Japan's Animated Soul

Miyazaki's Studio Ghibli films proved that animation could reach the emotional depth of live-action cinema. Spirited Away, which won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, tells a story of childhood resilience with a complexity and visual beauty that live-action films rarely attempt.

Even as the industry moved to CGI, Miyazaki refused digital shortcuts and kept drawing by hand — the same devotion to craft that drove Kurosawa and Ozu.