Tangent: when looking up Mamoru Oshii I found an interview where he compared the work culture at Studio Ghibli to a communist dictatorship (“communism is when capitalism”), because people of the 1960s “Anpo generation” (like Miyazaki) have “no morals” when they believe their cause is just…
Great, now I’m thinking about that Boyzvoice song… Also, I find it interesting that the quote represents the number twelve with positional Kanji numerals. I wonder how marked that is?
That aside, trying to look into this I also found this quote attributed to Miyazaki, speaking about Chihiro’s VA during a live broadcast promoting Spirited Away:
The screencap of the broadcast with subtitles (side note: I wonder how live stenography works in Japanese…) has apparently been circulating the Japanese Internet for 14 years already, but I’m having a hard time finding the broadcast itself, and in any case both these quotes don’t really have much context to go off of. Really, I want to say that my general rule for anyone famous and successful is to prepare for the worst but assert very little, because at the end of the day these are human beings who you don’t know and likely never will know.
When it comes to accusations of pedophilia specifically, the accusation should be looked at holistically in context: What would the significance be, of this person being a pedophile? What even is pedophilia, for that matter, given criticism of the institution of sexology? And in Miyazaki’s case, my impression from a few searches is that accusations of him being aaiu have been utilized by pedo anime fans to legitimize their own behaviors, because Miyazaki being a pedo would mean that possibly the most internationally famous figure in the anime industry is “one of them”; and naturally, it seems like these pedo anime fans will do this no matter how true the accusation really is, because they stand to gain from it no matter what; likewise anyone who’d stand to gain from smearing Miyazaki’s reputation, such as “AI” bros as mentioned in another comment.
My biggest question was what kind of love we are talking about here, to me it sounded more like platonic or one-sided romantic love rather than outright sexual, but it is just vibes talking here.
Sidenote: I find it weird how much weight is given to the verb “love” sometimes: it gets used very loosely when you say you love spaghetti or your family, but suddenly when you say it to a close friend everyone makes a big deal out of it. My aroace ahh is showing here lol
I didn’t look into the book, but what I can say is that 恋愛 ren’ai implies romantic love.
The book is apparently written by the same Mamoru “Studio Ghibli is like the Kremlin” Oshii, who is most well-known as the creater of Ghost in the Shell.
From that same interview I found, I didn’t get the impression however that he would just make shit up about him and try to ruin his career, he said it would be a loss if Miyazaki (and another Ghibli figure) stopped making films. The book itself, going by reviews, seems to be even-handed about his short experiences at Ghibli.
Screenshot is from here, which itself is part of the longer documentary スタジオジブリ物語
https://youtube.com/watch?v=yRYnYlv1T3I
Thank you!
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy: