I find it pointless sitting in my house not working, though I like to go on extended vacations from time to time.

Since I am a person who starts work without clear knowledge of a storyline, every single scene is a pivotal scene.

It’s disgusting. On trains, the number of those people doing that strange masturbation-like gesture is multiplying.

No matter how many weapons you have, no matter how great your technology might be, the world cannot live without love.

Sometimes I test myself saying, 'If I get a death sentence if I don't make this movie, would I still make this movie?'

We depict hatred, but it is to depict that there are more important things. We depict a curse, to depict the joy of liberation.

I don't like games. You're robbing the precious time of children to be children. They need to be in touch with the real world more.

Modern life is so thin and shallow and fake. I look forward to when developers go bankrupt, Japan gets poorer and wild grasses take over.

Rather than making that a good project, I like to make the kinds of films that children can understand in five minutes what the film is about.

I myself become terrified of death when I am in a negative state of mind. But the thought of death ceases to bother me once I become productive.

I can't do a film after having debated it. I am unable to do a film while discussing it with my team. I issue directives. I do not achieve it otherwise.

There are so many ships in the animation sea that are computer driven, that I think we can have at least one that's just a log raft that we can row by hand.

Plants exist in the weather and light rays that surround them - waving in the wind, shimmering in the sunlight. I am always puzzling over how to draw such things.

But remember this, Japanese boy... airplanes are not tools for war. They are not for making money. Airplanes are beautiful dreams. Engineers turn dreams into reality.

Virtual reality is a denial of reality. We need to be open to the powers of imagination, which brings something useful to reality. Virtual reality can imprison people.

When I say I get inspiration from my real life, I think of my real life as extending about 300 meters radius around me. So what I see in that area is what inspires me.

I wish I was better at art. I love some of the great artists of the 19th century and, compared to them, I just feel I lack this technique that they had. They have so much skill.

I think Tokyo is going to sink under water soon. All those stupid high-rise buildings will sink and maybe all the traffic will be gone. And everything will be peaceful and quiet.

Prizes do not mean anything to me. I think it is more important to make a child aware of the existence of a weird creature like a water spider that breathes through its backside.

I do believe in the power of story. I believe that stories have an important role to play in the formation of human beings, that they can stimulate, amaze and inspire their listeners.

When a man is shooting a handgun, it's just like he is shooting because that's his job, and he has no other choice. It's no good. When a girl is shooting a handgun, it's really something.

We are not trying to solve the world's problems... However, even in the midst of hatred and killing, there are things worth living for. A wonderful encounter, or a thing of beauty can still exist.

I am an animator. I feel like I'm the manager of a animation cinema factory. I am not an executive. I'm rather like a foreman, like the boss of a team of craftsmen. That is the spirit of how I work.

I believe that fantasy in the meaning of imagination is very important. We shouldn't stick too close to everyday reality but give room to the reality of the heart, of the mind, and of the imagination.

I think 2-D animation disappeared from Disney because they made so many uninteresting films. They became very conservative in the way they created them. It's too bad. I thought 2-D and 3-D could coexist happily.

The villains are all parts of me. For years I've been wondering what it would be like if all those negative elements were forced onto the main character's side. I can understand a character with that kind of anger.

You must see with eyes unclouded by hate. See the good in that which is evil, and the evil in that which is good. Pledge yourself to neither side, but vow instead to preserve the balance that exists between the two.

When you watch the subtitled version you are probably missing just as many things. There is a layer and a nuance you're not going to get. Film crosses so many borders these days. Of course it is going to be distorted.

Almost all Japanese animation is produced with hardly any basis taken from observing real people, you know. It's produced by humans who can't stand looking at other humans. And that's why the industry is full of otaku!

The principle I adhere to when directing, is that I make good use of everything my staff creates. Even if they make foregrounds that don't quite fit with my backgrounds, I never waste it and try to find the best use for it.

It seems like everything that we see perceived in the brain before we actually use our own eyes, that everything we see is coming through computers or machines and then is being input in our brain cells. So that really worries me.

