He sounds like someone who doesn't believe in absolute truth, hypocritical of because he believes his own perspective, and upset because America beat Japan because they wouldn't surrender.
I think Miyazaki is one of those authors who speaks better through his work than outside of it. In interviews, he's incredibly curmudgeonly, cynical, and almost a nihilist. Yet he produces works that are none of those things-they're full of genuine hope for humanity in the face of long odds, which is precisely what Tolkien put into his works. I think it's okay for artists to be complex and imperfect. We can love Miyazaki's works and not his personality. I tend to find myself in agreement with much of Tolkien's philosophy, but it's also okay for someone to love the world he created and not his own views. Good art pushes past the flaws of its creators.
I definitely feel that Miazaki's work shows a very different side of him than the one he shows in interviews. I feel perhaps that being cynical and bitter is his knee-jerk response, but when given more time to reflect and create something he really believes in, the person shown is very different.
@@zoro115-s6b Wow, for some reason to me at 2 am thats a very beautiful way of looking at it. I'm hoping you're right, and Miyazaki's art reflects his actual views more than his interviews.
To be honest I like his grumpy personality. It reminds me of older folks in my life that are very critical of things, I think it’s good to have that balance too in a way
Even if Miyazaki only watched the movies, I think it was still pretty obvious that LoTR was not glorifying war. Literally everyone except Mordor didn't want to go to war, all the characters had a "why now? why me?" sentiment when facing war, especially quotes like Aragorn's "Open war is upon you, whether you would risk it or not" and Sam's speech in Osgiliath.
Yeah, i highly doubt Hayao Miyazaki even said those things so i think, the guy that is doing the video is lying or was lied to, and made the video based on a lie that supposedly Miyazaki said those things, he would need to interview Hayao Miyazaki himself in order to know the real full on truth.
@nomickike2165 There's one problem with that, all three movies were being filmed at the same time with each being released about a year a part from one another. The Fellowship of the Ring came out in December 2001, barely 3 months after the event of 9/11 and they had begun filming the trilogy between October 1999 - December 2000. At that point there wasn't much that could be done, plus the 2nd book, The Two Towers was it's name from the moment it was published as a trilogy back in 1954. So... I see no desire to make propoganda, just an unfortunate coincidence that was unavoidable considering the effort that already put into making them, unless they actively changed the title but that would've been strange considering they're adaptations of a beloved work.
@nomickike2165 Except that the Lord of the Rings book trilogy was already a cultural phenomenon when it released in the 1950's. Over the course of decades it became a springboard for hundreds of fantasy authors to write their own works that were heavily inspired by Tolkein's Middle-Earth, such as; Forgotten Realms, DragonLance, Sword of Shannara, Belgariad, Discworld, Harry Potter, The Dark Tower, etc. The movies did provide an explosion of popularity in the early 2000's but the books had a massive influence long before their inception. I'm a little confused to your reasoning on why you say "why the studio suddenly decided to fund more of them" as the Lord of the Rings movie trilogy was funded and filmed together so there was no time between the movies where separate funding was possible outside of editors and shots that were taken between 2001-2003 for last minute edits. Also, there was no further movies made for the Lord of the RIngs until 2011 with The Hobbit trilogy but this was long after the hype for the LOTR movies had died down along with any potential association with 9/11 that you seem to be claiming. Honestly, I think this take is a bit ridiculous considering all of the context provided but if you want to continue believing this then you do you I suppose...
Not to mention the quote by Faramir (in the books by Sam) upon seeing a dead Haradrim. "It was Sam's view of a battle of Men against Men, and he did not like it much. He was glad that he could not see the dead face. He wondered what the man's name was and where he came from; and if he was really evil of heart or what lies or threats had led him on the long March from his home; and if he would not really rather have stayed there in peace." th-cam.com/video/NVpCeQqluf8/w-d-xo.htmlsi=NFYxe0I1ggji-jzJ
The fact that Miyazaki is the grumpiest cynical man imaginable despite dedicating his whole life to making cutesy wholesome emotional family-friendly animes is truly incredible
You forget half those films are about war. Frick, he CHANGED Howl's Moving Castle from it's original story to be an anti-war film, despite the book having NONE of that In the book, Howl wasn't dodging the draft. He was committing tax evasion.
@@PyroGothNerd Yeah I feel like anyone whose view of Ghibli films is strictly "They're cute and wholesome cottage core UWU" obviously has trouble understanding why Miyazaki would not like LOTR.
If you like Lord of the Rings, you like Lord of the Rings. It shouldn't matter to you what another guy on the other side of the planet thinks about your favorite book series. He's also not wrong that Westerners have a habit of viewing their rivals as less than human. Pay attention to what the media says about Russians, Palestinians, and China. Tolkien didn't like Dune which is a huge L.
Tolkien unlike Miyazaki actually fought in a war most notably at the battle of the Somme which was hell on earth and a miracle if you managed to survived it. When he wrote Sam's thoughts on the dead enemy soldier it was Tolkien's own thoughts we are reading of the many dead enemy he encountered and killed to live himself. Its easy to be virtuous when someone isn't in your face trying to kill you as the battle fields are full of dead saints. You'll find saints are in short supply in peacetime.
this is probably the biggest rebuke to level against Miyazaki's shallow criticisms. Not because the part about virtue, but because Miyazaki is somewhat classist in his views that the audience is stupid for liking something. Does Miyazaki make such shallow criticism without knowing that Tolkien fought in war? If he did not know, then he made such unsophisticated remarks about a man whom he should be able to share in the trauma of war over, because fighting in a war is only a degree of separation away from being a civilian in a war zone. Or, did he make such remarks and knew that he was a soldier? That would make him a rather.... ugly and unsympathetic person to have laid such a charge at Tolkien's feet about his works.
perfectly put and its why we need more warrior poets. Weakness in the modern man has feminized them to the max, and they no longer have a grasp on how the real world works
@@Goober543 Set the example and go to Ukraine to fight so you can come back as a warrior, but how you will come back will probably be in a box or with a mutilated limb.
you know, i didnt have anything against this guy, but now I do. One, because LOTR is something beautiful beyond culture or race, and second, because he essentially called me an idiot. :/ way to fall from grace, kill your heroes
@@thelettucebarrel7784 well, he was a professor after all, and he was very protective of the english language as well as the art of story telling. Of course he was strict on all things fiction. I'm sure you're well aware of the colorful things he had to say about Disney, especially of their depiction of dwarves in Snow White :B
@@thelettucebarrel7784 I might've misread you myself. So I should say "my bad" as well. Sometimes certain words and names melt together like that. I'm getting old, lol. still, I was merely making it a point of interest more than targeting your comment.
3:35 The Rambo franchise evolved into action movie fodder, however the first Rambo, that is "First Blood" was very much a statement on PTSD and negative treatment of returning soldiers. I don't see how anybody could watch Stalone's ending monolog at the end of first blood and dismiss Rambo as some murderous action movie
Also, Hollywood often indeed does glorify the US Military, or shows wars in a very simple, nearly glorified perspective. However, the same Hollywood does produce movies that are very anti-war, not glorifying the US and pretty much being on the other end of the spectrum. It is not that simple.
After the battle with the Haradrim, Faramir says “The enemy? His sense of duty was no less than yours, I deem. You wonder what his name is, where he came from. And if he was really evil at heart. What lies or threats led him on this long march from home. If he would not rather have stayed there in peace. War will make corpses of us all.” Tolkien served during WW1 he clearly knew the implications of war for both sides. I think the movies do a good job at showing that we go to war because we want to protect those we love and sadly there’s always a losing side.
If you're saying the conflict in LotR was inspired by the author's own war time escapades, that means he must have considered people that weren't on his side of the war to be less than human.
@@Noirell I didn't miss it, it's just not from the books. It's from the movie. In the book, Sam thinks a similar thought, but that's not surprising because Sam is the most empathetic character in the book. The majority of the characters dehumanize their enemies. Also, what's wild about the term "war time escapades"?
@DLarus08 You preface "escapade" with "an" because it starts in a vowel sound. I have had many war veterans tell me that it was exciting or daring or some such before. For reference, an escapade is "an act or incident involving excitement, daring, or adventure." Do you think it fits now that you know the definition?
I am sorry, but the moment someone mentions war propaganda as possible inspiration for Tolkien's orcs, means he or she has zero idea about how Tolkien created his worlds and all mythologies he studied.
Tolkien is a brilliant man who tried his best and achieved a high level of insight for his time but that doesn't stop inherit cultural biases because we're human. You're being just as ignorant if you don't think race isn't involved whatsoever as he described orcs, in a private letter, as "squat, broad, flat-nosed, sallow-skinned, with wide mouths and slant eyes: in fact degraded and repulsive versions of the (to Europeans) least lovely Mongol-types". I still love his work and the Jackson movies but it's not a moot point to bring up the cultural influences within the writing, just because it makes fans uncomfortable.
Sam's questioning the moral of the Southron's death really hits home. Tolkien being a veteran of war himself probably saw a lot of death on the field and asked those same questions of every dead man he saw. Foe or friend. edit: fixed - Dead man was not an Easterling but a Southron as mentioned by @bohunkmusic9473
The way Boromir dies in the book always struck me as probably being drawn from something Tolkien experienced. Aragorn is just talking to him about what happened, Boromir is leaving some things out, then he asks him something very rote, I think just if he knows where Frodo went. He happens to look away for a second when he asks this, and when he looks back, Boromir is gone.
Tolkien was at the battle of the Somme, one of the most dangerous and bloodiest battles in WW1. Almost, if not all, of Tolkien’s closest friends died in that war, some of them in that battle. We know for a fact he saw death, even though he never liked talking about it very much.
The orcs launching decapitated heads to Minas Tirith is directly taken from scare tactics from WW1. He lost friends in WW1. And he lost a son during WW2. That loss influences the sense of loss and melancholy permeating through LotR.
He was a grunt as I recall in Somme, aka the WW1 Slaughterhouse that lasted for MONTHS, you dont walk away from something like that without affecting you in someway.
I've watched his movies but never actually understood them. My family watched it as well and they all loved it but not me. Because "I" can't seem to understand it. Maybe I'm too much of an idiotic asshole or selfish jerk or maybe Ghibli isn't my cup of tea who knows but I've seen people enjoying his life work so I can't really say anything to critique him, that said I also don't understand him like is what going on inside Miyazaki's head. Like his son is doing his best and he talks down on his kid's best effort? And other stuff like this video talks about. I just don't get it.
@@BlossomPathOnStage15don’t worry. Just because you didn’t like or understand his works doesn’t mean you are an idiot. Everyone is different and have their own views on things, if you don’t like Ghibli movies it’s totally fine.
Same, just because Tolkien or peter jackson has made lot amazing film , it doesn't meam he always right especially LOT Fans like " Tolkien Vet WW1, Tolkien Is Religius, Tolkien Is Bla bla bla " like brouh, some fanatic fans😂 not all people Like LOTR especially me😂
@@BlossomPathOnStage15 Maybe you should try to see what Miyazaki presents: life has a lot of beatiful things and you don't have to be on a constant struggle against "evil" to understand that: good is a worthy and desirable human value on itself and war is not needed to "gain" or regain that. Miyazaki ultimately thinks that Hollywood has teached to the west that there can't be good without evil, and what's more: there is NOT "pure" goodness. All good characters in western stories have to make evil things to prevail, so in the end all of them are actually bad, it's just the grading of bad that makes them different.
He didn’t have to call fans who know the books better than he does “idiots” Just as well, Tolkien was very harsh to other writers and creators. Even if he resonated with the themes present in most of Miyazaki, he’d find something to critique.
@@carlosalbuquerque22 pretty hypocritical from someone who clearly got offended on Myazakis behalf. You litterally responded stuff like "Whine harder" and other critism lacking any arguements. This the opposite of constructive critisms. Its more like you know complaining or whining. Ofc Tolkien was flawed like every human. Yet what he created deserves respect. Same goes for Myazakis work and ideas. How one feels about the other might give interesting insight, but doesn't matter really. It doesn't change the fact that we talk of two creative geniusses. And two humans who have their flaws, but I admire both for what they created or in Myazakis case still creates.
@@grey_f98 I see the confusion. The comment meant "complaining about stereotypes while using stereotypes", not "hating stereotypes and hating works that use stereotypes"
When you look at the geography of the Silmarillion, the North-West = Good vs. South-East=Evil thing starts falling apart anyways. Melkor had his fortress Angband in the north.Thus, Evil naturally came from the north for centuries of the first age. Cuiviénen, the awakening place of the Elves, was very far in the east.
gotta keep in mind thats extended lore, I doubt Miyazaki read the books. he watched the films and didnt like it. cause the films are just Men of the west good, East bad if you dont pay attention
@@metakarukenshiDoes Miyazaki know that "East in Arda" does not mean, east side of the world (according to modern conventions) as it currently is? I find it hilarious that you guys are trying to solve "the problem" by saying "Evil naturally came from the north" as if Angband is not east of Aman. So, icelanders are the source of evil now then lmao? This is kinda stupid.
Not only that, but Sauron sets up within Dol Guldur, which is smack in the middle of Middle Earth during the Hobbit. The Easterlings and Haradrim are either manipulated or enslaved. Tolkien did not make villains out of them, but they are antagonists. It’s sophisticated and nuanced storytelling. Miyazaki isn’t really known for that.
