Early into Ponyo’s production, Miyazaki, with a Sakura cigarette dangling from beneath his thick mustache, looked over his yet-to-be-finished storyboards, and said:
“We must be idealistic realists. Pure realists without dreams are a dime a dozen. Pure realists are the worst. I don’t want our team to be like that.”
— Hayao Miyazaki, “Ep 1. 10 Years with Hayao Miyazaki.” YouTube, uploaded by Anime, 17 Jan 2022, youtu.be/q7vR2jkgeB4?si=_O89j_GGhbJHxPrE
As every sunset graces the skies over the passing years, the faltering tendency towards boredom grows… if one lets it. For adults, there might come a realization of mundanity. Maybe even disappointment in the everyday itself. All in all, boredom. But what’s bound to intensify disappointment is to think continuously that one’s...