Hayao Miyazaki has worked on many animes in his career. The creator of My Neighbor Totoro and Spirited Away believes that one anime has spoiled an entire generation. According to him, everything and everyone has become dumber.
Which anime could that be? In two articles of the book “Turning Point: 1997-2008,” Hayao Miyazaki discusses how the anime Ultraman negatively affected children. In the article “Recalling the Days of My Youth,” he writes:
At the moment Ultraman was first broadcast, children began to believe that the world on television was more attractive than reality. For this Ultraman generation, Ultraman was the biggest thing in the world.
Accordingly, children would escape into the world of the series to avoid reality. Thus, they would engage more with fictional things than face real problems. This, according to him, would have effects on them.
Ghibli deals with dramatic stories from reality:
Miyazaki Sees the Dumbing Down of an Entire Generation
What are the consequences? In the article “Nothing Makes Me Happier Than Watching Children Enjoy Themselves,” he even holds parents partly responsible for the “Ultraman Generation”:
Parents have failed… and today we increasingly see that [their children] have no idea what to do. In my circle of friends in their forties, there are a few from the Ultraman generation, and this problem seems to occur more and more frequently with them.
He even added that everything and everyone has become dumber over time. With this, Miyazaki expresses that he does not think highly of Ultraman.
In general, his aversion is not only directed at Ultraman but at all pop culture phenomena that can become an obsession for children. There could be even more animes that Miyazaki does not think highly of.
Is this his only controversial opinion? Miyazaki is known for not holding back his words. He has already attracted attention for strange views and actions. For example, in his own film studio, it is common for the seating arrangement to be divided by blood types.
Hayao Miyazaki is one of the founders of the film studio Ghibli, which has produced well-known films such as Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away. Since Miyazaki has a successful career in the anime field, his opinion is important to many anime fans. He recently clarified the question of whether anime in the original Japanese with subtitles or dubbed are better: The “Godfather of Anime” answered the eternal question of whether animes with subtitles are really better