Always believe in yourself. Do this and no matter where you are, you will have nothing to fear.
If you’re going to retire, retire early.
I think it’s really good for a family or children to have a dog, cat, bird or whatever to grow up with.
All my films are all my children.
I don’t like games. You’re robbing the precious time of children to be children. They need to be in touch with the real world more.
People in Japan have experienced many tsunamis and various earthquakes throughout the ages.
What you mean by ‘peace’ is nothing more than the endless repetition of human folly.
I wish I was better at art. I love some of the great artists of the 19th century and, compared to them, I just feel I lack this technique that they had. They have so much skill.
Its not a story in which the characters grow up, but a story in which they draw on something already inside them, brought out by the particular circumstances. I want my young friends to live like that, and I think they, too, have such a wish.
You always have to appeal to your audience. You always have to consider how well your project will do in terms of admissions. I abandoned many stories because of that. But I don’t get too down about it. It’s something I accepted from the time I decided to work in films.
I find it pointless sitting in my house not working, though I like to go on extended vacations from time to time.
I managed to work for more than 50 years with just paper, pencils and film. My son’s generation and the one coming up after can’t work with just paper and pencils any more. I managed to avoid using a computer. I don’t even have a cellphone. I feel lucky I managed to live like that.
Nobody has the right to sit in judgment and decide what’s good or bad for you.
The love of weaponry is often a manifestation of infantile traits in an adult.
Rather than making that a good project, I like to make the kinds of films that children can understand in five minutes what the film is about.
When I say I get inspiration from my real life, I think of my real life as extending about 300 meters radius around me. So what I see in that area is what inspires me.
I make films as a business, not as a cultural endeavor.
I myself become terrified of death when I am in a negative state of mind. But the thought of death ceases to bother me once I become productive.
There are so many ships in the animation sea that are computer driven, that I think we can have at least one that’s just a log raft that we can row by hand.
Personally I am very pessimistic. But when, for instance, one of my staff has a baby you can’t help but bless them for a good future. Because I can’t tell that child, ‘Oh, you shouldn’t have come into this life.’ And yet I know the world is heading in a bad direction. So with those conflicting thoughts in mind, I think about what kind of films I should be making.