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Top: Still from Kiki\u2019s Delivery Service, 1989; Above: Still from Laputa \u2013 Castle in the Sky, 1989; Images: \u00a9 Studio Ghibli<\/p>\nIt\u2019s hard to think of a filmmaker alive today as universally admired as Hayao Miyazaki. For more than four decades, the legendary Japanese animator has been enchanting audiences all over the world with his visually dazzling, morally complex flights of fancy.<\/p>\n
Now, the Studio Ghibli co-founder\u2019s life\u2019s work has been distilled into a gorgeous coffee table book, aptly titled The Worlds of Hayao Miyazaki: The Influences and Inspiration Behind the Iconic Films. Author Nicolas Rapold is clearly well-versed in the films themselves \u2013 but equally impressive is his command of the cultural, historical and artistic influences that have shaped Miyazaki\u2019s storytelling.<\/p>\n
Top: Still from Kiki\u2019s Delivery Service, 1989; Above: Still from Laputa \u2013 Castle in the Sky, 1989; Images: \u00a9 Studio Ghibli<\/p>\n
From the outset, the book takes readers through the looking glass, describing how a handful of writers with serious world-building chops first caught the imagination of a young Miyazaki. These include well-known names such as Lewis Carroll, CS Lewis and Jules Verne, but also authors less familiar to Western audiences such as Kenji Miyazawa, whose 1924 story The Acorns and the Wildcat was a major influence on My Neighbor Totoro.<\/p>\n
Rapold delves deeper still into European and Japanese children\u2019s literature, folklore, politics, cinema (both animation and live action) and even architecture, gradually peeling back the layers of Miyazaki\u2019s creative process. Individual chapters shed light on the people, places and personal memories that have seeped into films such as Princess Mononoke, Howl\u2019s Moving Castle and Kiki\u2019s Delivery Service, revealing an artist fully immersed in the world around him.<\/p>\n
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The Worlds of Hayao Miyazaki book cover<\/p>\n
Among the book\u2019s most striking revelations is how the French writer Antoine de Saint-Exup\u00e9ry \u2013 best-known for The Little Prince \u2013 fuelled Miyazaki\u2019s lifelong obsession with aviation. There\u2019s even the suggestion that the name Ghibli was inspired by an Italian aircraft used in North Africa during the late 1930s and early 40s.<\/p>\n
Whether you\u2019re a casual Studio Ghibli fan or the kind of devotee who might be tempted to jump on the next plane to Matsuyama to visit the bathhouse that inspired Spirited Away, The Worlds of Hayao Miyazaki is a journey well worth taking.<\/p>\n