• Shore thing: Sosuke with his magical goldfish Ponyo in the new film
WALKING through a discreet residential neighbourhood in the western Tokyo district of Koganei, you could easily pass by Studio Ghibli. The animation company behind the Oscar-winning Spirited Away and Howl's Moving Castle is housed in two buildings that – like those who work there – can be best described as modest. Ghibli may be dubbed "the Disney of the East" – inside the entrance hall, a framed picture of the characters from Monsters Inc. and Ghibli's 1988 work My Neighbour Toto
Perhaps, in part, it's because ten of Ghibli's best-known films come from the brain of one man, Hayao Miyazaki. When I meet him in his ornate office with its piano and wood-burning stove, Miyazaki is wearing a white apron over his casual clothes, looking more like an artisan than animator. Aged 69, with white hair and a beard, he is subject to persistent rumours that he's on the verge of retirement. Yet Miyazaki is full of life.
Married for almost 45 years, and with two grown-up sons, Miyazaki loves to surround himself with children. "I learn that at least when you're old, like me, they bring you happiness," he says, via an interpreter. Near his office is a Ghibli-created nursery school built during the production of his latest film, Ponyo. "We have a garden where we let the children do things that the usual nursery schools would never let kids do. Like there's a pond that the kids might fall into. There are rocks where kids can trip. And we make slopes so they might fall. And trees that they might want to climb."
Hayao Miyazaki
Doubtless most parents would be aghast at this – but then Miyazaki is a man still in touch with his inner child. Take Ponyo, the magical story of Sosuke, a five-year-old boy who finds a goldfish trapped in a jar on the beach. After the fish – which he names Ponyo – tastes blood on Sosuke's finger, it transforms into a little girl.
Miyazaki's ability to view the world through a child's eyes is uncanny (one youngster told his grandmother he thought Ponyo was made by a five-year-old – the director dubs this a "compliment"). All this came naturally, he says, the moment he decided to make his human hero a youngster. "Suddenly the world opened up and I started seeing it like many five-year-olds around me."
Even so, the film carries with it a strong, adult eco-theme, as Ponyo's arrival sets in motion a tsunami that threatens to engulf Sosuke's seaside village. Miyazaki denies that tackling green issues was his main concern, but the flood that dominates the film comes from a genuine fear. "I think Tokyo is going to sink under water soon," he says. "All those stupid high-rise buildings will sink and maybe all the traffic will be gone. And everything will be peaceful and quiet."
He believes over-population is the problem. "If you go to the other cities they're very under-populated. It's like all man has gathered to make this life here extinct. This is a very big issue Japan has to solve."
Miyazaki – whose father manufactured munitions used in the Second World War Pearl Harbour attack – acknowledges the hypocrisy of his statement. "It's self-contradictory, because I have to live in Japan."
Frequently outspoken, with staunch socialist views cultivated from his early days at Toei Studios, Miyazaki is not afraid to touch on controversial issues. Of his country's whaling he notes: "We eat so many different things, we could give up whale. If we don't need to eat it, then we should refrain."
You might say he's a man of principle – notably refusing to licence his characters to be included in video games. "I don't like games," he says. "You're robbing the precious time of children to be children. They need to be in touch with the real world more."
In the past, he's even deplored the idea of children watching his movies when they could be outside playing.
He has a dislike for Hollywood. After a US re-edit mangled his 1984 film Nausicaä Of The Valley Of The Wind, he refused to consider western releases of his films for a decade. More recently, he's relented – thanks in part to Pixar head John Lasseter overseeing the dubbing of his work (the likes of Matt Damon and Cate Blanchett lent their voices to Ponyo). "I consider him a good friend," he says. "He's always been a fair person to me."
But he seems unimpressed by winning an Oscar for Spirited Away. "I still have my backache. It doesn't make me young. If it was a cure for my body, then great. But it doesn't do anything for me."
As to the perennial question of whether he will retire, he simply shrugs. "When the end comes it will come. Or somebody else will decide for me. If I retired at (1997's] Princess Mononoke, maybe I could've done more with my life. If you're going to retire, retire early."
The question remains, though, who will take over? His son, Goro, who curated the nearby Ghibli museum before moving into animation himself, seems the obvious choice. Yet this remains a touchy subject for Miyazaki, who vehemently opposed his producer Toshio Suzuki's idea that the inexperienced Goro should direct Tales From Earthsea. "I was thinking he shouldn't come to Ghibli," he says, "but that was his choice."
After a spat between father and son, the pair wound up barely speaking. "I didn't want to make it a family concern. At Ghibli, I do have certain power. I don't want to endorse that, just because he's my son, he's able to make a film. I wanted to be fair. I think he needs to win the right to make a movie on his own."
Ever the socialist, you can imagine accusations of nepotism would sting him to the core. "Just because he's my son doesn't make him special at the studio." Indeed, the only true special one at Studio Ghibli is Miyazaki himself.
Ponyo is released on Friday with a preview today at 1pm at the Glasgow Film Theatre as part of the Glasgow Film Festival. disney.go.com/disneypictures/ponyo/• This article was first published in Scotland on Sunday on 07 February 2010