"J. R. R. Tolkien was a devout Roman Catholic from boyhood, and he described The Lord of the Rings in particular as a "fundamentally religious and Catholic work; unconsciously so at first, but consciously in the revision". While he insisted it was not an allegory, it contains numerous themes from Christian theology." I'm a game dev, and there's so many games about good, evil, and the struggle of remaining good in the face of evil. It's such a common theme, that it's pretty much a cliche. All religions teach us about good vs evil, or even that all men are capable of feeding the good or feeding the evil. To me it was familiar, because I grew up catholic too. I always thought the orcs represented demons, gargoyles, satryrs, a lich king, imps, etc. Tolkien also gets criticism for not introducing diversity, but are Japanese movies representing diversity? or Korean? or Indian? Why is it an expectation that only the west needs to take on the duty of diversity? Everyone immigrates to Australia, USA, Canada, UK, en masse... but if there was mass immigration to Japan, would the locals be okay with it? When I watched LOTR all those years ago, I saw myself in many characters, I didn't think "Where are the black people?", "Why is my race not represented?". I looked at Harry Potter and thought "That's me". I love Miyazaki, but he can be cranky, cynical, nihilistic, hypercritical, and dramatic. It's what often comes with being an Artist.
"Some reviewers have called the whole thing simple-minded, just a plain fight between Good and Evil, with all the good just good, and the bad just bad. Pardonable, perhaps (though at least Boromir has been overlooked) in people in a hurry and with only a fragment to read and of course without the earlier-written but unpublished Elvish histories [The Silmarillion]. The Elves are not wholly good or in the right. Not so much because they had flirted with Sauron, as because with or without his assistance they were 'embalmers'. In their way the Men of Gondor were similar: a withering people whose only 'hallows' were their tombs. But in any case this is a tale about a war, and if war is allowed (at least as a topic and a setting) it is not much good complaining that all the people on one side are against those on the other. Not that I have made even this issue quite so simple: there are Saruman, and Denethor, and Boromir; and there are treacheries and strife even among the Orcs." [Tolkien wrote the above to his son Christopher in 1944, in the middle not only of WWII, but also of the writing of TTT.]
Hypocritical indeed, especially in regards to Japan's own role in imperiaist warmongering and their own problems with racism and portrayal of violence. Not saying he isn't right about Hollywood films relying on themes of violence, but you can hardly tell me Japanese media is much better in that regard, Japanese movies and media are awash with bloodshed in their own right. What's the difference between a Samurai butchering his way through a group of ninja and Rambo shooting his way through a group of Russians?
The Silmarillion shows how catholic his world is. The structure is a direct mirror of God, archangels, angels, the fall of Morgoth=Lucifer. All that and more.
@@sanam878I'm white and give zero shits about white representation in anything anywhere. Maybe it's just from knowing how horrible white people have been for a long time.
Miyazaki, every time I watch a documentary or learn of his world views or learn if his family life; I find that he makes wholesome works of art that champion nature and life, but then fails in any way to live out personally.
"I cordially dislike allegory in all its manifestations, and always have done so since I grew old and wary enough to detect its presence." J. R. R. Tolkien
That is the biggest issue why I dont vibe with LOTR! Stories are meant to speak for humanity and reflect our culture and beliefs,not being a distant mythology with no point. You d be surprised how many ancient tales and legends are seen as nonsenses,but they have many things hidden that reflect the cultures who wrote them...
You did an amazing job defending Tolkien while simultaneously being compassionate and understanding to Miyazaki. Really beautifully done. Loved this video.
@@hotumupix you're right, and it's happening in the real world. How certain media and news propaganda work, it's changing a little with people waking up, but it's undeniably still there...
@@hotumupixToday, and at the time of Tolkien, the east is coming to us, not the other way around, so even if in his books was a reference to that, then why should we feel bad about it?
I just love how one of the grumpiest campers ever, who literally hates everything including (but not limited to) his own son, blessed us with movies that feature some of the cutest characters, most lovable and beautiful stories, incredible images and prettiest music and truly snatch and take you away to another world. He is like the inverse of some of those horror movie directors who are total sweethearts irl.
my boyfriend and I had a discussion about this. Apparently many big named creators and artists create art that completely contradicts their character. This is because they get inspiration more from stepping out of their comfort zones, so a person who i
Tolkien refuted the accusations of racism and moral geography that were leveled at him on many occasions during his lifetime. For example, he said that the East-West dichotomy in Lord of the Rings materialized naturally due to the needs of the narrative he was developing and that it had "no modern reference." Moreover, he always openly criticized Nazism and other racist theories and condemned the treatment of black people in South Africa during Apartheid. I find it hard to believe that he would intentionally put racist messaging in any of his works.
@@Fridaey13txhOktoberbelieve he would still condemned the treatment of Blacks under Apartheid, but criticize the government and anti-white or Afrikaans hatred in many parts of South African society.
Unintelligent people will always try to make everything about our present and what they think they know about it - which is generally very little. Also, there are many people from the young generation who take everything literally.
Tolkien clearly stated that his works were never allegories. It's just fantasy and myth. But of course, no matter what fiction you write, you will always find a way to interpret it as a metaphor of a historical event... I love Miyazaki, but he's the "idiot" here...
Well Tolkien of course completely contradicts himself because he also said his works were fundamentally Catholic in nature, so there clearly is that allegory. And of course Christianity was often used by "The West" to justify the horrbile crimes committed against people from overseas who shared different believes. So Miyazaki does have a point here.
@@ageoflove1980So was Shintoism in WW2, making Miyazaki a hypocrite. EVERY religion, philosophy, and ideology, even when preaching peace, has been used as an excuse for vile actions.
@@PyroGothNerd how does that make miyazaki a hypocite lol, he never denied his work was an allegory, also tolkien has said his work was an allegory about power
To be honest its kinda a funny that i think Miyazaki has almost the same type of personallity as Feanor. Both were a great artis, both created many masterpiece of artwork, both were very nihilistic, both were very emotional and both cursed their own sons.
But Feanor loved his sons, at least. And he didn't curse them, they swore an oath voluntarily. of course they obeyed him in everything, but he wasn't just their father, he was a king. and i can't imagine Feanor justifying isIаmists, just as i can't imagine miyazaki creating a work of art that could tempt the devil himself and thwart his plans. besides, Feanor never shit on other people's art.
I think Tolkien fans are very emotional and did not accept another author's negative opinion. Miyazaki It's old and from a totally different culture, it's normal to have criticism. He probably prefers Alice in Wonderland and Frankenstein over Lotr 😅
@@fchicod since he is offended by what he perceives to be western racial supremacy themes in LOTR, I suspect that Alice in Wonderland could easily come under his microscope as promoting a decadent lifestyle for wealthy victorian children on the back of western imperialism.
Many people don't understand that orcs are not based in non-europeans but in the other hand, the easterlings and haradrim are but it's established that since the start of the first age, Morgoth and Sauron enslave them.
Painting the east as victims rather than evil incarnate isn't all that much better. This is the very same thinking that animated the so-called 'white man's burden' (whose cultural echoes remain to this day, shorn of its overt racism) and the very goal of Christian missionaries and western-idealizing reformists. It still isn't admitted that the east can be every bit as legitimate and wise and virtuous as the west supposedly is.
@@laisphinto6372 Sauron unified almost all the people's of the world against middle earth, making them worship him as their God-King. Something curious about it is that Tolkien said that most of Rhun and Harad forces didn't respond to Sauron's call when the War of the Ring started due to the influence left behind by the blue wizards.
@@ArawnOfAnnwn Why? It humanizes them, especially when Sam reflects about their purpose in this war. The story is centered in middle earth, one can't explore everything at once, of course there could be easterlings and southerners that could be virtuous and wise but it's very likely that those people are the ones who had chosen to remain in their lands and resist Sauron rather than join his evil forces.
One of my favourite things about the LOTR books was that the story didn't just end straight after the moment of triumph when Sauron was defeated. The book took it's time to allow all members of the Fellowship to gradually return to their homes as above all else that is what they were fighting for. It showed that whilst some members of the fellowship were able to return home and live there happily, other's couldn't. Samwise made the best of his situation, fell in love and created a family, for Samwise the return was a beautiful thing. But for Frodo, who started out as the most pure, kind, genuine and innocent hero, basically ever in literature it was vastly different. Even with all his promise and natural gifts he was irrevocably changed from what he had seen and done from the burden of his role. Much was expected from him and consequently he gave much in order to achieve it. So yes, Frodo made it back and protected The Shire which was his intent all along, but he was so changed by his experience that even though he'd won his prize, his freedom, safety and the freedom and safety of those he loves. He was unable to enjoy it the way he once did. Frodo then had to sit and watch as everyone around him went back to their homes and made the best of it. And it's very clear that Frodo felt displaced and was inwardly miserable watching that. Not out of jealousy or pettiness, he was still a good man, one of the best. Rather due to his an intense awareness of how stark and bleak his reality was now. He knew intimately how much innocence he had lost. It's no accident that Frodo, the most kind, brave, curious, dedicated character in the book, the one whose personality was most ideal as a partner or as a father never 'found' a partner and never had children. That's no accident. Frodo was highly desirable in The Shire. He chose not to. He chose to be alone. For me, that's the cruellest thing that 'happened' to him in the whole story. Instead he spent his time taking care of his hut, visiting his friends but the thing he put the most energy into was writing his stories. Reliving and recounting the journey that had so irrevocably changed him. I mean that was basically as blatant a commentary on the loss of innocence and the potential loss of self to the ravages of war as Tolkien could have possibly written. It was brutal. So for Miyazaki to read all that and somehow genuinely believe that LOTR glorified war is straight up baffling. Especially as he comes across as so thoughtful and perceptive in his story telling. And, although less distinct it wasn't just Frodo who struggled, Bilbo did too. Bilbo also never took a wife or started a family. And at the very end, the both lead characters, who had both spent years writing their stories desired most of all to 'go into the undying lands' with their old friends who they had journeyed with. With the people they felt most understood who they were, before and during the change they experienced. Where they felt most understood, and could heal. A place where the uniquely personal both of them carried could finally be lifted off of them, and they could be relieved. In my opinion, that was an alliteration to heaven. Aside from simply stating all that as literally as possible I just did I don't know how Tolkien could have made war's terrible burden any clearer.
Exactly. One of the most powerful and prominent “themes”, if you will, are PTSD and depression in LOTR. It amazes me how Miyazaki dumbed the story, written by an actual war vet, down to “war glorification”.
Supposedly Miyazaki didn't fully understand or read LOTR. Maybe he got snippets or had a huge focus on the narrative / conceptual structure... and his own creative vision always consuming him. When he was asked if he actually saw Indiana Jones he said no. I think Miyazaki didn't have time or care to put into external pursuits, and that's clear enough in his relationship with his kid, his constantly busy environment at work, his toxic commitment to working even while sick (not uncommon, sadly), and just strict Japanese culture in general.
He doesn't understand as much as you give him credit for. Japanese people will score well enough on English tests, but it doesn't mean they have a true native grasp of our language. They have too many differences, and the older the Japanese are, the less they understand the language and culture differences.
@@cautiouscube2197 Very true, but it is sad that Kanji and other more traditional culture is decaying or decrepit. I love Kanji as a learner, but many Japanese people seem to be willing to move on to shorthand for virtualization
2:15 Tolkien did not believe in absolute evil, viewing evil as a deprivation of goodness, like cold is a deprivation of heat or darkness of light. For this reason, he did not and could not view Sauron as evil incarnate. Not only would that be blasphemy to him as a Catholic, seeming to put the devil on equal footing with God, but also it would imply that evil has actual existence, and therefore that as a creature it must be created, which would be to say that God created evil, a gnostic and Manichaean doctrine. Granted, towards the end there I was extrapolating a bit, but he points out how even in the books it’s said that he fell. You cannot be evil incarnate if you fell from goodness.
@@icebox1954 maybe it would have meant something to you, if there was a brain. Would you like an example of what could be considered an unbiased opinion? "I think the mariana trench is the deepest spot in the sea" Now go ahead and tell me where the bias is? And how much biased it is.
If Miyazaki bothered to pay any attention to the books he would have most of his worries eased. What I think is unrealistic on Miyazaki's part though is if he believes that any pure depiction of a good vs evil situation is strictly a Western world cliche. Hard to tell from the video if that's a big reason why he hates Hollywood films or not.
This seems an incredibly disingenuous video essay. Has Miyazaki ever actually said "orcs are supposed to be easterners?" Has he said "Tolkein entirely depends upon racism"? Those are the absurd claims. It seems about ten thousand times more likely that Miyazaki (or anyone with a brain) would be talking about the Easterlings in Middle Earth, which is a small detail overall but still a part of Middle Earth. Why make video essays to claim ridiculous ideas far beyond the few quotes the youtuber bothered to look up?
"Orcs are squat, broad, flat-nosed, sallow-skinned, with wide mouths and slant eyes: in fact degraded and repulsive versions of the (to Europeans) least lovely Mongol-types." --Tolkien angry that his orcs were portrayed as birds in a cartoon Yeah, Miyazaki noticing that Tolkien based his evil monsters on Asian features and then said he did so specifically because Europeans are as racist as he is... kind of gives this one to Miyazaki. Tolkien was an Imperialist. The British Empire was a brutal, bloody regime that slaughtered millions of people and kept them in constant oppression, including Asians. And then homie writes a book where all the Asians and Africans and extra-evil Asians threaten civilization. It's fine that you didn't realize Tolkien was racist. But he was. And now you now and have to deal with that.
@@Alic4444 Perhaps this is a sign for you to dig up the truth for yourself. The history between western media represented by Tolkien and eastern media represented by Miyazaki is long, complicated, and very nuanced. Much more so than can be reasonably covered in an 11 minute video. Even beyond those two in particular, this topic has had people from both sides slugging it out for decades. To decry something trying to bring attention to it as 'disingenuous' seems to serve no purpose except to perpetuate the debate. Instead of complaining about it, take action to clear up what you see as a misunderstanding.
Makes sense. Just look at princess mononoke and Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind. Everyone had their own reasons for doing things and most of them were justified.
Miyazaki hates Hollywood films, because they take stereotypes of people, at both the individual and group levels, whether right or wrong, and runs with them. Also, they do glorify war in how he criticised them, which feeds ultimately back to the stereotypes and their depiction of them. His take on depictions of people from the East and Africans are a case of that, and the stereotypes are of them either being totally outright evil, or misguided and easily manipulated people. Both stereotypes are totally wrong, of course, but Hollywood films do not allow that to be explored, and of those that are, they are either framed in the slave era in the case of Africans, and WW2 in the case of the East. There exists only the cop films that are exceptions to that, but even there, they are showing the stereotypes of cops in uniform.