Its not a story in which the characters grow up, but a story in which they draw on something already inside them, brought out by the particular circumstances. I want my young friends to live like that, and I think they, too, have such a wish.

In our work, the question is, how much you absorb from others. So for me, creativity, is really like a relay race. As children we are handed a baton. Rather than passing it onto the next generation as is, first we need to digest it and make it our own.

The single difference between films for children and films for adults is that in films for children, there is always the option to start again, to create a new beginning. In films for adults, there are no ways to change things. What happened, happened.

The concept of portraying evil and then destroying it - I know this is considered mainstream, but I think it is rotten. This idea that whenever something evil happens someone particular can be blamed and punished for it, in life and in politics is hopeless.

You always have to appeal to your audience. You always have to consider how well your project will do in terms of admissions. I abandoned many stories because of that. But I don't get too down about it. It's something I accepted from the time I decided to work in films.

I’d like to see Manhattan underwater. I’d like to see when the human population plummets and there are no more high rises, because nobody’s buying them. I’m excited about that. Money and desire—all that is going to collapse, and wild green grasses are going to take over.

Watching John Lasseter's films, I think I can understand better than anyone that what he's doing, is going straight ahead with his vision and working really hard to get that vision into film form. And I feel that my understanding this of him is my friendship towards him.

Many of my movies have strong female leads - brave, self-sufficient girls that don't think twice about fighting for what they believe in with all their heart. They'll need a friend, or a supporter, but never a savior. Any woman is just as capable of being a hero as any man.

I managed to work for more than 50 years with just paper, pencils and film. My son's generation and the one coming up after can't work with just paper and pencils any more. I managed to avoid using a computer. I don't even have a cellphone. I feel lucky I managed to live like that.

To have a film where there's an evil figure and a good person fights against the evil figure and everything becomes a happy ending, that's one way to make a film. But then that means you have to draw, as an animator, the evil figure. And it's not very pleasant to draw evil figures.

At the time, sword and sorcery stories were quite popular. There were female warriors waving swords around as well, but the genre is populated entirely with people who have absolutely no responsibility to anyone, so I knew my story would have to be completely different from any of these.

I do all my work by storyboard, so as I draw the storyboard, the world gets more and more complex, and as a result, my North, South, East, West directions kind of shift and go off base, but it seems like my staff as well as the audience, doesn't quite realize that this has happened. Don't tell them about it.

Well, yes. I believe that children's souls are the inheritors of historical memory from previous generations. It's just that as they grow older and experience the everyday world that memory sinks lower and lower. I feel I need to make a film that reaches down to that level. If I could do that I would die happy.

If [hand-drawn animation] is a dying craft, we can't do anything about it. Civilization moves on. Where are all the fresco painters now? Where are the landscape artists? What are they doing now? The world is changing. I have been very fortunate to be able to do the same job for 40 years. That's rare in any era.

I believe nostalgia has many appearances and that it's not just the privilege of adults. I think children too can have nostalgia. It's one of mankind's most shared emotions. It's one of the things that makes us human. When you live, you lose things. It's a fact of life. So it's natural for everyone to have nostalgia.

I think talent decides everything. More than the method, what's important is the talent using it. There's nothing inherently wrong or right about a method, whether it be pencil drawings or 3-D CG. Pencil drawings don't have to go away, but those who continue to use the medium lack talent. So sadly, it will fade away.

In fact, I am a pessimist. But when I'm making a film, I don't want to transfer my pessimism onto children. I keep it at bay. I don't believe that adults should impose their vision of the world on children, children are very much capable of forming their own visions. There's no need to force our own visions onto them.

It is the fate of modern life that we repeatedly lose touch with nature, the environment, the planet. But we try to regain it again and again. It's like a circle. In children's hearts and souls when they're born into the world, nature already exists deep inside them. So what I want to do in my work is tap into their souls

I’ve become skeptical of the unwritten rule that just because a boy and girl appear in the same feature, a romance must ensue. Rather, I want to portray a slightly different relationship, one where they two mutually inspire each other to live– if I’ m able to, then perhaps I’ll be closer to portraying a true expression of love.

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