Gedo Senki (Tales from Earthsea)

24th February 2006

Number 41 - Full Marks as a Director

I don't know about before that time, but ever since I can remember, my father was often absent.
I say that, but just as I loved my mother,
I loved my father too, so when I was small I wanted him to look after me, and to play with me. But those opportunities almost never came.

When I was in junior high, and high school, when I started to be conscious of my father in terms of "I'd like to know more about my own father" or "I wonder what my father is thinking", he was never around.
Even on the rare occasions when we met, since we never talked usually, we had no idea what to say to each other.
That was our relationship.

In my high school days, I watched the anime "Urusei Yatsura", "Mobile Battlesuit Gundam", "Super Dimensional Fortress Macross" and liked them. But my way of looking at these works and the works my father created were, naturally, different.

The more wonderful I thought my father's movies were,
the more I watched them because I wanted to learn about him through them.

In this way, ever since I can remember,
at the same time as enjoying them, I have been watching Hayao Miyazaki's works to understand my father.

For me,
Hayao Miyazaki gets zero marks as a father
but full marks as a director of animated films.