Great authors don’t all need to love each other, and fans don’t need to dislike something just because their favorite author does. Tolkien famously disliked Dune, and Frank Herbert disliked Star Wars. Every author offers a unique perspective, some you’ll agree with and some you won’t. No art is universally loved or beyond criticism, nor should it be.
Whole heartedly agree. No one is saying he needs to agree with everyone. But when his argument for not liking something is built upon total hypocritical bs, then yeah people are gonna call him out on it. I’ve seen tons of comments here point out the objective flaws to his way of thinking. If he didn’t like it just becuase he didn’t like it, that’s one thing. But to say stuff like how Orcs are racist caricatures of people is a straight up false statement.
Most Manga creators hate Comics and Cartoons, they just use the "Tatemae", which is extreme politeness, something Miyazaki does not gives a fuck about.
While yes, Miyazaki is in the unique camp of just genuinely hating everything. Hates anime, hates LOTR, hates his son, hates America, hates modern Japan. The dude has nothing but hate and anger.
One example of this in classical music, Claude Debussy had really unpopular opinions on Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann, Mendelssohn and Brahms, he loved Wagner but then moved on, while mantaining certain influence, he LOVED Bach as well as other authors from past centuries like Couperin or Rameau, even Palestina. Sometimes these people sound like the most complicated beings, but they are in the medium, artists are very complicated people, sometimes you might love his work while not his views or who they are.
Tolkien would have hated the movies, he also called his fans deplorable, all the lotr people hating on Miyazaki for being woke cuz he called them idiots would be thrilled to find out
I like how Miyuzaki talks about allegory in lord of the rings when Tolkien has gone on record to state that his work is neither allegorical nor topical, Tolkien hates those.
Not entirely accurate. Tolkien professed a dislike of allegory (he didn't think Lewis should have published _The Chronicles of Narnia_ in their final form, or _The Great Divorce_ ), but from what I understand went on record as follows: " _The Lord of the Rings_ is not allegory about atomic power, but is allegory about Power."
@HuntingTarg It's not an allegory it's literally just the story about it. Story says power bad does not mean it's some kind of elaborate thinng when literally it says it.
Most authors hate each other's work. Tolkien hated Herbert's "Dune", Miyasaki hated Tolkien's LOTR... it's natural. Its not about what you say about your work.. its about what others think of it. What you say or attempt to do, might not be the outcome. For instance.. Hitler said he his works were good and laid out the reasons why. WE don't see it that way. Just because Tolkien says this, does not mean that's what others see- and sometimes, they are right.
Most of the authors didn't hate, they just didn't like the story and the vision of some story. People like to create beef between authors. Yep, Tolkien didn't love Dune a more nihilistic story than LOTR and it is ok.
@@Yo_Cami Not saying it's not okay. That's all good. It leads to intersting life decisions. I do think they all need a good slap on the side of the head, with Time Travel though- to wake them up, cause they muddy around in the dark introducing and attempting to fix the problems of Destiny/Fate/Prescience, etc... When Time Travel can spare so much self-inflicted suffering and drama. A few tweaks here and there... and we're set! It won't make for "interesting" reading though cause we have a lot of imaginary masochists out there.
Miyazaki says that not understanding the historical context or significance of a story then misunderstanding Tolkiens villains is kind of ironic. I understand him not liking the glorification of war, but that is not what Lotr is about. Tolkien wrote about the Anglo-Saxons bravery and self-sacrifice in the face of conflict. Not to unsimilar to Miyazaki and his idealization of WW2 era Japan. The only difference is Tolkien is from England and a Christian, and Miyazaki is not. Tolkien believes there is an evil in the world that man must overcome, and there is a constant evil corruption that will take the hearts of some men.
I suppose if Tolkien were a *Buddhist*, then his views would be very different, because in Buddhism all sentient beings are seen as Buddhas-in-the-making, and evil is due merely to ignorance. His trilogy might then end with all the bad guys becoming good. Hey, what can be impossible in a fantasy world?
@@gwang3103 Only Tolkien wasn't; and it's hard to imagine a Bhuddist fighting in a war as Tolkien had (WWI, France). So if Tolkien had been a Bhuddist he might have written something entirely different from The Hobbit and LOTR.
Miyasaki, if I may dare to say so, is presumably a Shintoist, who sees 'good' and 'evil' as part of the duality in the balance of nature. That Sauron should be utterly destroyed, Saruman and Grima disappear into obscurity, and Aragorn be crowned king of an enduring throne are 'totally out of whack' with his worldview, so his characterization of the movies is at least comprehensible on that point. He seems, from the recounting here, to miss things like The Ents conquer Isengard and are not themselves conquered by anyone, the Hobbits return to their own idyllic Shire and are not kept as vassals or made feifal lords by Aragorn, and there is no 'occupation' of Mordor or the Southron kingdom. I think his disdain (contempt?) for Hollywood leads him to judge, if not prejudge, the LOTR trilogy out of cultural context and apart from its true merits.
@@HuntingTarg Some if not many of the Japanese who fought during WW2 were Buddhists. (And regretfully, they were mostly unwilling conscripts as well.) The Shaolin monks occasionally engaged in wars, too. I don't see why Tolkien couldn't have written The Hobbit and LOTR if he were a Buddhist. He still could, except there would be major differences in the storyline. (Shrugs.)
Shame he feels that way, I always assumed he'd see the similarity in themes between his and Tolkien's work. It really doesn't sound like he's actually read LOTR though if that's what he's come away thinking. That Sam line is exactly what sprang to mind just before you brought it up. Or the Faramir line, "War must be, while we defend our lives against a destroyer who would devour all; but I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend."
Myazaki's cristicism is fair. "(The Orcs) have squat, broad, flat-nosed, sallow-skinned, with wide mouths and slant eyes: in fact degraded and repulsive versions of the (to Europeans) least lovely Mongol-types."" - J. R. R. Tolkien The association between orcs and Asians isn't a "interpretation" some readers got from the text, it came out from the literal mouth of Tolkien. This videos's author omited this fact, for some reason.
@@chrisrapp7733 Why would that be crap? He did write it, and it seems relevant to the subject matter, even though one may suspect that his choices have more to do with traditional in-group preferences regarding human beauty than with racist perceptions per se of Asians being evil. (After all, the Orcs are not even human.)
@@monnaranzoti732 Which part is offending you? The part where Tolkien lists some physical features that aren't even the features that the Orcs in his story are written with? If you track the features to his descriptions in books, what's he describing seems to be the half-Orcs of Saruman (not the Uruk-hai). The part where Tolkien feels the need to elaborate on physical features, listing them at all? Because the context (often completely omitted when this quote is bandied about by bad actors) is him responding to a movie script in which someone has turned Orcs into bird people. He's only pointing out human characteristics and where you might see something similar to them because someone gave them beaks.
@@monnaranzoti732 Tolkien was creating something that his audience would almost certainly find repulsive; the fact that they have similarities to certain human ethnicities is belied by the fact that Orcs aren't human at all - they're corrupted elves. Which should amplify, not diminish their grotesqueness, and not be a slant or a slur on any human ethnicity. There is a difference between being able to see 'race' (the very term is perverted out of context), and not being able to not see 'race'.
There’s a scene of faramir reflecting on the the death of an Easterling, wondering what his name is and motivation for fighting. He seems to understand war and hates participating in itwhile acknowledging his enemy’s humanity
Didn't Miyazaki get asked if he had actually seen Indiana Jones, then replied no? He gives off the impression that he is a contrarian for the sake of being one. Tolkien often gave praise to the authors of works he didn't personally enjoy such as Dune.
@@damienasmodeus928 yeah lmao that is some i saw a youtube short on a ghibli movie and now i have a valid opinion on it level lol. Really goes to show how a lot of creators do get pretentious. I guess thats just what happens when you devote everything to one thing.
@@damienasmodeus928 I dont think i need to waste my time reading or watching Twilight to be crititical of it, or in the case of say Harry Potter I grew out of it when i was like 15 and realized how shallow it was.
@@krel3358 I agree. If you watch a scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark, you've pretty much got the whole picture. It's a fantastic movie but if you don't appreciate what it is, then yeah, you won't like it. Miyazaki simply doesn't appreciate it.
@@krel3358 To an extent I agree. Its perfectly reasonable to look at what something is and if its not a theme or universe that pertains to someone's preferences then of course its fine to just turn away. I also agree someone doesn't need to see or read everything to really gauge how something is. As for being critical I think it depends what "level" of critical you're trying to be towards something(no I am not going to defend Twilight). If someone only looks at one part of a work and then decides to criticize the entire thing and the people who like it without looking at reviews or some other source about it that seems like a big leap.
Anti-Asian discrimination? Miyazaki doesn't speak for the rest of us Asians after his people (the Imperial era, not today's modern era) committed terrible atrocities to the other Asian countries, including mine. I do not hate Miyazaki, and I was a fan of him and still a fan of most of his movies, but because of this, my opinion about him is now lower.
@@rockonpurification belive it or not, Miyazaki said hated the Japanese imperialism by hearing what the Japanese army have done to chinese people. But yeah, he's kind of a hypocrite like Alan More. Princess Mononoke literally have the protagonists dismember heads and arms from samurais.
@@craigthebrute8932Hey, genuinely interested why you say that Alan More is a hypocrite. I read his 'V for Vendetta', but I don't know much about his political views, apart from what I can read on Wikipedia.
@@boraicho6144Miyazaki himself is very critical and hated the Japanese imperial army. You shouldn't call someone hypocrite without knowing in details yourself. Just because he is Japanese himself doesn't mean he supported the war by his own government.
frodo was very charitative, and didn't want to kill anyone unless needed. same for aragorn, they were not chasing orc, they were reacting to they brutality, what the fuck miyaki ranting at, he must put down the flask a bit more often.
There was no threat from Mordor in the first place, if three guys can dismantle millions of your soldiers then you don't stand a chance, second nazguls are funny not really worth on battle field(Witch king killed by female) easterlings are again nonething compare to army of dead. So Sauron don't stand a chance from the beginning till the end
Same here, the Algorithm works. But this Video have a flaw. Since Miyazaki only disliked the Movies. So misleading Information. Otherwise the Video is fine.
Dune is a pretentious story that people get behind to seem sophisticated. I don't find it engaging or sophisticated enough. Maybe it's just me. Star Wars is for kids (big and small).
I love Lord of the Rings and I always will, but I totally see Miyazaki's point. The warfare, the (boring and cliche) trope of 'pure' or 'royal' blood, and the dehumanization of 'Easterners' and 'Southrons' are NOT the best parts of LOTR. But IMO, it's ok to love something that isn't perfect. Nobody is perfect. No piece of art is perfect... no piece of art is pure of the creators' ignorance and prejudice. I think it's ok to love a piece of art the same way we might love the beautiful flowers that grow from a stinking pile of manure. In fact, manure, as odious as it may be, provides the ingredients that make beauty possible. Light and dark are forever intertwined.
It seems silly for Miyazaki to decry violence in American movies when Princess Mononoke has the protagonist cut off arms in bloody fashion. Saying a mythical creature like an ocr must represent x minority is also nuts. Should we just assume every malevolent creature in Miyazaki's work is really x minority group? It's a good thing his actual movies are stories and don't turn into obivious rants of his political opinions like some Hollywood movies do these days.
Hate to break it to you, but Tolkien is the one who compared orcs to minorities. From one of his private letters: "squat, broad, flat-nosed, sallow-skinned, with wide mouths and slant eyes: in fact degraded and repulsive versions of the (to Europeans) least lovely Mongol-types."
I would agree if it was not for the fact that Ashitaka's killing are not intentional. At least not at all, the same premise of Princess Mononoke revolves around in words of the protagonist himself "not seeing the world through clouds of hatred". The Journey of Ashitaka begins as a colateral damage of foreign conflicts that he later tries to calm meanwhile tries to restord the nature that other have been destroying. The hole narrative of Princess Mononoke is about living at peace with Nature, and people without letting the hate and destructive nature of men disrupt that peace.
I think the major difference is that the protagonist Ashitaka’s violence is portrayed very clearly as something bad. He fights very hard to stop it from overtaking him, and his goal throughout the movie is to cure to curse that is making him violent and hateful. I love both lotr and ghibli but I do believe Miyazaki’s films are pretty much unilaterally conscious in their attitude towards violence and hate.
Should be called "Miyazaki does not understand LOTR, because he was traumatized by being born into WW2 Japan". Seriously it sounds like people who try to insert communism/capitalism debates into stories like Robin Hood, completely missing the part of the story that's firmly asserts the righteousness of a "true king"
I wouldn't be too surprised if it were Miyazaki's comments that are quoted by agenda driven people to explain why Tolkien is somehow racist. I've heard that a lot lately, and I'm a little tired of it.
but why tho? Its fundamentally a political statement at its heart and tolkiens work is heavily influenced by the english royalty and empire. You dont hey to take a whole part of a story and go "it means nothing" it doesnt work that way. And its not like lotr is a storybook fable or smth, tho even then the obsession with monarchy is worth examining
Miyazaki only sees the world through a narrow Japanese lens, he refuses to even attempt to see things from others' perspectives. He seems very ignorant and bitter.
