Hayao Miyazaki was born in Tokyo during World War II. His father owned a business, which built airplane parts. When Miyazaki was only three years old, his family was forced to live in an air-raid2 shelter3. The smell of burning buildings, the sound of exploding bombs, and the sight of warplanes flying overhead, all had a great effect on the young boy. As Miyazaki was growing up, he started to draw pictures of his early memories. Before too long, he was attracted to illustrated4 stories in boy's magazines and manga comics. While he studied the details of the pictures carefully, he read and reread the stories over and over again. This is how Miyazaki learned his storytelling skills.
Miyazaki finished school and became an artist in an animation studio5. His amazing talent was first noticed while working onGulliver's Travels Beyond the Moon. The movie's director embraced his many technical and artistic suggestions, including the storyline for the end of the movie. After working on several more movies, Miyazaki opened his own studio and started to make his own animated feature films6. Studio Ghibli is where he made all of his classic movies including Spirited Away, which was the first anime film to win an American Academy Award.
