That is right. He's done. He wanted to retire in 1997 but that didn't last long. He's not ending quietly though. He is having one last film pop out. That film is called The Wind Rises.

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While it is sad to see him go, he's doing it because he wants to. The man has worked for years, in a good period years he's been repeatedly at a high level of quality. I'm glad to see him go by his own decision. It's sad to see him end but it was amazing to have him as well. I love his work, I haven't seen it all sadly. His work though is so wonderful and endearing, it has a soul. While the classic Disney films are wonderful I don't find them to be so powerful as Miyazaki's. Able to get into core of human emotion at it's basest without cheaping the effort to evoke. It earns them.

You should try to see them all. The weakest ones, IMHO, are HOWL'S MOVING CASTLE and PONYO, but you should still see them. And the rest are all pretty much masterpieces, even LUPIN III: CASTLE OF CAGLIOSTRO.

In any event, there's a thread on THE WIND RISES, his latest film, over on the Anime Talk board. It's been at the top of the Japanese boxoffice for the past seven weeks. It's playing at the Toronto Film Festival (going on now, I believe) and will make its U.S. premiere at the New York Film Festival next month.

Miyazaki is 72 years old.

Porco Rosso And Howl's Moving Castle are the ones I haven't seen. Out of the two, PR is the one I REALLY want to see. Still waiting on Disney to release as much as possible of his work on BD.

Lupin... any word on a BD of that one for the US? Not a Ghibli film but didn't they get all of Miyazaki's films into Ghibli? Or is this one the iffy one cuz of where it originated from?

I'm sad he's retiring but glad he's going out on his own terms. I look forward to his last movie and hope he goes out on a high note.

Studio Ghibli list.

Disney doesn't have the rights to all things Ghibli. Sentai/Section 23 released Grave of the Fireflies on Blu-ray, and From Up on Poppy Hill arrived courtesy of GKIDS/Cinedigm. Manga lost Castle of Cagliostro a few years back; no idea who has the rights now. I'd love to see it properly remastered on Blu-ray. (The BDs overseas use an old, interlaced master.)

Holy cow!

A legend. Will be missed.

This was my first introduction to Miyazaki.

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[Something nobody has ever said, ever.] Sweet, I can't wait for Goro Miyazaki to take over! [/Something nobody has ever said, ever.]

You should also see WHISPER OF THE HEART, which Miyazaki wrote and produced but didn't direct. (Yoshifumi Kondo directed it and died two years later.) It's one of the finest animated films I've ever seen.

Re: PORCO ROSSO - if you get the Disney DVD, watch it with the French track on: Jean Reno did the voice of the title character. With its European setting, the French track sounds the most appropriate and Reno is excellent (as you'd expect).

Me too. I watched The Castle of Cagliostro and realized that there was another Lupin movie featured in the game as well.

A legend will be missed for sure. The man is up there with the best directors

My wife is a huge fan and grew up on his movies. She recently got me to watch Ponyo and i was far from impressed. I'll check out his others at some point, she has been trying to get me to watch Totoro forever. I know though he has had a huge impact on the industry and sad to see someone go but at least he is going out when he wants to.

Although sweet, Ponyo is hardly his best or deepest film. Yes, he does have a habit of over-simplifying the underlying conflicts during the finale but Ponyo does even more so since it's essentially a flick geared exclusively towards young children. Although most of his other films are kid-friendly, you can tell that he tends to have adults in mind while writing them.

Variety article by Mark Schilling covering a press conference that Miyazaki gave to explain his retirement:

http://variety.com/2013/film/news/mi...akingnewsalert

While I liked how trippy the the beginning of Ponyo was, the movie just wasn't all the great.

Spirited Away*, Totoro, Castle in the Sky, Kiki, Princess Mononoke, etc; are all vastly superior.

* - This is one of those movies that either really works for you, or doesn't at all.

Agreed. Ponyo would not the be recommendation to start with Miyazaki. On a technical level it's breathtaking (and in the US version it's funny to hear Liam Neeson looking for his daughter), but it's a children's movie otherwise.

Princess Mononoke was my first Miyazaki and my first Anime. Watching that inspired me to dive into Anime for a few months at one point. I recommend that, though to be totally honest it's not the most representative of Miyazaki's work. I'd say go for Spirited Away first. Totoro second, because it's also a kid's movie (if you disliked Ponyo) but it has so much more heft than Ponyo would.

Not realizing that a video game featured Miyazaki's work, my first real introduction to his films were Laputa and Naussica, which hooked me.