@Nagrom maybe for the best though? While I love the access to the world we have in modern times, I worry that in my lifetime we will lose the cultural differences that make foreign places different. I feel sorry for Miyazaki, but I don't wish he had a different perspective because I think it's his japanese point of view that has given us all his awesome movies
Dude. Stop talking. You're trying to find something where there is nothing. Have you read Tolkien's works or just LOTR? There is the Silmarillion, The Hobbit, Morgoth's Ring, Unfinished Tales, The Fall of Gondolin and so on and so forth. Which all cover thousands of years before LOTR. Lord of the Rings is a epic high fantasy story, in which Aragorn is from a long line of Kings, all related to the first King of Numenor, Elrond's brother, Elros. After the fall of Arnor in the North to the Witch-King of Angmar, Aragorn's ancestors became the Dunedain chieftains and Gondor lost its King, by any logic, Aragorn is the heir rightfully but you have to keep in mind, he only became King because of the War of the Ring happening and the Fellowship forming to destroy the Ring. You're also forgetting how the LOTR is about hope, friendship, accepting one day we're all going to die, fighting against darkness and such. There is very little to suggest it is heavily influenced by Empire or Monarchy. It has heavy medieval vibes so Kingdoms are normal for that, it also takes big influences from the Anglo-Saxons, Goths, Finnish, Jewish people, Christianity, Beowulf, The Kalevala, Völsunga saga, Temple of Nodens, Germanic mythology, the First World War which he fought in, moments from his real life and so on. to water it down to " heavily influenced by the english royalty and empire" is a weak statement. His works are hardly political, you're just trying to find a reason to make it so.
In my writing class we had to take two famous characters from different stories and put them in the same scene together. I had Aragorn meet and talk with Prince Ashitaka. It really showed how similar their worlds and quests were.
I'd be more interested in a conversation between Aragorn and Paul Atreides tbh. For those who've only seen the first Dune film, Paul is NOT a hero. He's responsible for a religious war that he himself is horrified by. Tolkien infamously hated Dune btw.
@@ArawnOfAnnwnWhy do you talk as if we don’t know about these characters? Dune was a product of its period in the 60s. Lots of stories around subverting hero’s journey has since proliferated in modern fantasy and sci fi literature. And the movie that Villeneuve made isn’t as good tbh. Less nuanced than even Life of Brian did around similar themes in the 70s.
7:49 Just for some perspective, this part of your argument is basically directly addressed by Edward Said's work, "Orientalism". There's a very long legacy of portraying "the East" as being susceptible to being twisted by despots.
Tolkien's experiences and wisdom, as well as the fact that he was a linguist more than a writer, seems to have resulted in him having a far better grasp on reality than most modern writers and artists.
He was on a completely different level of intellect, creativity, and bravery quite frankly compared to modern fiction writers. I don't think Tolkien would have anything pleasant to say about anime, and the state of the "men" who watch it is all that need be observed.
Perhaps, though both artists have their 'contradictions', and just as Miyazaki seems oblivious to Japan's role in WWII, Tolkien was also a famously strong defender of Spain's fascist dictator, and fellow Catholic, Francisco Franco.
People that fought in wars, usually make the BEST stories with the most humane characters/plots. Alot can be told of the human condition through conflict regardless of whether its war or not
Middle Earth’s greatest enemies were from Middle Earth, or from another metaphysical plane of existence. Besides that, it’s strongly implied that Easterlings, Haradrim, etc. were manipulated by Sauron into going to war. They aren’t the real villains, even though they are antagonists. There is a massive difference.
It's kinda funny because the works of both Tolkien and Miyazaki not very subtly involve the perils of imperialism, industrialization, demagoguery, war/conquest, ecosystem destruction etc. You'd think Miyazaki would find a kindred spirit in Tolkien.
@@itsnotborker456 The translation was a bit confusing though, so I'm not entirely confident saying that he felt the same way about the books. If you have a better translation, do tell me.
Not to say I know more than Miyazaki who is an accomplished story writer and the most celebrated animator of all time. But at its core The Lord of the Rings is not a tail of war. It is an argument of what man is. It is an argument against the Ubermensch philosophy of Nietzsche. That in the end life comes down to the comrades you have along the way; not the absolute power you wield and any man can fall victim to power. Frodo in the end wins out of chance not because he did the right thing. That's why Sam and him are reluctant to address what happened until the end. Where again their bond is the real story of their adventure and not their defeat of “evil”. I think to most westerners given the time The Lord of the Rings was written the Orcs represent the N@zi's and Sauron an allegory for Hitler. Whether it's true or not doesn't really matter; and whether racists cling to the idea that Tolkien based the Orcs on propaganda also doesn't matter all that much because those people have gone so far down an unimportant rabbit hole that they can never articulate a point to be a threat. I'd like to believe this is just a giant misunderstanding on Miyzaki's part; Tolkien famously "stole" The Lord of the Rings from the Poetic Edda and the races of Norse Mythology. He then assigned each race a more UK identity so his readers could relate to the stories. The Hobbits being the most plucky British who carry on through hard times. Tolkien showed respect for the people of Asia when correcting Hitler who referred to the people of Germany as Aryian. With Tolkien responding by fact checking the migration of the Indo-Aryan people Hitler was incorrectly associating himself with in a letter between the to, when Hitler wanted to make sure Tolkien had no Jewish blood in his heritage before allowing The Hobbit to be read in N@zi Germany.
I took offense to this as a Turkish man. The general consensus around here is that Tolkien-based Orcs on Turks. So, back tf off, we're more oppressed here.
Its very strange that Miyazaki would have such a hateboner for lord of the rings and how it "glorifies" war, considering that, while Im fairly positive Miyazaki never took part in any conflicts, only saw the outcome of it, and how his fathers business of making airplanes worked out, Tolkein served in the trenches of one of the two worst wars in all of human history, saw many of his friends and comrades die, and was eternally scarred by the experience. Lord of the Rings was never meant to glorify war, the orcs are representations of good men(or elves) twisted and perverted into caricatures of their once good selves and predisposed towards the hatred and destruction of all things good or peaceful. They are much more the representation of what happens when good men go to war and are twisted by their leaders into weapons, killing machines that abandon all morality. Tolkein hated war, probably more than Miyazaki does, for what it does to good people, for how it inspires such hatred and mistrust, and he had a front row seat for it. I think Miyazaki just needs to not be such a curmudgeonly old coot tbh. I mean Tolkein was too, he notoriously hated anything that infantilized fantasy or myth. But Miyazaki is just a grumpy old man.
Miyazaki has great respect for Tolkien and loves Hobbit, he even recommended it. In his quote he meant that the book was better than the film in portraying this aspect. This is just a wrong interpretation!
@@RyanRoemer8624 i mean if the interpretation is correct, then Miyazaki is kind of a hypocrite considering his many, many, many depictions of warfare and especially nazi tanks in a positive to neutral light. For the record I don't really care about either Miyazaki or Tolkien
Tolkien hated Dune with passion, but he never said anything about it because he respected Frank Herbert as someone with the same profession. Only after his death we knew that he hated Dune. So, yeah, Miyazaki is just being grumpy old man lol
I respect Miyazaki as an artist and writer, but frankly, his opinions come from a perspective of perceived superiority, and narcissism. He often claims to know better, but speaks from a place of ignorance.
He speaks out of his position of authority, its kinda common in Japan to have old people complaining about everything and criticizing everyone because they are of higher social status. Japan and Asia in general have a culture of total respect and obedience before authority and especially "elders" so Miyazaki pretty much says whatever he can because who's gonna oppose him?
I mean a lot of people do..if I asked you things in a casual interview setting or convo you would no doubt say dumb things from time to time or just say things you don't REALLY mean but you have strong feelings about so they come out that way
@@Redcloudsrocks True, but Miyazaki makes a pattern of treating others as lesser than himself, it's not just Tolkien. He thinks everyone and everything should cater to his perspective. He comes off as one of the righteous types he himself claims to despise.
Myazaki's cristicism is fair. "(The Orcs) have squat, broad, flat-nosed, sallow-skinned, with wide mouths and slant eyes: in fact degraded and repulsive versions of the (to Europeans) least lovely Mongol-types."" - J. R. R. Tolkien The association between orcs and Asians isn't a "interpretation" some readers got from the text, it came out from the literal mouth of Tolkien. This videos's author omited this fact, for some reason.
I dont know if those quotes are old, but today Miyazaki's criticism of Western racism is hopelessly outdated and wrong factually. American culture hasn't produced work remotely pro-white or anti-asian, african, or whomever in decades (early 2000s). Applying these criticisms to LOTR shows he never gave it more than a shallow surface level viewing/reading, and he applied his prejudices thoughtlessly. Anything remotely "racist" or racialist in Tolkien's work is tertiary and only detail aside from the Orcs, but even the Orcs and every context surrounding them has nothing to do with "racism" in the popular context. The conscious choices Tolkien made to characterize the Orcs even appears to be anti-racist: he needed forces of pure evil for his story, but the Orcs aren't purely foreign or evil, they aren't entirely unsympathetic. They are basically our own kind but twisted and corrupted against their will by forces of evil, that reduced them to this level. In short, Miyazaki's stated reasons for disliking LOTR are dumb and inconsistent with his own views.
i guess miyazaki would claim that 'western racism' has morphed, not ended. the classic nordicist tropes are no longer used and even discouraged but they've been replaced by something that keeps the essence while discarding the front, namely rhetoric about western liberal democracy justifying intervention against 'autocracies' in the third world. This maintains western agreession and thus western racism. Note, this is not necessarily my view, just what i think miyazaki would argue.
@@dangin8811 Sad that many people need a disclaimer. I mean I have my personal biases and loyalties but I don't really care which people have or what they sympathize with. It's just that Miyaziki's opinions here seem based on tenuous facts. Yeah, it is a bit understandable for a non American who formed his understanding and opinions 40+ years ago to be out of date, especially when American society and politics changed so much in a fraction of time. It seems like for alot of paleo leftists, the notion of the US (or west) having racist motivation in its 'liberal democratic imperialism' is such a central motivation and underpinning of their beliefs that they can't consider otherwise. I would share many of their criticisms of the US, but to believe George Bush and Bill Clinton's generation of politicians and business elite are secretly hovering over maps of the third world giddily thinking "how do I exploit the inferior brown races today" ignores a lot of evidence to the contrary. The mainstream of elite society has been heavily anti racist for a long time. Is some of it a smokescreen to distract from class inequality? Yes. But to believe the George Bushes are insincere when painting all those immigrants or that there's an unyielding secret racist elite behind them? How many non-whites need to live in Martha's Vineyard or marry into the royal family before they can accept it's meaningful?
Why are commenters assuming Miyazki is A-ok with what Japan did in WWII. His works and his statements on the war show that he hated what his country did in WWII. Is his criticism of Tolkien fair? No. But that doesn’t mean he is a Japanese imperialist.
Why does Miyazaki assume Tolkien also liked the British Empire & what they did too? Tolkien likes his Englishness & condemned the empire, as much a Miyazaki likes his Japaneseness & dislikes the empire as well.
@@mumak333 Probably the same character flaw that has compelled so much of this comment section to assume that Miyazaki liked the Japanese Empire. It's rather ironic.
As we all know, since thing A and thing B are in opposition, it is impossible to dislike thing A without supporting thing B. Truly a galaxy brained way of viewing the world.
@@LunamrathP 100%. And both also have kind of a cranky opinionated views on life--and often are sharply critical of certain works that don't fit how they view fiction should be done (i.e. Tolkien disliked Dune and Disney). But imo at this point-they get to be a bit cantankerous even if I don't agree with everything they believe.
I believe JRR and Christopher Tolkien specifically refuted the idea that the races of LOTR had a real-world equivalent. It's actually a common misconception so it shows that Miyazaki didn't really do his research at all. Also the orcs were specifically meant to represent evil. Yes orcs were victims, but they were elves corrupted by Morgoth and beyond saving, that was their whole schtick. There are a few things we don't know about the orcs and it's believed JRR Tolkien felt conflicted with his depiction of the orcs, if he lived longer he might have changed things
it sounds like Miyazaki misinterprets the films to be literal spiritual representations of the books. But it's widely believed Tolkien would probably not have enjoyed the films himself for similar reasons.
That's a huge step. He was annoyed at his son at a young age because he was more obsessive than tolkein himself about the accuracy of his stories.@@samiamtheman7379
@@samiamtheman7379 Bold assumption, men are not judged by their sons (or grandsons for that matter). Everyone has their own thoughts. I have probably read %90+ of all Tolkien wrote and continue to re-read his works because I find them beautiful. I do not see anything particularly wrong with Jackson films and I do cherish them. Many readers who I personally know loves those films and think of them as spiritual representations of the books in film form to a certain extend (obviously as a projection). Almost all important themes of those books are in the films. This separation of book vs film does not justify Miyazaki a single bit.
@@TT09B5the thing is that once people read the books after watching the films, their understanding of the books could potentially be clouded by the interpretation presented in said films. But it’s also a massive book with a world that becomes an entire hobby in itself to read, understand, and appreciate (as opposed to speed reading it to check it off a box), so how many people are actually going to read it? Especially after they have what they assume is the gist of the story?
Why would orcs, a race of violent monsters, represent the japanese? *checks what Imperial Japan did to chinese and koreans civilians Okay, I get it now
the hypocrisy of Miyazaki talking about how easterners/asians are depicted as barbaric in LOTR, when it was his own nation and culture that was also enslaving, killing and raping his fellow asians to the point that many non-japanese asians dislike japan and still have bad blood and the fact that japan is constantly trying to avoid or outright deny any of the war crimes and human rights violations they committed during the 2nd world war.
Because Miyazaki's life coincided with atrocities committed in Imperial Japan doesn't mean he was complicit or accepting of it. Almost all of his movies are anti-war to a tee. Tolkien's life coincided with European Imperialism and rising ideas of Nationalism and Race Theory, but he was a staunch egalitarian. Comparing a race or nationality to the actions of governments is racism in its simplest form, no?
@@DatAsianGuy The Wind Rises is a film in full support of war and Imperial Japan, you should watch it. Porco Rosso is also a fascist propaganda film. /s
At around 5:15, Miyazaki is quoted as saying the ones being killed in LOTR are Africans and Asians. My understanding is that Tolkien was more likely referencing the Germans and the industrial warfare of WW1.
