TIME places Hayao Miyazaki on the list of the most influential people of 2024

The director Hayao Miyazaki of Studio Ghibli is an unavoidable figure in the anime industry and recently his anime film The Boy and the Crane (The Boy and the Heron) won the 96th Academy Awards. Now the magazine TEAM put Miyazaki on the list of the most influential people of 2024.

In your listing we have a message of praise from the director Guillermo del Toro.

I discovered Hayao Miyazaki’s Toei Animation films as a child – films like The Wonderful World of Puss ‘n Boots and series like Heidi and Marco, in which his style and influence became increasingly identifiable. Upon encountering My Neighbor Totoro as an adult, my mind went back to those previous works and I recognized how much this man shaped my childhood.

Miyazaki’s work provokes that rare emotion – the thrill of recognition of a kind of beauty that is impossible in the real world and therefore exists only in his films. However, he is also a brutal realist regarding human greed, war, and anger. He knows that we shape and destroy the planet and that humans are the best and worst of our world.

He is completely genuine. A unique creator who fully exists in his art. He is the most influential animation director in the history of the medium and one of my top 10 favorite storytellers in any audiovisual medium. The Boy and the Heron is a subtle masterpiece that exerts a gravitational pull – and many of us feel that pull keenly.