Hayao Miyazaki (5 January 1941-) was a Japanese animator, director, and manga artist who co-founded Studio Ghibli in 1985 and directed anime classics such as Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1984), Castle in the Sky (1986), My Neighbor Totoro (1988), Kiki's Delivery Service (1989), Porco Rosso (1992), Princess Mononoke (1997), Spirited Away (2001), Howl's Moving Castle (2004), Ponyo (2008), and The Wind Rises (2013). Born in Tokyo, he spent his early childhood moving from Tokyo to Utsonomiya and thence to Kanuma after his first two hometowns were subjected to heavy American bombing during World War II. He joined Toei Animation in 1963 and moved to A-Pro in 1971 and Nippon Animation in 1973, animating several films for Japan's major anime companies and authoring manga comics before co-founding Studio Ghibli in 1985. Princess Mononoke briefly became the highest-grossing film in Japan in 1997, and his 2001 film Spirited Away became the highest-grossing film in Japanese history.
Miyazaki spent his early life as a self-proclaimed Marxist (leading a labor dispute with Toei Animation in 1964 and being elected head of his union), but his materialist views collapsed following the Dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, and he believed that, "Leaving decisions up to the collective wisdom of the masses just results in collective foolishness," while his works came to promote ecological and anti-war themes rather than materialist ones. He was also a critic of militarism, with Howl's Moving Castle being created partly to express Miyazaki's anger about the American invasion of Iraq, and The Wind Rises attacking Japanese militarism during World War II.