Alternatively and more thematically appropriate they are all those swayed by the darkness of greed. Many times victims and not perpetrators (AKA Sauron is the big bad, not the generals of orc-kind)
In Tolkien's own words :"squat, broad, flat-nosed, sallow-skinned, with wide mouths and slant eyes: in fact degraded and repulsive versions of the (to Europeans) least lovely Mongol-types." - The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien
Love both Tolkien's and Miyazaki's works. But they come from different perspectives - one with a Catholic theology steeped in Anglo-Saxon linguistics and Western mythology and the other in Buddhist and Shintoist worldview with a nostalgia for a mythical Japan and pacifist yearning. But i get why Miyazaki is dissatisfied with the Western narrative including Tolkien's. Probably in line with the Buddhist/Shintoist view, Miyazaki believes in the respect and compassion for all sentient beings including non-human life forns, and even the villains in his work are capable of redemption and are deserving of compassion. You rarely see an absolutely and innately evil villain in his works. He probably was horrified at Tolkien's story of mass-annihilation of life-forms like orcs, trolls, Easterlings, Haradim, etc. It's just not Miyazaki's style. His work Nausicaa gives insight into how he envisions conflict-resolution in a post-apocalyptic world of scheming and warring factions and gigantic insects that are dangerous but not evil per se.
Miyazaki's critique of Hollywood is fair enough. Even Christopher Tolkien said that his father would not enjoy the LOTR movies for their over emphasis on action scenes. Aside from that, it is obvious that Miyazaki has never read the LOTR. Such a shame. The two have much in common, deriving their themes from nature, history, mythology, and in Tolkien's case, Catholicism. While neither men are perfect, Miyazaki's life is speckled with bitterness and prejudice often against people who have nothing but admiration for his work.
I love Ghibli and I respected Miyazaki man, from themes of coming of age in Kiki to nature vs man in Princess Mononoke, I looked up to him as the father of anime film and anime classics, the one who gave many across the globe their childhood anime, including me. He basically made the Japanese version of Disney (pre-3D animation) and restored that magical moment for us that was gradually lost ever since the 80s-90s. I looked up to him even as both a weeb who's been enjoying manga and anime for about a decade now and an aspiring author-artist who wants to write my own novels, short stories, manga/comics, and create films (especially anime) of my own. But I am also absolutely in love with high fantasy, and world building, and messages of hope and redemption and light and absolute truth, that there always is good in this world despite the darkness and evils. That is what Tolkien created, a beautiful and magical experience in his Lord of the Rings. I absolutely adored LotR and look up to Tolkien in as much as I do to Hayao Miyazaki (alongside other notable Japanese creators such as Eichiiro Oda), and with Tolkien's fellow Westerner authors like Herbert and Orwell (as you can notice by now, I am absolutely in love with the fantastical, world building, and grand storytelling, from the magical, beautiful world of LotR, and the sci-fi world and allegory of Dune, to the gritty and crushing politics of 1984). But this LotR slander I will not let slide. I absolutely love LotR as much as I revere Tolkien himself, and my great love for Ghibli movies will never cease simply because I disapprove of Miyazaki's personal opinions; I continue to respect his craft as a creator and wish to emulate his success in writing, but beyond that I will not approve of his obviously wrong takes about Tolkien and will certainly not accept LotR slander!
Miyazaki has great respect for Tolkien and loves Hobbit, he even recommended it. In his quote he meant that the book was better than the film in portraying this aspect. This is just a wrong interpretation! Watch Archie talks Anime video on this.
@@slivka_1 as a tatar I find it funny when ppl forget the time yellow ppl invaded whites and maybe even spread some bubonic plague. what my ancestors did wasn't nice, so I can't blame europeans for having some trauma any more than I can blame blacks in america for making the media content they do. eventually they will grow out of it, hope it doesn't take them 600 years as well.
If you look at the context more deeply, you'll see that he didn't actually mean Anime itself but more like the culture it produced as time went on *"ahem"* , Weebs and Hentai Addicts
@@echidnanatsuki882 that's also not really the context. Please don't use this as an opportunity to use those terms in a pejorative way. What he meant in context, is that he believes it's better to create characters that are natural, that are like real people. This is naturally the opposite in many ways to Moe (whether it's bishoujo or bishounen), which is not a representation but an expression where characters are "ideal" and "mercurial", thus behave and express in many different manners that you don't really see in the real world. And Miyazaki sensei believes that this is because of a "hatred for the real people." In other words, he doesn't understand Moe affect in the same manner as we Otaku do, and he doesn't like it either. But quite the contrary, otaku culture (not weeb. Even though it's used as a joke, and I use it myself as a joke about myself in English, it's not really the same thing as Otaku) is very united and often accepting of one another, with our flaws as human beings. Also, at the time, Otaku in Japan was seen as some kind of person who couldn't adapt properly to society (hence in the early 90s sensationalist newspapers in Japan would often ask if "Otaku can tell the difference between reality and fiction or not"). But as time went on Otaku have become more of an integral part of Japanese society, and are more accepted nowadays. Now it's okay to be an otaku of anime in different enviroments, such as school, But Miyazaki sensei is simply a man from another epoque. Even if I don't agree with him, and I really don't appreciate his remarks on the fans of the LOTR movies fans (he says so about the movies, not the books), there's a lot of respect for him, because his achievements are huge! And his talent undeniable.
Miyazaki is a contrarian, anti-Western stick-in-the-mud who never experienced war first-hand (no, being a baby when your country was at war does not count) yet slings mud at the dead for their work which reflects such an experience.
Felt like pointing out something possibly wrong with this Miyazaki quote : "If you read the original work, you'll understand, but in reality, the ones who were being killed are Asians and Africans." Let's say that we do want to make that link to real life. Tolkien was a war veteran, a lieutenant of the British empire, and he fought one foe : The germans, in World War 1. So really it would be germans here. But anyway, even though I've seen other people point out that orcs may be a reference to the mongols/turkicc people. I don't think Tolkien was really going for real world comparison with the armies of Sauron.
I'm pretty sure Tolkein himself refuted any analogy to the Second World War, or any real life analogy at all, decades ago, which adds to your point even more.
@@belnonaodh1520 He fought in the first WW not the second. But anyway yes I agree, the conflict Tolkien wrote is more inspired from Genesis than any real world event.
it's complicated. short answer: yes, armies of sauron carry a lot of eastern cultural flavor with all of that naming and battle elephants and all, but miyazaki reasoning may be way off
@@opticalraven1935 he gathered a lot of inspiration from real folklore, and as such from a real cultures as well. there is CLEAR eastern inspirations in mordor allied cultures, it is undeniable. i can agree that i don't know about WWII. that is probably a huge stretch
Tolkien went back and forth on whether the orcs are actually inherently evil or not, because it made sense given the mythology he created for his world but it also contradicted his own religious views. At least as far as the story is concerned, both the orcs and the men allying with them are not random civilians, but soldiers who are invading others' lands, and with that in mind it's understandable that they'd be demonized from the viewpoint of the protagonists. Tolkien was inspired by real-world races for these people, but it wasn't just random racism. Middle-Earth is supposed to be an alternative Europe of the past, and if you were a European civilian, what would your perspective on these races be? You'd know about Hannibal besieging Rome with elephants and the Ottoman takedown of the Byzantine Empire, further creeping up the Balkans. You'd know about the constant waves of invaders from steppes conquering Eastern Europe: first the Huns, then the Mongols, then the Magyars. Why would your perspective on these people be positive? Of course you'd mythologize them as monsters, because you don't see the farmers and artisans they have back home. Tolkien once said in a letter that the orcs were definitely inspired by Asian hordes, but that didn't mean he thought Europeans were good and Asians were bad, he knew there were good and bad people everywhere, that just wasn't the kind of story he was trying to tell with Lord of the Rings. It's easy to judge him (and every fantasy writer ever) as being insensitive to foreigners when you live in the modern world and can send entire libraries to someone on the other side of the world in milliseconds. As a sidenote, there are Japanese works that depict white people in less than flattering ways, but I don't hold it against the authors: it's an exaggeration of something real, which is the entire point of fiction.
Which works depict Europeans negatively in Japan? japanese works are known to depict white people often even as sympathetic cool protagonists such as in Anime’s like Attack on Titan, Fullmetal Alchemist, Resident Evil. some may portray white people as bad, but they can’t always portray someone as good. the problem with western media is that it consistently dehumanizes non white people, systematically. name one Hollywood production with an Asian lead actor.
Tbf a LOT of people even in the west see LOTR through the lens of WW2. Or even modern conflicts, like in Ukraine. They just love moralizing war, and LOTR gives them a well-known metaphor for that. Tolkien would likely be horrified by how many people call other real people 'o*cs' nowadays.
Myazaki's cristicism is fair. "(The Orcs) have squat, broad, flat-nosed, sallow-skinned, with wide mouths and slant eyes: in fact degraded and repulsive versions of the (to Europeans) least lovely Mongol-types."" - J. R. R. Tolkien The association between orcs and Asians isn't a "interpretation" some readers got from the text, it came out from the literal mouth of Tolkien. This videos's author omited this fact, for some reason.
@@monnaranzoti732 Copy-pasting your argument doesn't help it, it just makes you seem lazy and like you have a point to push irrespective of whether the OP appeared to initially disagree with you or not. In this case, Augmenautus said 'Tolkien used his experiences in The Great War as a point of reference, Miyazaki erroneously looked at it as though it was the second world war' and you responded with 'but racism though'.
Myazaki just angry that the empire and the god-emporor lost the war. His work is good but like three tiers below anything Tolkien wrote. Tolkein was a genius, Miyazaki is a talented hard worker.Did Miyazaki already forget that his country was basically a god-empoeror with nobility class, and the rest were basically slave farmers? America ended that thankfully.
Tolkien's concept of the orcs predates the Second World War, and it's hard to see Tolkien being unduly influenced by American bias against Japan in conceiving of villains.
Well, he has apparently said he has "appreciation" for communism as written by Karl Marx. He also is like a modern german who hates their countries past so much they think modern people should still be paying for it.
@@alstjrqkr689 Hey never trust a group who unironically use a word (Otaku, which in japan is a bad thing to be) and use it as a fucking badge of honor.
Tolkien was grumpy but Miyazaki simply doesn't even care to even understands the work he created. The original evil of middle earth comes from the North. Miyazaki is just a sore loser who cannot get over the war and see Japan and the West are now friends.
Judging by some of Miyazaki's other words, I would say he is more of a misanthrope. He seems to lash out at nearly everything, both Japanese and American and even China. He seems to look down upon most of humanity from what I have seen.
It's more like Miyazaki knows both America and Japan are fake: but especially America and he's not entirely wrong. Imperial Japan built it's ideology of racial purity over Korean and Chinese based on American race laws and based their expansion into China as their version of "Manifest Destiny." Miyazaki grew up in the aftermath of Japan's failed attempt at playing colonialism. He views Imperial Japan as stupid for trying to be like America, current Japan for sucking up to America, and America for being a bunch of violent, genocidal, war exporters.
Miyazaki also hates in his words "everything that parades its righteousness" like "the righteousness of the US, the righteousness of Islam, the righteousness of China, the righteousness of this or that ethnic group, the righteousness of Greepeace" because "they all claim to be righteouss, but they all try to coerce other into complying with their own standards" so by those quotes we can already see that even if he didn't have misinterpreted this anti-east bias he would still hate Lord of the Rings since it shows that there is a side that is objectivelly good and other objectivelly evil, he would interpret it as self righteousness.
@@Fridaey13txhOktober He's not centrist, he's a localist. Ironically much like Tolkien. Both of them dreamed of a world with a multitude of local cultures that each do their own thing. And opposed imperialism, and Hollywood, for spreading more of a monoculture. They both celebrated diversity - true diversity, not how the American left uses that term today.
Ultimately Miyazaki is much like Tolkien in that he loves his own works but hates the modern world and everything about it. Two men who would rather have lived centuries before our time.
@@dtmt502 Why are Demons generally depicted as Red? It’s because they are corrupted. It’s not a race thing it’s a Good vs Evil thing. Evil in fantasy is always ugly.
@@dtmt502 Your brain is sure working right (not). Darkness and light are often metaphorical representations around stories from around the world. In Near Eastern or any other folklore there’s always something about depicting darkness that isn’t viewed with full innocence and joy.
@@dtmt502Irony is that we see racism, sexism as ideas to be condemned but sure no such thing as actual “evil” or “good”…moral relativism in its full irony.
It's okay because I don't like him or his work the man can't even create a truly cohesive narrative. Many fans love his movies but even they cannot explain the plot to me when I'm scratching my head going what the hell is going on in every one of his movies I've ever seen. I think people just like the look of his movies because they don't make any sense...
Miyazaki's point is just plain flimsy from whichever way you look at it. His own works have never portrayed Western (or any non-Japanese in my experience) cultures in a good light, but he wants to play that card against Tolkein? Tolkein himself even shut down the theories that his stories were based on real world events, and specifically the second world war, very vehemently, likely before Miyazaki even read or saw the stories.
you view the world though a lens of "fairness". You probably call people hypocrites often. Miyazaki is simply taking a side and it is his good right. There's no contradiction in disliking someone's work for showing your culture in a bad light, while you show their culture in a bad one also.
@vornamenachname594 The thing is that Tolkien explicitly said the Easterlings weren't some allegory for asians. And if you think numenoreans were portrayed as the good guys you definitively didn't read the Silmarillion...
@@igorlopes7589well tbf, Numenoreans ARE the good guys. Considering God sunk the vast majority of them, and Gondar and the Harad killed the rest of the bad one overtime
@@vornamenachname594 Yes, he is taking a side, but he is also a hypocrite, especially, when he talks so much about how in LOTR the barbaric "evil" enemies are based on asians, when it was his own nation and culture, Japan, which committed many atrocities against neighboring asian countries. for many asian countries, Japan is that evil barbaric people based on history.
