Hayao Miyazaki is retiring

For fans of Studio Ghibli, there was some heartbreaking news that came out of the Venice film festival this weekend: Hayao Miyasaki, director and writer of films like “The Princess Mononoke” and “Kiki’s Delivery Service,” is retiring.

There was no reason given at the time of the announcement; which was made by Koji Hoshino, who heads Studio Ghibli with Miyazaki. Hoshino stated that more details would come next week in Tokyo when Miyazaki would hold a press conference.

Miyazaki, 72, was not in Venice this weekend for the premiere of his last film “The Wind Rises,” which is his first film in five years and his 11^th feature film. Miyazaki says that this film was intended for a wider range of movie goers than other films in his body of work.

The film, which is about a WW II-era airplane designer, is to be released by the House of Mouse- Disney. There has been no announcement on a US release date for the film, but it was released in July in Japan and has since grossed over 60 million.

Though Miyazaki has been a notoriously private man, we here at the Geekiary are reluctant to say that he will stay retired. We, much like the authors over at The Mary Sue, hope he’ll be another Steven Soderbergh, who has announced over ten times that he’s retiring and keeps coming back to make more films.

If Miyazaki is going to stay retired, we can only say thank you. Thank you for all the hours of entertainment. Thank you for the tears. Thank you for the stories that we grew up on and most of all, and we mean this from the bottom of our hearts:

Thank you for the memories.

Source: AFP

Author: Marcella S

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