Hayao Miyazaki

Hayao Miyazaki (宮崎 駿, Miyazaki Hayao; born January 5, 1941) is a Japanese animator, director, producer, screenwriter, author, and manga artist. A co-founder of Studio Ghibli, he has attained international acclaim as a masterful storyteller and creator of Japanese animated feature films, and is widely regarded as one of the most accomplished filmmakers in the history of animation.

Miyazaki directed many of Japan’s best known animated films, including Spirited Away and Princess Mononoke. Miyazaki’s protagonists are usually young girls. Miyazaki reportedly once shouted “What’s wrong with falling in love with a 12-year-old girl?" (「一二歳の女の子と恋愛してどこが悪い」) at fellow director Mamoru Oshii when drunk. The source for this claim appears to be the book "Creator's file Miyazaki Hayao no sekai" (2005). A rough translation of the 1st image containing this quote, reads:

Image where Hayao Miyazaki is reported to have said the famous quote, “What’s wrong with falling in love with a 12-year-old girl?"

Those girls are innocent plants for Miya-san. His mind is like a little girl who is standing beyond the mirror. I still don’t get it though. I guess it’s barely different from mine. I have no idea, because I have never been interested in an actual little girl, or child. But he has. When he got terribly drunk, he suddenly shouted “What’s wrong with falling in love with a 12-year-old girl?” That was obviously his true colours.

Various other images are passed around on the Japanese web as evidence of Miyazaki’s sexual and/or romantic attractions. These have yet to be verified or translated, and can be found archived elsewhere.

Editors: Although various sources suggest that Miyazaki has at least an aesthetic appreciation of youthful beauty, Miyazaki's statement's are often piecemeal, contradictory or confusing. As one author explained:

Hayao Miyazaki is a self-confessed bundle of contradictions. Read his writings, listen to his interviews, watch him speak, and he paints a portrait of an artist caught between idealism and nihilism, optimism and despair. He is the pacifist with a fascination for war planes; the demanding boss who despises authority, yet, as a director, wields it ruthlessly; the father who believes passionately in the spirit of children but was hardly home to raise his own; the staunch environmentalist who struggles to live an ecologically ethical life.