3:22 Miyazaki is totally right on the part about "meaningless deaths". This might sound like a strange example, but if you have ever ran a Dungeons & Dragons campaign, you will know the experience of players going out of their way to help a local goblin community that has been making hit-and-run attacks on a nearby town's trade caravans to peacefully resolve their issues with the encroaching human settlements, instead of, you know, just driving the goblins away so the new settlements can thrive. Nothing seems to be harder than just getting the players to "play the game like it's Lord of the Rings", despite the game being directly inspired by Lord of the Rings. Maybe I'll try drawing inspiration from some of Miyazaki's works and see how it turns out.
That's because most DnD players nowadays wear lipstick and programming socks. They can't even begin to roleplay as men because they have lost the reference to what it's like being one.
@@gurriato harsh but you really nailed that answer. Everyone I've heard IRL talking about their group of friends' DnD campaign has only been in the last 4 years or so and fully fits that description. the pastime has been taken over by modern-day schoolmarm adult children that treat the spirit of what Tolkien wrote about with pure disdain and disgust, while wearing all the pop culture fantasy junk that was inspired by it like a skinsuit. "Heroism" to them is how hard they can cry about others' suffering while doing absolutely nothing about it. I can only guess the men (and women too, but who don't feel the need to pretend they're male heroes) that were building up that subculture since before I was born have moved on to actually have families and pass down their values to future generations. They at least have that over the bullies that want to turn everything they held dear from their youth into a monument to the latters' despairing broken souls.
This seems to be just a conflict of beliefs and preferences of world building. Why is it an issue if some DnD players take a more humanitarian route in addressing the Goblins? I'm failing to see the issue here. I'm all for driving the goblins away with strategic brute strength but...part of the interesting ways in which the world works and in LoTR is that whilst aggression and strength is essential in fighting, a nuance of understanding and help is ever-present. Calling the players the equivalent of "sissies" in a most likely derogatory manner seems to be just a matter of arbitrary opinion rather than "truth". Which is ironic coming from dorks like us who got the same uncharacteristic insults in our life for being into this nerdy stuff from the start. Idk bro, seems lame...
@@gurriato This seems to be just a conflict of beliefs and preferences of world building. Why is it an issue if some DnD players take a more humanitarian route in addressing the Goblins? I'm failing to see the issue here. I'm all for driving the goblins away with strategic brute strength but...part of the interesting ways in which the world works and in LoTR is that whilst aggression and strength is essential in fighting, a nuance of understanding and help is ever-present. Calling the players the equivalent of "sissies" in a most likely derogatory manner seems to be just a matter of arbitrary opinion rather than "truth". Which is ironic coming from dorks like us who got the same uncharacteristic insults in our life for being into this nerdy stuff from the start. Idk bro, seems lame...
D&D was not "directly inspired" by Lord of the Rings, in fact Gygax personally disliked it, and only included things like elves/dwarves/etc. to appease the others at TSR who were fans of it. Of the many inspirations that lead to D&D, the strongest is classic sword and sorcery fiction, like the Conan stories. Read some of those, and especially read books by Jack Vance, and you will understand why D&D players act the way they do. The game is tailor made to emulate that style of fiction; characters making and breaking alliances with unconventional factions, like goblins in your example, is expected. Don't try to force D&D to be something it's not, i.e. heroic fantasy.
And then Miyazaky makes a movie about a dreamer and airplane engineer and keeps quiet about what happened in Manchuria. Don't hide behind the West Hayao.
Yeah, it's a bit precious to have him go on about racial superiority and militarism in the West, given that World War II was fundamentally about defeating people who believed themselves racially superior and liberating the "inferior" peoples suffering under their boot, and guess which side of that war Japan was on, and which side of it England was on? Guess who voluntarily gave back all the land they stole from China (Western Europe), who had to be forced to give it back (Japan) and guess who never gave anything back (Russia)? I mean, I despise the history of Western imperialism, and every kind of imperialism, but as Miyazaki would say, a bit of 'self-awareness' doesn't hurt.
@@mikicerise6250 So cos he was Japanese, that somehow means he can't criticise other countries? He didn't like Japan's role in the war either so what's ur point?
@@anonisnoone6125 Well for one thing, the survival rate of POWs taken by the Japanese is close to 0%. Take that in for a second, then think about whether this narrative of the evil exterminationist West versus the pure peaceful East makes any fing sense.
Here's the problem though. He actually LOVES the BOOKS, he defends the books in that same quote, he referenced Gondor in Castle in the Sky and also put The Hobbit on a list of best children's books. You are spreading misinformation. He talked about the movies here, and yes he sounds likes he's talking out of his ass because he probably is and he probably never saw the films as he stopped actively watching movies almost completely somewhere in the 90s. He was aggravated by the war in Iraq and american blockbusters were an easy target, except he didn't even realize the LOTR movies weren't really made by Americans.
It would be nice to have a source reference, since the uploader has Miyasaki sounding like he hasn't read the books and is just being wholesale critical of American filmmaking (not wholly unjustified, even before 2020).
Finally. I just wrote this! This is insanity. I Wonder why this Channel does that. The Clickbait ist fine and this Video could be 95 percent the same and people would liked this one. Misleading information....
I think Miyazaki's statements reveal more about himself than about Tolkien's work. I can't understand how one could see Asians in orcs, but when you're fixated on a certain point, you're able to see all sorts of things everywhere. The truth is that The Lord of the Rings is full of subtle Christian motifs: personal evil, the battle of good versus evil, the significant role of hope, temptation as a moral trial, etc. And I believe that this is the main reason for the disdain towards The Lord of the Rings. Miyazaki has repeatedly expressed his disgust for Christian aesthetics.
@@Padrino_Tommy I'm not talking about Japan, but about Miyazaki. He is not a fool. He knows Western philosophy and he is simply disgusted by the cross. “Torture symbolism Christ is repulsive, I’d go insane having to look at it every day. I am glad to be Buddhist with calming Guanyin...” He sees the cross only as a symbol of torture, not as a sacrifice made out of love.
I agree, he seems very biased. Considering where Tolkien is from and the time he wrote the books one could easily ascertain Sauron and Mordor to Nazi Germany or Soviet Russia but I guess that wouldn't be racist so. Also, it makes even more sense if he dislikes Christianity. Japanese have this philosophy where they believe we as humans are capable of anything if we try hard enough, a theme seen in many animes but apparently venerating the most supreme act of selflessness which is self-sacrifice is disgusting. Fact is, like in LOTR, more often than not there is an enemy, and that enemy is people, under the influence of ignorance or misguidance matters not. The LOTR universe is fictional. If you want to see asians in orcs or africans in goblins I guess you are free to do so. So the british are men, the elves must be swedes, the hobbits are swiss and who are the dwarves? The greek? Lol.
Just curious. Did Miyazaki ever go on record with his thoughts regarding the wartime Japanese mistreatment ( to put it very mildly) of the Koreans, Chinese, Filipinos, and others? (BTW, I’m not taking anything away from Miyazaki’s work. He’s a genius and created work of lasting beauty.)
@@darthvadeth6290 the problem is he probably never have read LOTR and asserted something that is antithetical to what Tolkien put in the LOTR. He has done the same thing with some Works like Earthsea which he eventually backpedaled after actually reading it.
This just goes to show that just because you create beautiful works of storytelling that resonate with people. It doesn't necessarily mean you are good at critiquing others authors work.
So basically the fact that there’s a good/evil struggle and a great many brutal wars/ battles depicted in Tolkien’s works is what bugs him? Even though they agree on so many themes in their works and both clearly exhibit great reverence for nature and peace and simple joys. I think Tolkien’s life experiences in war and chaos really affected him, of course, and so had to outlet into his works. I think he’s saying evil is war, evil is the quest for power for the sake of power at the expense of everyone and everything else. But it IS, all the same. It’s been a constant threat throughout history and so he confronts this truth, and juxtaposes it with his ideal society/way of life (the hobbits). Perhaps Miyazaki would rather not create or consume any works so seeped in the themes of war and “fighting evil” etc…regardless of how they’re being used or why they’re there?
Miyazaki exemplifies a very specific strain of Japanese thought which is convinced of its superiority but forced to grapple with the nation's near total military, economic, and cultural subjugatation by a barbarian nation. He can't rationally deny that Japan was the aggressor or that America won so he settles for an invented moral superiority where his peaceful rural protagonist live in harmony with nature before modern industrial warmongers attack them unprovoked.
@dutchmilak agreed I think he's kinda blackpilled to japanese and western thoughts since yknow one ruined their own country through warfare and the other litersllly changed their entire culture and way of life through warfare. He also seems very petty and not totally rational in alot of his arguments so I just think he has a bleak shitty view on the world.
Liked the video, and the sincere and knowledgeable defense of Tolkien's views, beautiful! I think both Tolkien and Miyazaki view heroism in different light; in Tolkien it is linked to adventure, conflict and overcoming (like in the medieval myths he liked) while in Miyazaki it is in compassion, understanding and a more "taoist" idea of quietism. But even in Tolkien you have characters like Gandalf, who advise against vengeance and cruelty for cruelty's sake. The most powerful underlying action was Bilbo sparing Gollum's life.
I love his movies but the more I learn about Miyazaki's views, the less respect I have for him as a person. That Indiana Jones comment alone really rubbed me the wrong way. He comes across as the kinda person that if I were to watch a movie or show from 2001, he'd be right there to remind me that it came out the same year as 9/11 like gee thanks for ruining the mood, dude
@@cashewnuttel9054 The quality of the films themselves is completely irrelevant here. We're talking about moral grand standing escapism so I don't why you felt to bring up how overrated you think these movies are other than to show us that you're super different and what not
Well, the more I hear about Miyazaki, The more disenfranchised with him I am. Both and how he treats his son and what he said about his son and the lack of being a good father for his son and also is hateful words toward Tolkien… That paired with his excusing Japanese war crimes and some of his movies all compounded to give him a pretty negative character. I still enjoy his films, but I don’t really like him anymore
“Some who have read the book, or at any rate have reviewed it, have found it boring, absurd, or contemptible; and I have no cause to complain, since I have similar opinions of their works, or of the kinds of writing that they evidently prefer.” - Tolkien in the pre text notes on Lord of the Rings
He does know that Lord of the Rings,and all of Tolkien’s Works are supposed to be applicable? They’re not allegories? Tolkien wrote that down! Though I suppose he didn’t! I respect Miyazaki but he seems like one who cares for only what he thinks and thinks not of what anyone else thinks… which is often how I am… and is sort of a bizarre exemplification for me not to be that way, as to not seem petty.
Well one can look at Miyazaki's relation to his family and his son. And one can look at Tolkiens relationship to his family when alive and there's a huge contrast and difference. For Miyazaki it's more an escapism as someone who jas a dark outlook on the world and life. Meanwhile tolkien himself had a deep profound love to nature, community akd so on which he saw as applicable and detested the industrialization of the modern world. He despised nature becoming trivialized.
@@Andalaeknir86 The one thing they share in common above all else is a love of nature, and a dislike for rampant industrialization. Though Tolkien's views where more nuanced, as a lot of his ire was directed at those who chose to industrialize at the expense of nature, as he felt there had to be way to industrialize without destroying the land in which you live. Whereas Miyazaki lives in a country that has to some extent, at least more than any other, managed to put that ideal into practice, and yet still finds fault.
Tolkien was the greater artist and the frankly. The better man. Tolkien wasn’t a war profiteer inlike the Miyazakis. And unlike Miyazaki who lived sheltered and with privilege, Tolkien actually fought in WW1. And despite what Miyazaki would tell you he didn’t turn into a monster. Rather he came out of the trenches a stronger man with a newfound appreciation for humanity.
Between his feelings on LOTR, modern anime, and his own son, I'm beginning to wonder if Miyazaki likes anything.
"and his own son", ouch
Yea the more i learn about Miyazaki the more he seems beta as fuck
He sounds like someone who doesn't believe in absolute truth, hypocritical of because he believes his own perspective, and upset because America beat Japan because they wouldn't surrender.
He's a grumpy old man
HAYAO is the most famous absentee parent
I think Miyazaki is one of those authors who speaks better through his work than outside of it. In interviews, he's incredibly curmudgeonly, cynical, and almost a nihilist. Yet he produces works that are none of those things-they're full of genuine hope for humanity in the face of long odds, which is precisely what Tolkien put into his works. I think it's okay for artists to be complex and imperfect. We can love Miyazaki's works and not his personality. I tend to find myself in agreement with much of Tolkien's philosophy, but it's also okay for someone to love the world he created and not his own views. Good art pushes past the flaws of its creators.
I definitely feel that Miazaki's work shows a very different side of him than the one he shows in interviews. I feel perhaps that being cynical and bitter is his knee-jerk response, but when given more time to reflect and create something he really believes in, the person shown is very different.
@@zoro115-s6b Wow, for some reason to me at 2 am thats a very beautiful way of looking at it. I'm hoping you're right, and Miyazaki's art reflects his actual views more than his interviews.
Perhaps his art is his escape from himself
Not much different than Tolkien ironically
To be honest I like his grumpy personality. It reminds me of older folks in my life that are very critical of things, I think it’s good to have that balance too in a way
Even if Miyazaki only watched the movies, I think it was still pretty obvious that LoTR was not glorifying war. Literally everyone except Mordor didn't want to go to war, all the characters had a "why now? why me?" sentiment when facing war, especially quotes like Aragorn's "Open war is upon you, whether you would risk it or not" and Sam's speech in Osgiliath.
Who truly does glorify war, tho?
Yeah, i highly doubt Hayao Miyazaki even said those things so i think, the guy that is doing the video is lying or was lied to, and made the video based on a lie that supposedly Miyazaki said those things, he would need to interview Hayao Miyazaki himself in order to know the real full on truth.
@nomickike2165 There's one problem with that, all three movies were being filmed at the same time with each being released about a year a part from one another. The Fellowship of the Ring came out in December 2001, barely 3 months after the event of 9/11 and they had begun filming the trilogy between October 1999 - December 2000. At that point there wasn't much that could be done, plus the 2nd book, The Two Towers was it's name from the moment it was published as a trilogy back in 1954.
