Kenji Miyazawa (1896-1933) was a poet and children’s story writer who influenced many Japanese creators. The movie Father of the Milky Way Railroad, which depicts his life, will be distributed at the “Japanese Film Festival Online 2024” to be held in June 2024.

What aspects of Miyazawai’s world view appealed to later creators who incorporated it into their own work?　In this article, we will consider the influence of Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata of Studio Ghibli, creators of such films as The Boy and the Heron or My Neighbor Totoro.

Sugita Shunsuke　Edit：Asai Goshi, Moriya Miho（CINRA, Inc.） Main Cut：© 2022 “Father of the Milky Way Railroad” FILM PARTNERS.

Kenji Miyazawa’s world view residing in Studio Ghibli’s works

It is often pointed out that Studio Ghibli’s works have been influenced in various ways by the works and world view of Kenji Miyazawa. For example, the scene in Hayao Miyazaki’s Spirited Away (2001) in which Chihiro and Kaonashi ride a train, along with the dead-like passengers, will remind many people of Night on the Galactic Railroad. It is also well known that My Neighbor Totoro (1988) was inspired by Miyazawa’s novel The Acorns and the Wildcat. It is said that Miyazaki once envisioned a theme park that would recreate “Ihatov” (the name of a fictional region created by Miyazawa, referring to the utopia in his imaginary world) before he came up with the idea of the Ghibli Museum, Mitaka.

Besides Miyazaki, it is also known that Isao Takahata took five years out of his busy schedule to independently produce Gauche the Cellist (1982), an animated feature film based on the novel of the same name by Miyazawa. In addition, the scene in Pom Poko (1994) in which the raccoon dogs turn into human twins is based on Miyazawa’s The Twin Stars, and the song in Goro Miyazaki’s From Up on Poppy Hill (2011) was known to originate from Miyazawa’s poem To the Students.

Saving the world through self-sacrifice. Shared motifs of Hayao Miyazaki and Kenji Miyazawa

But above all, what resonates between Ghibli and Kenji Miyazawa is the animistic sense of nature after modern technology. Miyazaki has said that Ghibli’s most distinctive feature as an animation studio is the way it portrays nature. The following sense of nature may have been shared by Miyazaki and Miyazawa.

In this regard, the theme of “self-sacrifice” may also be important when considering the relationship between Miyazaki and Miyazawa. The theme of “self-sacrifice” is a motif that runs throughout Miyazawa’s life, as exemplified by phrases such as “I wouldn’t mind if my body were burned a hundred times if it were really for everyone’s happiness” (Night on the Galactic Railroad), “Individual happiness is impossible unless the whole world is happy” (The Summary for General Theory of Farmers’ Arts), or novels such as The Nighthawk Star.

Among these, The Life of Budori Gusuko, which is also autobiographical in nature, represents one of the milestones achieved.

Abandoned by his parents in a world frequently plagued by cold and famine, and with his sister kidnapped, Budori was left to fend for himself, working for the Ihatov Volcano Bureau and learning modern science the hard way under the tutelage of scientist Professor Kubo. In the summer of his 27th year, when a major cold spell was predicted to hit the earth, Budori sacrificed his own life to save people from a natural disaster by artificially exploding the Carbonado Volcano, causing the entire earth to warm up with the carbon dioxide gas it spewed. This behavior will be reminiscent of the final scene in the animated version of Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1984), in which Nausicaä saves people and insects through a kind of religious self-sacrifice.

While these stories have the self-contradiction of scientific progress (which simultaneously brings destruction and progress) as their motor, the motif of “individuals sacrificing and offering themselves to protect the community and nation” is embedded in the narrative center.

