Hayao Miyazaki isn’t stopping. The 85-year-old Studio Ghibli co-founder, fresh off his Oscar win for The Boy and the Heron, is already deep into planning his next project, and longtime producer Toshio Suzuki has officially given up trying to convince him otherwise.
Suzuki, who’s worked alongside Miyazaki for over four decades, revealed in a recent interview that the legendary animator thinks about his new film every single day.
“He’s thinking about this next project every day, and I can’t stop him, in fact, I’ve given up,” Suzuki told Libération. “I no longer try to dissuade him, even if it might be a bad film. In life, only work enchants him.”
The man who can’t stop creating
This marks yet another comeback for Miyazaki, who first announced his retirement back in 1997 after Princess Mononoke, citing his age and the difficulty of massive productions.
He repeated the announcement in 2013 following The Wind Rises, insisting that film would be his last. Three years later, he reached out to Suzuki saying he wanted to make another movie, embarrassed about breaking his public retirement but unable to resist the creative itch.
That film became The Boy and the Heron, which dominated the 2024 awards season, winning the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature and becoming the highest-grossing original Japanese animated film in North American history with nearly $45 million.
The movie, deeply personal and semi-autobiographical, tells Miyazaki’s life story through the journey of young Mahito dealing with loss and identity.
Studio Ghibli vice president Junichi Nishioka confirmed Miyazaki comes into his office daily to work on ideas.
“This time, he’s not going to announce his retirement at all. He’s continuing working just as he has always done,” Nishioka said at the Toronto International Film Festival premiere of The Boy and the Heron.
Working until 90 and beyond
Suzuki believes Miyazaki will keep making films until he’s 90, and he’s resigned to following him on that journey. “As long as he works, I will not retire. He is 85 years old, I think he will continue until he is 90 years old and I’ll be going along with him for the ride,” Suzuki stated.
In a particularly telling moment, Suzuki recalled a recent conversation where Miyazaki was so consumed by his new project that he couldn’t even remember what The Boy and the Heron was about.
No details have been revealed about Miyazaki’s next film, including its plot, release window, or production timeline. The Boy and the Heron took seven years to complete using traditional hand-drawn animation, with 60 animators producing just one minute of footage per month.
Given Miyazaki’s meticulous process and Studio Ghibli’s commitment to hand-drawn animation, fans shouldn’t expect a quick turnaround.
What’s clear is that retirement simply isn’t in Miyazaki’s vocabulary. For a man whose mother’s illness shaped his childhood and whose films explore war, loss, identity, and resilience, creating animated worlds isn’t just work, it’s his entire existence.
And honestly? We’re not complaining.
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