About this item
The latest in the perennially popular line of Studio Ghibli artbooks, which include interviews, concept sketches, and finished animation cels from classics such as Spirited Away and My Neighbor Totoro.Princess Mononoke was the first Hayao Miyazaki film to break out into the American mainstream. The journey from initial idea to the big screen is captured here, in the hundreds of images from preliminary sketches to dynamic animation cels.
About the Author
Hayao Miyazaki was born in Tokyo on January 5, 1941. He started his career in 1963 as an animator at the studio Toei Douga, and was subsequently involved in many early classics of Japanese animation. From the beginning, he commanded attention with his incredible ability to draw, and the seemingly-endless stream of movie ideas he proposed. In 1971, he moved to A Pro with Isao Takahata, then to Nippon Animation in 1973, where he was heavily involved in the World Masterpiece Theater TV animation series for the next five years. In 1978, he directed his first TV series, , then moved to Tokyo Movie Shinsha in 1979 to direct his first movie, the classic In 1984, he released , based on the manga (comic) of the same title which he had started two years before. The success of the film led to the establishment of a new animation studio, Studio Ghibli, at which Miyazaki has since written, directed, and produced many other films with Takahata. All of these films enjoyed critical and box office successes. In particular, Miyazaki's received the Japan Academy Award for Best Film and was the highest-grossing (about US$150 million) domestic film in Japan's history until it was taken over by another Miyazaki work, In addition to animation, Miyazaki also draws manga. His major work was the manga, an epic tale he worked on intermittently from 1982 to 1994 while he was busy making animated films. Another manga, , was later evolved into his film
