Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #175649 in Books
• Published on: 2003-11-17
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 240 pages

Synopsis
Offers an inside look at the works of Hayao Miyazaki, featuring preliminary sketches and scenes from his films.

Customer Reviews

Slightly obsolete and very simplistic overview
As a very basic introduction to the Studio Ghibli animator Hayao Miyazaki, this book is excellent: it's well designed, with a great number of black and white stills from the films, plus pictures of various Japanese video covers, and a very small eight page colour section at the front.

But be warned. This is not a "how to draw anime" guide. This is not an in-depth look inside the mind of a master. This will not teach you much you don't already know about Miyazaki based on the kinds of movies he makes -- an obsession with flight and flying machines, the struggle of man against and for nature, the power of dreaming, the adventure of growing up. You don't need a book to recognise all those things straight off the screen.

Instead, this is a very simple introduction, consisting of overviews of each of Miyazaki's movies: their plot, their main characters, and a brief commentary by the author Helen McCarthy. For the most part, the commentaries are of the gushing variety (McCarthy is an obvious fan!) while the plot and character lists are also nothing you can't get from watching the movies.

As for the Japanese video covers, the point of these eludes me, since the Studio Ghibli Collection Japanese DVD covers (the definitive 2-disk versions of the works, far superior in every respect to the American and UK versions) are different to those shown. The book was written in 1999 ("reprinted with revisions 2002" -- like what?) so we're stuck in a VHS timewarp here: the Japanese DVDs contain a host of extras including full storyboards with camera-angle flip between storyboard and finished movie which will teach you all you need to know about Miyazaki's animation. This book simply tells you the plots.

We're also stuck before the release of "Spirited Away". The last movie to be detailed is "Princess Mononoke", but McCarthy is clearly aware that something else is on the way. "The new film will star a ten-year-old girl," she declares breathlessly, "Based on a real child he [Miyazaki] and his staff know well. Based on his body of work to date, we can assume that it will be a warm and humane film that will encourage its young audience to grow, to dare and to wonder at the world around them." So far so obvious. She signs off (literally) with, "Its heroine is Chieko." That film turned out to be "Spirited Away", starring a ten year old girl called Chihiro. So beware: fans of "Spirited Away" might be able to use this book as a good checklist of the six or seven other Miyazaki movies, only a few of which are available to buy in the UK, but they'll miss having the same overview of the new movie as all the others. Plus, this is an American book, with a strong US bias and an equally strong Disney bias.

The biggest problem is the tone. This book is written in a simplistic style which is excruciating to read. Everything is "lovely" and "beautiful". The design of the book is at odds with the contents. It looks like a fairly serious textbook. It reads like a book for adolescents. The language is cutesy girlish, as airy and uninvolved as you'd expect to attract a ten year old with Totoro and Kiki's Delivery Service posters on her wall. For everyone else, this is far too simplistic to be of much worth.

Want to get inside the world of anime and Ghibli?
Let me take a few moments to tell you the real facts about this book.
It's brilliant. It tells you so, so much about Miyazaki's life, influences, films and career. You really get inside this amazing director's head with this book, it's THAT insightful.
Why am I so enthused?
I used this book as the primary research material for an A-level Film Studies authorship coursework project, that I chose to do on Miyazaki. This book... I can't really stress enough how helpful it was. I found myself thumbing through it time after time, and being constantly impressed by the amount and depth of information it contains. You can tell very quickly that a lot of work and love has been put into this book- my favourite parts were the commentaries on each of Miyazaki's films. They were well-researched, thought-provoking and very interesting. I have to say, they gave me a whole new appreciation to my already raging enthusiasm for Miyazaki's works.
All that's left to say is: get this book. You really can't go wrong.

A Bloody good book!
Miyazaki scores good with this one as it teaches you how to draw anime and shows his neat pictures aswell as learning manga. Basically, i have had no more anime questions and draw better by 10! GET THIS BOOK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!