This isn't the first time he's retired but at the age of 72, it may be the last. Of course his film has stirred a bit of a hornet's nest in Japan, the right wing not really caring for as he gives a rather factual and fair treatment to WWII.The Oscar-winning Japanese film-maker Hayao Miyazaki is to retire from directing after the release of his final movie, which premiered in competition at the Venice film festival at the weekend.
The famed animator was not in Italy for the debut of The Wind Rises, but his retirement was revealed by Studio Ghibli president Koju Hoshino in a deliberately short announcement on Sunday ahead of a full press conference in Tokyo next week. "He wants to say goodbye to all of you," said Hoshino.
Miyazaki, 72, is one of the most celebrated figures in animated film-making, with iconic movies such as 1997's Princess Mononoke, 2001's Oscar-winning Spirited Away and 2004's Howl's Moving Castle in his canon. With Isao Takahata, he co-founded Studio Ghibli in 1985. The company has produced 18 feature films, with several taking the top spot at the Japanese box office for their respective years of release.
Miyazaki, who won a lifetime achievement award from the Venice film festival in 2005, previously retired following the international success of Princess Mononoke, but returned to direct Spirited Away four years later and then stepped in to take charge of Howl's Moving Castle when original director Mamoru Hosoda unexpectedly quit the production. The Wind Rises, his 11th feature-length film, is a fictionalised biography of Jiro Horikoshi, who designed Japanese fighter planes during the second world war.
The problem being that a fair and factual treatment of WWII doesn't render Imperial Japan as an crusading nation of heroes trying to liberate Asia from European Imperialism, but as a brutal Imperialist state hell bent on crushing and enslaving it's neighbors because of a racial belief in their superiority and right to do so.