural sites in Japan, is a simple example of how the West has embraced the Far East. The same is true of Asian digital providers and expat bets, which pick up recognizable elements of Japanese culture and reconfigure them for an online audience. Animation One, a company that uses the Japanese anime style made famous by Miyazaki, adapts it to create its own stories, as in the case of Batman Ninja.
Whether online gaming networks or television animation in the West, Japan’s creative and cultural influences have always found a way to shine, and much of it owes to groundbreaking masterpieces by iconic visionaries like Hayao Miyazaki. If you’re unfamiliar with Miyazaki’s work, look at Princess Mononoke from 1997, My Neighbor Totoro from 1988, and Spirited Away from 2001, which Indie Wire calls his three best works. And 2016 – And Your Name of the director Makoto Shinkai gives you a good idea of how much Miyazaki’s work has inspired the style of the next generation of anime makers.