Wings and freedom, spirit and self : how the filmography of Hayao Miyazaki subverts nation branding and soft power

For close to four decades, the work of Hayao Miyazaki has been presented throughout the world as the pinnacle of Japanese cinematic animation. Often referred to by fans as “the Walt Disney of the East”, Miyazaki has created films that delight people of all ages. Yet Miyazaki does not see what he does as providing simple entertainment and distractions. Rather, Miyazaki’s entire filmography courses with his personal ideologies; from his environmentalism to his anti-extreme capitalism stance, his views of pacifism, his concern with interpersonal connection as well as the ideas of love and justice intrinsic to his view of humanity. His works have also been used by various vested interests – including the Japanese government and corporate-media entities – to push awareness of, and increase desire for, Japanese brands, media (specifically anime), and cultural products. This thesis focuses on a close reading of two of his works, Porco Rosso (1992) and Spirited Away (2001), where the purpose is to examine how these two films demonstrate Miyazaki’s subversion of many national branding and soft power programmes. This is further supported by drawing upon the works of academics such as Susan J. Napier, Ayumi Suzuki, Tai Wei Lim, Kevin M. Moist and Michael Bartholow. Within this context, this thesis demonstrates the central motifs and thematic representations which can be seen as subversive or at least challenging to an imposed ideology. The core of Miyazaki’s works can be read as setting up subtle critiques of various social and governmental policies and practices over the past few decades. With many of them centring around how Japan should perceive itself, how its people should behave and how they should codify their identities in order to conform to invented norms. This is done through the use of visual and narrative markers as well as through the construction of characters to be reflections of the times in which they were created – specifically the so-called Lost Decade (1991-2002), a period in which a faltering economy pressured the Japanese government to increase their national branding and soft power programmes in order to combat external and internal perceptions of weakness and failure. With Porco Rosso and Spirited Away coming at the beginning and end of that period, these films best demonstrate Miyazaki’s subversion of the way Japanese enactors and investors sought to control all discourses surrounding (self and national) branding and soft power