Isao Takahata, who had been longing to animate the works of Kenji Miyazawa

Among those involved with Ghibli, however, Isao Takahata seems to have been more influenced by Kenji Miyazawa than Miyazaki. He says that when he was 8 or 9 years old, he read a book by Miyazawa that his mother bought for him, which had a decisive influence on him. For Takahata, Miyazawa’s fairy tales “approached him like the ultimate animated film, an animated film that can never be visualized, that can only be projected in the mind” (from “Kenji I want to visualize someday” in What I thought about while making movies (Eiga wo tsukurinagara kangaeta koto) 2 published by Tokuma Shoten Publishing).

However, Takahata felt uncomfortable with works such as The Nighthawk Star, Night on the Galactic Railroad, and Ame ni mo makezu, which are considered masterpieces by Miyazawa. He said he did not like these overly ethical works. Takahata says that Miyazawa’s smaller, fairy-tale works are more wonderful.

This also seems to overlap with Takahata’s discomfort with the self-sacrificing heroism of Hayao Miyazaki’s works. Going beyond animism, Miyazaki and Miyazawa have something in common regarding the nature of “self-sacrifice”. However, Takahata, who was more influenced by Miyazawa than Miyazaki, distanced himself from the spirit of “self-sacrifice”.

Takahata sees the “origin” of Miyazawa in the words of a letter Miyazawa wrote to Kanai Hosaka (1896-1937, Japanese poet) a few years after Miyazawa parted ways with his friend Hosaka. It is a vision of “many microorganisms” flowing happily in a “slightly muddy” atmosphere. Let’s quote from Takahata’s text.

Takahata had repeatedly made plans to visualize the world of Miyazawa, only to find out that it was impossible, that such a thing could not be done, and to repeatedly fail and falter. As a child, his original intention was to animate Kai no hi (The Shell Fire). Later, when he was 47 years old, he independently produced Gauche the Cellist, which is said to have been only an “easy-to-handle work” among Miyazawa’s works and only a “starting point”. This explains how it was Hatanaka’s long-cherished wish to animate the works of Miyazawa.

A father figure who cares, as depicted in the movie, Father of the Milky Way Railroad

What kind of person was Kenji Miyazawa, who attracted Takahata so much? There is a movie called Father of the Milky Way Railroad that depicts the life of Miyazawa. Based on a novel by Yoshinobu Kadoi, the movie emotionally depicts the relationship between father and son, mainly through the eyes of Masajiro Miyazawa (played by Koji Yakusho), the father of Kenji (played by Masaki Suda). In this respect, animistic and other themes are not portrayed very much.

It is striking that Masajiro is consistently portrayed as the “father who cares and nurses” (in contrast, the mother, Ichi, is basically overshadowed in the work). In his mind, Masajiro has a patriarchal desire for his son Kenji to take over the family pawnshop business. However, despite repeated protests and arguments, Masajiro respects his son’s feelings and encourages him to pursue his own path.

Especially when Kenji or his sister Toshi fell ill, he continued to tenderly care for them, even when people around him rebuked him, saying that it was “not a man’s work” or “not the work of the head of the family”. This is how Father of the Milky Way Railroad presents the image of the “new father”. This was a new image of fatherhood at that time, but it may still be a new image of fatherhood today.

The centrality of the relationship with the father and Toshi, rather than the animistic sense in Kenji, may be reminiscent of Hayao Miyazaki’s works such as The Wind Rises (2013) and The Boy and the Heron (2023). One can see in Miyazaki a complex conflict with his father, who has a certain character of a street vendor, but Miyazaki never portrayed a caring or compassionate father as in Father of the Milky Way Railroad.

In today’s society, where men are expected to be caring and considerate of others in various situations, the image of the caring man, the father who nurses others, as portrayed in Father of the Milky Way Railroad, seems precious.

Father of the Milky Way Railroad is in the lineup for Japanese Film Festival Online 2024. 

Japanese Film Festival Online 2024 
https://www.jff.jpf.go.jp/watch/jffonline2024/
June 5 (noon) to 19 (noon), 2024: Films
June 19 (noon) to July 3 (noon), 2024: TV Dramas
*Japan time. The number of films/TV dramas vary depending on the country/region.