A meeting between John Lasseter (left) and Hayao Miyazaki (seen here at the recent Toronto Film Festival) 20 years ago led to the U.S. release of Spirited Away this year. Photo credit: Eric Charbonneau, Berliner Studios.

North American anime fans got a rare treat in September. Not only was Hayao Miyazaki's long-awaited Spirited Away finally released, but the man revered as Japan's greatest animation creator made an unprecedented public appearance. Miyazaki, along with Studio Ghibli president Toshio Suzuki, held press conferences and answered audience questions at Spirited Away's premiere screenings at the 27th Toronto International Film Festival on September 7th; at Disney's U.S. premiere at its showpiece El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood on the 10th; and at a special benefit screening for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation at Pixar Animation Studios in Emeryville, California on the 15th.

Miyazaki's name has been synonymous with anime's highest quality since the early 1980s, when it first came to the public's attention with his Nausicaä of the Valley of the Winds. Miyazaki originally began this as a comic book (manga) serial in Animage magazine and then developed it as a 1984 animated theatrical feature. Even before that, his work stood out to anime fans who did not know his name. His first theatrical feature as director, Lupin III: The Castle of Cagliostro (released December 1979) was not only a hit in Japan (voted the top animation of all time by the readers of Animage), but studio Tokyo Movie Shinsha used it for test-marketing in the U.S. It was shown at the 1980 World Science Fiction Convention in Boston, FILMEX 82 in Los Angeles, and other film festivals during the 1980s. It was widely gossiped by anime fans that Cagliostro's climactic battle in the clock tower inspired the very similar scene in Disney's 1986 The Great Mouse Detective.

Toshio Suzuki's name is not as well known, but he is much more than the business manager of Studio Ghibli. He was arguably largely responsible for the development of anime fandom. He was the founding editor of Tokuma Publishing Company's pioneering anime publications; Animage magazine (monthly since July 1978), and the series of Roman Album reference guides devoted to individual theatrical and TV anime titles. Although adolescent fan-oriented, their in-depth coverage of production data have made them continuously the leading sources for reference information about any anime theatrical or TV releases since 1978. They were the foundations of the popular attitude that animation was not just for kids but was worthy of as much serious consideration as any other genre of cinema studied in high school and college.

It was Animage's coverage of Lupin III: The Castle of Cagliostro that introduced Suzuki and Miyazaki to each other. Suzuki proposed that he write/draw a manga for serialization in Animage. Miyazaki's Nausicaä of the Valley of the Winds began in the February 1982 issue and was an instant hit. Miyazaki had not originally intended it for animation, but readers assumed a movie would follow and began asking when it would be released. The response was so great that Tokuma Publishing decided to fund it as an independent feature, directed by Miyazaki. The success of Nausicaä led to Tokuma financing a new permanent animation studio in 1985 to be run by Miyazaki and his longtime friend and fellow animator, Isao Takahata. Suzuki's promotion of Miyazaki's films in Animage, as well as his close friendship with Miyazaki, eventually led to his transfer to Studio Ghibli as that company's president.