hayao

Last week, Studio Ghibli announced Hayao Miyazaki’s plans to retire, leaving The Wind Rises as his final film. The news, obviously, caused quite a stir, though many were somewhat skeptical as the director has “retired” before. Perhaps in response to those skeptics, the 72-year-old director scheduled a press conference, which was streamed live on the popular Japanese video website Nico Nico Video.

We’ve compiled the highlights of the press conference below for you to check out.

Miyazaki opened by stating, “Since I’ve said I was going to retire a number of times before and caused a bit of a ruckus, many may think that this is the same again, but I’m definitely serious about it.” Whether or not this is true remains to be seen, obviously, but considering his age and the lengthy production time it takes to create one movie, it’s easy to believe.

Later, in response to a question, the world-famous director stated, “My time making feature-length animation films is absolutely over.” He also delivered the news that there would not be a sequel to Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, which is sure to sadden many long-time fans.

Nausicaaposter

However, it doesn’t seem that Miyazaki is completely retired–he’s just done with “feature-length animation films.” He’s intentionally leaving everything else vague. “I’m free,” he explained. “There are things I want to do…there are things I want to do, but if it turns out that I can’t do them, it’d be shameful [to make promises], so I won’t say anything now.”

Well, whatever it is, it looks like we can hope for another 10 years of work from the mind of Hayao Miyazaki: basically, he plans to keep going to work as long as he’s able to drive there on his own. However, Miyazaki also pointed out that in life, nothing is guaranteed, so it could be much shorter.

All this means that, while it’s a good time to give the old master a hearty “Otsukaresama,” he’s not done yet. We just have no idea what’s coming next!

Our money is on him becoming a world-champion surfer, but what do you guys think?

Images: Wikipedia, Nico Nico Video

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