So... I see no desire to make propoganda, just an unfortunate coincidence that was unavoidable considering the effort that already put into making them, unless they actively changed the title but that would've been strange considering they're adaptations of a beloved work.
@nomickike2165 Except that the Lord of the Rings book trilogy was already a cultural phenomenon when it released in the 1950's. Over the course of decades it became a springboard for hundreds of fantasy authors to write their own works that were heavily inspired by Tolkein's Middle-Earth, such as; Forgotten Realms, DragonLance, Sword of Shannara, Belgariad, Discworld, Harry Potter, The Dark Tower, etc. The movies did provide an explosion of popularity in the early 2000's but the books had a massive influence long before their inception.
I'm a little confused to your reasoning on why you say "why the studio suddenly decided to fund more of them" as the Lord of the Rings movie trilogy was funded and filmed together so there was no time between the movies where separate funding was possible outside of editors and shots that were taken between 2001-2003 for last minute edits. Also, there was no further movies made for the Lord of the RIngs until 2011 with The Hobbit trilogy but this was long after the hype for the LOTR movies had died down along with any potential association with 9/11 that you seem to be claiming.
Honestly, I think this take is a bit ridiculous considering all of the context provided but if you want to continue believing this then you do you I suppose...
Not to mention the quote by Faramir (in the books by Sam) upon seeing a dead Haradrim.
"It was Sam's view of a battle of Men against Men, and he did not like it much. He was glad that he could not see the dead face. He wondered what the man's name was and where he came from; and if he was really evil of heart or what lies or threats had led him on the long March from his home; and if he would not really rather have stayed there in peace."
th-cam.com/video/NVpCeQqluf8/w-d-xo.htmlsi=NFYxe0I1ggji-jzJ
The fact that Miyazaki is the grumpiest cynical man imaginable despite dedicating his whole life to making cutesy wholesome emotional family-friendly animes is truly incredible
You forget half those films are about war. Frick, he CHANGED Howl's Moving Castle from it's original story to be an anti-war film, despite the book having NONE of that
In the book, Howl wasn't dodging the draft. He was committing tax evasion.
@@PyroGothNerd Yeah I feel like anyone whose view of Ghibli films is strictly "They're cute and wholesome cottage core UWU" obviously has trouble understanding why Miyazaki would not like LOTR.
You are unable to understand subtle storytelling. That's a common issue among people who loves action/horror/battle driven media.
If you like Lord of the Rings, you like Lord of the Rings. It shouldn't matter to you what another guy on the other side of the planet thinks about your favorite book series. He's also not wrong that Westerners have a habit of viewing their rivals as less than human. Pay attention to what the media says about Russians, Palestinians, and China. Tolkien didn't like Dune which is a huge L.
@@aesop1451 oh, the study in lack of self-awareness and contradiction that is your comment is beautiful!
Tolkien unlike Miyazaki actually fought in a war most notably at the battle of the Somme which was hell on earth and a miracle if you managed to survived it. When he wrote Sam's thoughts on the dead enemy soldier it was Tolkien's own thoughts we are reading of the many dead enemy he encountered and killed to live himself.
Its easy to be virtuous when someone isn't in your face trying to kill you as the battle fields are full of dead saints. You'll find saints are in short supply in peacetime.
this is probably the biggest rebuke to level against Miyazaki's shallow criticisms. Not because the part about virtue, but because Miyazaki is somewhat classist in his views that the audience is stupid for liking something. Does Miyazaki make such shallow criticism without knowing that Tolkien fought in war? If he did not know, then he made such unsophisticated remarks about a man whom he should be able to share in the trauma of war over, because fighting in a war is only a degree of separation away from being a civilian in a war zone. Or, did he make such remarks and knew that he was a soldier? That would make him a rather.... ugly and unsympathetic person to have laid such a charge at Tolkien's feet about his works.
perfectly put and its why we need more warrior poets. Weakness in the modern man has feminized them to the max, and they no longer have a grasp on how the real world works
@dripstein5068 Hello, fellow John Lowell fan. :)
Wow. Beautifully well-put.
@@Goober543
Set the example and go to Ukraine to fight so you can come back as a warrior, but how you will come back will probably be in a box or with a mutilated limb.
......bro did Miyasaki even *read* LOTR?
you know, i didnt have anything against this guy, but now I do. One, because LOTR is something beautiful beyond culture or race, and second, because he essentially called me an idiot. :/ way to fall from grace, kill your heroes
I always thought Miyazaki was kind of a pretentious prick.
@@thelettucebarrel7784 well, he was a professor after all, and he was very protective of the english language as well as the art of story telling.
Of course he was strict on all things fiction. I'm sure you're well aware of the colorful things he had to say about Disney, especially of their depiction of dwarves in Snow White :B
@@gamingchinchilla7323No, I said Miyazaki, not Tolkien. Unless Miyazaki also did those things then my bad.
@@thelettucebarrel7784 I might've misread you myself. So I should say "my bad" as well. Sometimes certain words and names melt together like that. I'm getting old, lol. still, I was merely making it a point of interest more than targeting your comment.
3:35 The Rambo franchise evolved into action movie fodder, however the first Rambo, that is "First Blood" was very much a statement on PTSD and negative treatment of returning soldiers. I don't see how anybody could watch Stalone's ending monolog at the end of first blood and dismiss Rambo as some murderous action movie
Yes, I find the chosen example extremely bad. But in reality, the critique to war and war crimes never left the franchise, especially in the latest.
This might be the only smart comment in the entire video.
Thank you.
Also, Hollywood often indeed does glorify the US Military, or shows wars in a very simple, nearly glorified perspective.
However, the same Hollywood does produce movies that are very anti-war, not glorifying the US and pretty much being on the other end of the spectrum. It is not that simple.
Even in the later films it was against conflict and Rambo was nihilistic too
After the battle with the Haradrim, Faramir says “The enemy? His sense of duty was no less than yours, I deem. You wonder what his name is, where he came from. And if he was really evil at heart. What lies or threats led him on this long march from home. If he would not rather have stayed there in peace. War will make corpses of us all.”
Tolkien served during WW1 he clearly knew the implications of war for both sides. I think the movies do a good job at showing that we go to war because we want to protect those we love and sadly there’s always a losing side.
If you're saying the conflict in LotR was inspired by the author's own war time escapades, that means he must have considered people that weren't on his side of the war to be less than human.
@ I guess you just missed the big quote and what Tolkien was trying to say through it. Also calling serving in WW1 “war time escapades” is wild.
@@Noirell I didn't miss it, it's just not from the books. It's from the movie. In the book, Sam thinks a similar thought, but that's not surprising because Sam is the most empathetic character in the book. The majority of the characters dehumanize their enemies.
Also, what's wild about the term "war time escapades"?
@@RavumAt what point is fighting in a war a "escapade"?
@DLarus08 You preface "escapade" with "an" because it starts in a vowel sound.
I have had many war veterans tell me that it was exciting or daring or some such before. For reference, an escapade is "an act or incident involving excitement, daring, or adventure."
Do you think it fits now that you know the definition?
Miyazaki being a grumpy old boomer who both hates and loves pre WW2 Japan is just his MO.
He's a contrarian who never grew out of it.
Whine and cry harder
a narrow-minded hack...and a sore loser, nostalgic of imperial Japan (which committed crimes inconceivable even to the nazis!!!)
So-like a Japanese Tolkein then. lol.
@@seto_kaiba_ Tolkien had ideals. He was not a contrarian.
@dylanc9174 wasn't he kinda trad cath?
I am sorry, but the moment someone mentions war propaganda as possible inspiration for Tolkien's orcs, means he or she has zero idea about how Tolkien created his worlds and all mythologies he studied.
Tolkien is a brilliant man who tried his best and achieved a high level of insight for his time but that doesn't stop inherit cultural biases because we're human. You're being just as ignorant if you don't think race isn't involved whatsoever as he described orcs, in a private letter, as "squat, broad, flat-nosed, sallow-skinned, with wide mouths and slant eyes: in fact degraded and repulsive versions of the (to Europeans) least lovely Mongol-types". I still love his work and the Jackson movies but it's not a moot point to bring up the cultural influences within the writing, just because it makes fans uncomfortable.
Sam's questioning the moral of the Southron's death really hits home. Tolkien being a veteran of war himself probably saw a lot of death on the field and asked those same questions of every dead man he saw. Foe or friend.
edit: fixed - Dead man was not an Easterling but a Southron as mentioned by @bohunkmusic9473
The way Boromir dies in the book always struck me as probably being drawn from something Tolkien experienced.
Aragorn is just talking to him about what happened, Boromir is leaving some things out, then he asks him something very rote, I think just if he knows where Frodo went. He happens to look away for a second when he asks this, and when he looks back, Boromir is gone.
Tolkien was at the battle of the Somme, one of the most dangerous and bloodiest battles in WW1. Almost, if not all, of Tolkien’s closest friends died in that war, some of them in that battle. We know for a fact he saw death, even though he never liked talking about it very much.
The orcs launching decapitated heads to Minas Tirith is directly taken from scare tactics from WW1.
He lost friends in WW1.
And he lost a son during WW2.
That loss influences the sense of loss and melancholy permeating through LotR.
He was a grunt as I recall in Somme, aka the WW1 Slaughterhouse that lasted for MONTHS, you dont walk away from something like that without affecting you in someway.
@@Watcher_2244 He was an officer, but that's no less true.
Just because Miyazaki has made a lot of amazing anime films, it doesn't mean he's always right.
I've watched his movies but never actually understood them. My family watched it as well and they all loved it but not me. Because "I" can't seem to understand it. Maybe I'm too much of an idiotic asshole or selfish jerk or maybe Ghibli isn't my cup of tea who knows but I've seen people enjoying his life work so I can't really say anything to critique him, that said I also don't understand him like is what going on inside Miyazaki's head. Like his son is doing his best and he talks down on his kid's best effort? And other stuff like this video talks about. I just don't get it.
@@BlossomPathOnStage15don’t worry. Just because you didn’t like or understand his works doesn’t mean you are an idiot. Everyone is different and have their own views on things, if you don’t like Ghibli movies it’s totally fine.
Same, just because Tolkien or peter jackson has made lot amazing film , it doesn't meam he always right especially LOT Fans like " Tolkien Vet WW1, Tolkien Is Religius, Tolkien Is Bla bla bla " like brouh, some fanatic fans😂 not all people Like LOTR especially me😂
He is a certified hater with a lot of ivory tower opinions, great director tho.
@@BlossomPathOnStage15 Maybe you should try to see what Miyazaki presents: life has a lot of beatiful things and you don't have to be on a constant struggle against "evil" to understand that: good is a worthy and desirable human value on itself and war is not needed to "gain" or regain that.
Miyazaki ultimately thinks that Hollywood has teached to the west that there can't be good without evil, and what's more: there is NOT "pure" goodness. All good characters in western stories have to make evil things to prevail, so in the end all of them are actually bad, it's just the grading of bad that makes them different.
He didn’t have to call fans who know the books better than he does “idiots”
Just as well, Tolkien was very harsh to other writers and creators. Even if he resonated with the themes present in most of Miyazaki, he’d find something to critique.
Finally someone who sees Tolkien as a flawed and complex person and not get offended on his behalf
At least Tolkien wouldn't give an "oh that's racist", critique.
@@carlosalbuquerque22 pretty hypocritical from someone who clearly got offended on Myazakis behalf. You litterally responded stuff like "Whine harder" and other critism lacking any arguements. This the opposite of constructive critisms. Its more like you know complaining or whining.
Ofc Tolkien was flawed like every human. Yet what he created deserves respect. Same goes for Myazakis work and ideas. How one feels about the other might give interesting insight, but doesn't matter really. It doesn't change the fact that we talk of two creative geniusses. And two humans who have their flaws, but I admire both for what they created or in Myazakis case still creates.
@@carlosalbuquerque22 Bro you say that while at the same time respond to any criticism comment on Myazaki here as if you got offended.
But he is right.
Fans of tolkien do not posses a good functioning intelligence.
😂😂😂
Tolkien: Loves son.
Miyazaki: Thinks son is a disappointment despite trying to follow in his footsteps.
Maybe Miyazaki is just a cranky ass.
Miyazaki is just an asian dad.
Son must follow son's own steps, not his father's
And now look at Tolkien's grandchildren...
Toeken fanboys going wild in the comments with the ad hominem attacks just because somebody dares to not like LoTR, lmao
Regular asian parent be like:
"You're a FAILURE"
What is the shortest list in the world? The list of things Miyazaki likes
himself
Planes and little girls
Akira Kurosawa
@@sb12083 LOL! God dammit.. that one got me. xD
@@sb12083 uooohhhhh
The irony of complaining about stereotypes and then judging Tolkien's work using stereotypes.
I lost a ton of respect for the dude, Miyazaki, himself. I grew up with Tolkiens work more than I did Miyazaki's, so I'm gonna have to defend Tolkien.
that's not how irony works, it's not ironic to hate stereotypes and criticize something for allegedly being stereotypical
@@grey_f98 That's not what they said
@@grey_f98 I see the confusion. The comment meant "complaining about stereotypes while using stereotypes", not "hating stereotypes and hating works that use stereotypes"
When you look at the geography of the Silmarillion, the North-West = Good vs. South-East=Evil thing starts falling apart anyways. Melkor had his fortress Angband in the north.Thus, Evil naturally came from the north for centuries of the first age. Cuiviénen, the awakening place of the Elves, was very far in the east.
gotta keep in mind thats extended lore, I doubt Miyazaki read the books. he watched the films and didnt like it. cause the films are just Men of the west good, East bad if you dont pay attention
@@metakarukenshiDoes Miyazaki know that "East in Arda" does not mean, east side of the world (according to modern conventions) as it currently is? I find it hilarious that you guys are trying to solve "the problem" by saying "Evil naturally came from the north" as if Angband is not east of Aman. So, icelanders are the source of evil now then lmao? This is kinda stupid.
