HAYAO MIYAZAKI is RETIRING. The world darkens a smidge.
Bad news, world. Hayao Miyazaki is throwing up the deuces after his next film is released. Miyazaki is responsible for a legion of flicks that have inspired like at least thirty-three thousand people. Myself included. The good sir is also responsible for making at least three people I knew who “didn’t like that gay anime shit” begrudgingly admit they did. His retirement is a loss.
You had better enjoy anime legend Hayao Miyazaki‘s next film, The Wind Rises, because it’ll be his last.
The news comes courtesy of Koji Hoshino, one of the heads of Miyazaki’s Studio Ghibli. He said at the Venice Film Festival, where Miyazaki’s eleventh and, now, final film screened:
“Miyazaki has decided that Kaze Tachinu (The Wind Rises) will be his last film, and he will now retire.”
Moment of silence, everyone.
Miyazaki’s a pretty reclusive guy, which makes me think when he says he’s retiring he might actually stay retired, unlike, say, Steven Soderbergh, who’s said he’s retiring like twelve times and yet always makes new films afterwards. Plus, at 72, who can blame him for wanting to take it easy from now on?
So that’s it. With The Wind Rises, the legendary career that has seen such classics as Princess Mononoke, My Neighbor Totoro, Spirited Away, and Howl’s Moving Castle to the screen will come to an end. Disney will be releasing the anime auteur’s final film, about World War II-era airplane designer Jiro Horikoshi, in the U.S., though a release date has not yet been announced. It came out in Japan back in July. If you’re up for feeling sad, you can re-watch the English subtitled trailer here.