I love that Miyazaki's real arc didn't start until he was older. Within this arc there are huge jumps in ability. There are two books that are compilations of interviews Miyazaki did in Japan around the times of each movie releasing. A few things stuck out to me:

1. The Japanese entertainment press is/was FAR more sophisticated than anything we have in the states. 2. Miyazaki is all about the details. There is no aspect of his films where there isn't a compelling 'why'. 3. I wish I understood Japanese so that I could experience these films in his own voice.

The books are Turning Point and Starting Point. Honorable mention is Sharing a House with the Never Ending Man, which was written by the only American who worked at Ghibli for a stretch. That one is less about creativity and more about the movie industry/how hard it is to translate Japanese into English

> He felt kind of washed up. Miyazaki’s debut feature The Castle of Cagliostro (1979) had flopped at the box office, and he viewed it as a rehash of his past projects. “I don’t think I added anything new,” he admitted. He saw his creations as stuck.

He's awfully hard on himself. Castle of Cagliostro is, by all accounts, a fantastic movie that rises well above its source material. And it has an immortal legacy as an influence on several major Western animation studios.

The way Miyazaki’s changes to and own ideas for Rowlf eventually snowballed into something else entirely, Nausicaä, kind of reminds me of how Alejandro Jodorowsky’s ideas for making a Dune movie eventually took on their own life as The Incal.

Also every time I see Miyazaki concept sketches, I’m blown away by how beautiful his watercolors are.

Great in-depth article, as always from `animationobsessive`.

> he got into alt comics in the orbit of Métal Hurlant, a foreign magazine

This is just a strange phrasing, why not just say it was French? Especially considering the next sentence being

> Meanwhile, an American comic from (...)

Seems to be a case of American-centered view "me vs the rest of the world". Or if it is depicted from Miyazaki point of view, it should be clarified.