Customer Reviews

The Anime Art of Hayao Miyazaki

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This looks to be a well written and researched book. However, when I purchase art books I want loads of illustrations. I want to be able to refer to the artwork with out having to pop in a dvd. This book contains NO ARTWORK. Hayao Miyazaki is an amazing artist and director. I would love to own a book on his work. This just wasn't what I had dreamed of.

I thought there might be some illustrations of the art in this book but there are none.

How could you write a book about the anime art of Hayao Miyazaki without one single illustration??? Someone else mentioned a DVD, but there's no DVD with my book.

Even though the book is titled The Anime Art of Hayao Miyazaki, there are absolutely no pictures included in it. As I read through the book, I wished there were screenshots from the films that are discussed to help illustrate some of the author's points. While I have seen quite a few of the films discussed in the book, there are some of the films that are looked at which I have never seen. For those films, it's hard for me as a reader to truly understand what it is the author is talking about. I do believe I have seen screenshots of Miyazaki's works in other anime books I have read, so I don't think the author would have had problems getting the rights to reprint screenshots. It felt more to me that the author didn't want to go to the effort to secure the rights to reprint the screenshots. I honestly believe this book would have been stronger if there had been some images included in it.

The tone of the book is very dry in nature. In fact, it reads much like the textbooks I had to read while I was in college. There were times when I thought the author was trying too hard to write long sentences with a lot of big words. I have to admit that there were times when I nearly fell asleep while I tried to read the book. Also, it should be noted that while the book is titled The Anime Art of Hayao Miyazaki, some of the topics included for discussion in the book are Studio Ghibli films that Miyazaki himself had no direct involvement in.

If you want to learn more about Hayao Miyazaki and his work, and don't mind reading a book that's scholarly in tone, then The Anime Art of Hayao Miyazaki is for you. However, if you want to learn more about Miyazaki but would prefer something lighter to read, then this book isn't what you're looking for.

Yes, this book has NO illustrations. However, I found this book immensely useful when writing a university paper on Hayao Miyazaki. Dani Cavallaro is an English professor, so the writing standard goes beyond the fanboy-ism that I saw in other books. Anyone can praise Miyazaki's genius and vision, but this book actually *analyzes* Miyazaki's work. That's why I was able to find this book, and not the others, at a university library.

The point of this book is literary criticism. If you want images that badly, just watch the movies again =)

Item came in time alright (earlier as predicted).
But my expectations were other than what the item showed me on Amazon.
The book is pure text and I expected really pictures, documenting Miyazaki's art, or what the author is talking about.
It's weird reviewing Miyazaki's art without seeing what the author is talking about. To me this book seems more like an end of terms art school work or a thesis the author made for college, maybe even a PhD work?
All in all I was a bit disappointed for the reasons mentioned above, also referring to the price, which wasn't really cheap.

This is a great book about both Miyazaki and his work. Each movie is dicussed in detail, with critiques and essays about the animation, themes, writing, and designs of every movie that Hayao Miyazaki created.
Also covered in this book is the creation and growth of Studio Ghibli. How it started as a small animation studio up to the current success that it is today.

The films of Miyazaki attract many and has found its audience in America as well as Japan - which makes THE ANIME ART OF HAYAO MIYAZAKI an excellent addition for any interested in anime animation techniques. Traditional cel and computer animation alike are explored along with a biographical sketch of Miyazaki's life and achievements. From his early comic book art to his later films, the extent of his productions - all the way to his latest Howl's Moving Castle - document his rise in an excellent scholarly analysis of his productions. Any involved in anime in either print or film knows the name of Miyazaki - and here has a rare opportunity to receive further insights on his works and approaches over the decades.