Hayao Miyazaki

Hayao Miyazaki is a famous animator who uses computer for his extraordinary art work. He not only uses a great story plot, but he uses very very detailed art work to convey his messages.

He started as a manga artist, but he became a renowned award winning (including academy) animator.















His first computer assisted work, "Princess Mononoke", is about
Ashitaka, the main character, who tires to bring a balance to the violent war between humans and the nature. The society in industrial time is fighting against the monsters from nature and on the other side, the nature is defending the tyranny of humans along with Princess Mononoke who is raised by the wolves.

The plot itself is clear that Miyazaki is warning us that the nature will fight back if we fail to love the nature. However, Miyazaki further explains his message by using vivid imagery in his work.

The wolf on the right is looking at us directly. Its face looks like it is growling. Its fur is white which is different from the real wolves' fur. On the left of the wolf, there is a fragile looking girl whose face is covered with red that looks like blood. She is holding a knife that makes her seem like she is ready to battle.

The movie poster conveys his hidden message really well. So well that you can get the message without watching the movie. The big scary wolf is clearly mad at us, human who is in contrast so weak just like depicted through a woman next to it. And the wolf is warning us about something by growling, like a dog growling at people. Unlike other posters this poster has so many reds that looks almost unapproachable. It represents how violet our way of our lives are. Holding knives to one another and constantly battling. The princess is looking at us but not angrily but there is sadness in her eyes which look like she pities us. Just like how Miyazaki feels about our life style. The prediction from just looking at the poster indeed comes true in the movie. Battles after battle, blood, guns, and explosion, this movie gets really violent. It gets so violent and gruesome that the animation seems more gory than most rated R movies. And at the end, the nature unleashes her one last attack that kills almost everyone in the movie. I saw many correlations of the movie, the monsters in this movie represents natural disasters that is caused by human that damage ourselves. Like global warming, wild fire, and hurricanes that become more destructive every year. The main character is a lot like environmentalists who tries to warn us to change our life style. Hayazaki is telling us that if we don't change our life style, the mother nature will destroy us all.

 Two popular movies, Spirited away, which won an academy award, and Howl's moving castle also convey Hayazaki's messages clearly using vivid artwork as well. In these movies, he shifts his main point to human's "greed." In the picture above, he represents his greed by turning  the main character's parents into pigs. It shows human's gluttony and how messed up we can become. Even though we can only see her back, judging by her hair standing up and her hands in front like defending herself, we can see that the girl is scared. I think Hayazaki is telling us adults that our greed is scaring kids. Same message can be seen from the movie howl's moving castle. Even though the castle looks like a big metal monster, if we look at it carefully, we can see that it is just like the city we people live in. I see houses, pipes, chimneys, and drills, and machines from construction sites. All representing the human's city lives and how scary it can look. Later, Howl's castle destroyed by wars that break out between two cities over, again, greed. In the end, it gets remade to a better, not just moving but "flying" castle. I felt like the movie was saying that if we don't stop the greed in our lives, our lives will be ruined. And the movie is saying that we can rebuild the whole society to be a better place if we just try to do so.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119698/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirited_Away
http://disney.go.com/disneypictures/castle/