@@metakarukenshi Well its his perspective that he presents as a fact which is a problem.
Not only that, but Sauron sets up within Dol Guldur, which is smack in the middle of Middle Earth during the Hobbit.
The Easterlings and Haradrim are either manipulated or enslaved. Tolkien did not make villains out of them, but they are antagonists. It’s sophisticated and nuanced storytelling. Miyazaki isn’t really known for that.
@@doublejacketjimmy391He didn't present it as fact, it's his opinion and things have nuance and perspective.
"J. R. R. Tolkien was a devout Roman Catholic from boyhood, and he described The Lord of the Rings in particular as a "fundamentally religious and Catholic work; unconsciously so at first, but consciously in the revision". While he insisted it was not an allegory, it contains numerous themes from Christian theology." I'm a game dev, and there's so many games about good, evil, and the struggle of remaining good in the face of evil. It's such a common theme, that it's pretty much a cliche. All religions teach us about good vs evil, or even that all men are capable of feeding the good or feeding the evil. To me it was familiar, because I grew up catholic too. I always thought the orcs represented demons, gargoyles, satryrs, a lich king, imps, etc.
Tolkien also gets criticism for not introducing diversity, but are Japanese movies representing diversity? or Korean? or Indian? Why is it an expectation that only the west needs to take on the duty of diversity? Everyone immigrates to Australia, USA, Canada, UK, en masse... but if there was mass immigration to Japan, would the locals be okay with it? When I watched LOTR all those years ago, I saw myself in many characters, I didn't think "Where are the black people?", "Why is my race not represented?". I looked at Harry Potter and thought "That's me". I love Miyazaki, but he can be cranky, cynical, nihilistic, hypercritical, and dramatic. It's what often comes with being an Artist.
Exactly! It feels like a global double standard
"Some reviewers have called the whole thing simple-minded, just a plain fight between Good and Evil, with all the good just good, and the bad just bad. Pardonable, perhaps (though at least Boromir has been overlooked) in people in a hurry and with only a fragment to read and of course without the earlier-written but unpublished Elvish histories [The Silmarillion]. The Elves are not wholly good or in the right. Not so much because they had flirted with Sauron, as because with or without his assistance they were 'embalmers'. In their way the Men of Gondor were similar: a withering people whose only 'hallows' were their tombs. But in any case this is a tale about a war, and if war is allowed (at least as a topic and a setting) it is not much good complaining that all the people on one side are against those on the other. Not that I have made even this issue quite so simple: there are Saruman, and Denethor, and Boromir; and there are treacheries and strife even among the Orcs."
[Tolkien wrote the above to his son Christopher in 1944, in the middle not only of WWII, but also of the writing of TTT.]
Hypocritical indeed, especially in regards to Japan's own role in imperiaist warmongering and their own problems with racism and portrayal of violence.
Not saying he isn't right about Hollywood films relying on themes of violence, but you can hardly tell me Japanese media is much better in that regard, Japanese movies and media are awash with bloodshed in their own right. What's the difference between a Samurai butchering his way through a group of ninja and Rambo shooting his way through a group of Russians?
The Silmarillion shows how catholic his world is. The structure is a direct mirror of God, archangels, angels, the fall of Morgoth=Lucifer. All that and more.
@@sanam878I'm white and give zero shits about white representation in anything anywhere. Maybe it's just from knowing how horrible white people have been for a long time.
Miyazaki, every time I watch a documentary or learn of his world views or learn if his family life; I find that he makes wholesome works of art that champion nature and life, but then fails in any way to live out personally.
Hypocrisy and self-righteousness often go hand-in-hand.
@@boeloevanboeloefontein Unlike having an idea and carrying it out.
@@Fridaey13txhOktober Miyazaki certainly seems to be living proof of that.
because he called out a clearly racist text??
@@cjr-en4wr racist text ?
"I cordially dislike allegory in all its manifestations, and always have done so since I grew old and wary enough to detect its presence." J. R. R. Tolkien
Indeed. LOTR is fantasy and not allegory.
That is the biggest issue why I dont vibe with LOTR!
Stories are meant to speak for humanity and reflect our culture and beliefs,not being a distant mythology with no point.
You d be surprised how many ancient tales and legends are seen as nonsenses,but they have many things hidden that reflect the cultures who wrote them...
You did an amazing job defending Tolkien while simultaneously being compassionate and understanding to Miyazaki. Really beautifully done. Loved this video.
Thank you it means a lot!!!
Yeah defending the racism of Tolkien more like. Especially when you view the east as corrupted and so will benefit from some colonialism. 7:42
@@hotumupix wah wah wah cry harder.
@@hotumupix you're right, and it's happening in the real world. How certain media and news propaganda work, it's changing a little with people waking up, but it's undeniably still there...
@@hotumupixToday, and at the time of Tolkien, the east is coming to us, not the other way around, so even if in his books was a reference to that, then why should we feel bad about it?
I just love how one of the grumpiest campers ever, who literally hates everything including (but not limited to) his own son, blessed us with movies that feature some of the cutest characters, most lovable and beautiful stories, incredible images and prettiest music and truly snatch and take you away to another world. He is like the inverse of some of those horror movie directors who are total sweethearts irl.
He’s a total tsundere
Maybe you don't really understand a person with a few interviews? lol
@@animeking17 I am sure I don't, that would be impossible. Still you get some directions and flavours lol
Het put all of his love into his works, so now he has none left for the world.
my boyfriend and I had a discussion about this. Apparently many big named creators and artists create art that completely contradicts their character. This is because they get inspiration more from stepping out of their comfort zones, so a person who i
Tolkien refuted the accusations of racism and moral geography that were leveled at him on many occasions during his lifetime. For example, he said that the East-West dichotomy in Lord of the Rings materialized naturally due to the needs of the narrative he was developing and that it had "no modern reference." Moreover, he always openly criticized Nazism and other racist theories and condemned the treatment of black people in South Africa during Apartheid. I find it hard to believe that he would intentionally put racist messaging in any of his works.
"and condemned the treatment of black people in South Africa during Apartheid."
Wonder what he would say living in South Africa today...
@@Fridaey13txhOktober ?? south africa is a wonderful country
@@cjr-en4wr their third major political party talking killing all their farmers they have had party control since end of apatite
@@Fridaey13txhOktoberbelieve he would still condemned the treatment of Blacks under Apartheid, but criticize the government and anti-white or Afrikaans hatred in many parts of South African society.
Unintelligent people will always try to make everything about our present and what they think they know about it - which is generally very little. Also, there are many people from the young generation who take everything literally.
Tolkien clearly stated that his works were never allegories. It's just fantasy and myth. But of course, no matter what fiction you write, you will always find a way to interpret it as a metaphor of a historical event... I love Miyazaki, but he's the "idiot" here...
Well Tolkien of course completely contradicts himself because he also said his works were fundamentally Catholic in nature, so there clearly is that allegory. And of course Christianity was often used by "The West" to justify the horrbile crimes committed against people from overseas who shared different believes. So Miyazaki does have a point here.
@@ageoflove1980So was Shintoism in WW2, making Miyazaki a hypocrite.
EVERY religion, philosophy, and ideology, even when preaching peace, has been used as an excuse for vile actions.
@@PyroGothNerd how does that make miyazaki a hypocite lol, he never denied his work was an allegory, also tolkien has said his work was an allegory about power
To be honest its kinda a funny that i think Miyazaki has almost the same type of personallity as Feanor. Both were a great artis, both created many masterpiece of artwork, both were very nihilistic, both were very emotional and both cursed their own sons.
But Feanor loved his sons, at least. And he didn't curse them, they swore an oath voluntarily. of course they obeyed him in everything, but he wasn't just their father, he was a king. and i can't imagine Feanor justifying isIаmists, just as i can't imagine miyazaki creating a work of art that could tempt the devil himself and thwart his plans. besides, Feanor never shit on other people's art.
@@ДарьяДарина-ж5к Feanor 1, Miyazaki 0
I think Tolkien fans are very emotional and did not accept another author's negative opinion. Miyazaki It's old and from a totally different culture, it's normal to have criticism. He probably prefers Alice in Wonderland and Frankenstein over Lotr 😅
@@fchicod since he is offended by what he perceives to be western racial supremacy themes in LOTR, I suspect that Alice in Wonderland could easily come under his microscope as promoting a decadent lifestyle for wealthy victorian children on the back of western imperialism.
@@fchicod😅😅😅 yeh precisely why noone would listen to his opinion 😅😅😅
Many people don't understand that orcs are not based in non-europeans but in the other hand, the easterlings and haradrim are but it's established that since the start of the first age, Morgoth and Sauron enslave them.
Also sauron Had more Humans besides the easterlings serving him
Painting the east as victims rather than evil incarnate isn't all that much better. This is the very same thinking that animated the so-called 'white man's burden' (whose cultural echoes remain to this day, shorn of its overt racism) and the very goal of Christian missionaries and western-idealizing reformists. It still isn't admitted that the east can be every bit as legitimate and wise and virtuous as the west supposedly is.
@@laisphinto6372 Sauron unified almost all the people's of the world against middle earth, making them worship him as their God-King.
Something curious about it is that Tolkien said that most of Rhun and Harad forces didn't respond to Sauron's call when the War of the Ring started due to the influence left behind by the blue wizards.
@@ArawnOfAnnwn Why? It humanizes them, especially when Sam reflects about their purpose in this war. The story is centered in middle earth, one can't explore everything at once, of course there could be easterlings and southerners that could be virtuous and wise but it's very likely that those people are the ones who had chosen to remain in their lands and resist Sauron rather than join his evil forces.
Gondor literally colonized both of them.
One of my favourite things about the LOTR books was that the story didn't just end straight after the moment of triumph when Sauron was defeated. The book took it's time to allow all members of the Fellowship to gradually return to their homes as above all else that is what they were fighting for.
It showed that whilst some members of the fellowship were able to return home and live there happily, other's couldn't. Samwise made the best of his situation, fell in love and created a family, for Samwise the return was a beautiful thing.
But for Frodo, who started out as the most pure, kind, genuine and innocent hero, basically ever in literature it was vastly different. Even with all his promise and natural gifts he was irrevocably changed from what he had seen and done from the burden of his role. Much was expected from him and consequently he gave much in order to achieve it.
So yes, Frodo made it back and protected The Shire which was his intent all along, but he was so changed by his experience that even though he'd won his prize, his freedom, safety and the freedom and safety of those he loves. He was unable to enjoy it the way he once did.
Frodo then had to sit and watch as everyone around him went back to their homes and made the best of it. And it's very clear that Frodo felt displaced and was inwardly miserable watching that. Not out of jealousy or pettiness, he was still a good man, one of the best. Rather due to his an intense awareness of how stark and bleak his reality was now. He knew intimately how much innocence he had lost.
It's no accident that Frodo, the most kind, brave, curious, dedicated character in the book, the one whose personality was most ideal as a partner or as a father never 'found' a partner and never had children. That's no accident. Frodo was highly desirable in The Shire. He chose not to. He chose to be alone. For me, that's the cruellest thing that 'happened' to him in the whole story. Instead he spent his time taking care of his hut, visiting his friends but the thing he put the most energy into was writing his stories. Reliving and recounting the journey that had so irrevocably changed him.
I mean that was basically as blatant a commentary on the loss of innocence and the potential loss of self to the ravages of war as Tolkien could have possibly written. It was brutal.
So for Miyazaki to read all that and somehow genuinely believe that LOTR glorified war is straight up baffling. Especially as he comes across as so thoughtful and perceptive in his story telling.
And, although less distinct it wasn't just Frodo who struggled, Bilbo did too. Bilbo also never took a wife or started a family.
And at the very end, the both lead characters, who had both spent years writing their stories desired most of all to 'go into the undying lands' with their old friends who they had journeyed with. With the people they felt most understood who they were, before and during the change they experienced. Where they felt most understood, and could heal. A place where the uniquely personal both of them carried could finally be lifted off of them, and they could be relieved. In my opinion, that was an alliteration to heaven.
Aside from simply stating all that as literally as possible I just did I don't know how Tolkien could have made war's terrible burden any clearer.
Exactly. One of the most powerful and prominent “themes”, if you will, are PTSD and depression in LOTR. It amazes me how Miyazaki dumbed the story, written by an actual war vet, down to “war glorification”.
the movies didnt end after the fight either
Supposedly Miyazaki didn't fully understand or read LOTR. Maybe he got snippets or had a huge focus on the narrative / conceptual structure... and his own creative vision always consuming him.
When he was asked if he actually saw Indiana Jones he said no.
I think Miyazaki didn't have time or care to put into external pursuits, and that's clear enough in his relationship with his kid, his constantly busy environment at work, his toxic commitment to working even while sick (not uncommon, sadly), and just strict Japanese culture in general.
He doesn't understand as much as you give him credit for. Japanese people will score well enough on English tests, but it doesn't mean they have a true native grasp of our language. They have too many differences, and the older the Japanese are, the less they understand the language and culture differences.
@@cautiouscube2197 Very true, but it is sad that Kanji and other more traditional culture is decaying or decrepit. I love Kanji as a learner, but many Japanese people seem to be willing to move on to shorthand for virtualization
2:15 Tolkien did not believe in absolute evil, viewing evil as a deprivation of goodness, like cold is a deprivation of heat or darkness of light. For this reason, he did not and could not view Sauron as evil incarnate. Not only would that be blasphemy to him as a Catholic, seeming to put the devil on equal footing with God, but also it would imply that evil has actual existence, and therefore that as a creature it must be created, which would be to say that God created evil, a gnostic and Manichaean doctrine. Granted, towards the end there I was extrapolating a bit, but he points out how even in the books it’s said that he fell. You cannot be evil incarnate if you fell from goodness.
Indeed, that's why my easy to understand is that Hell is simply the furthest Distance from God (the Good). You can redirect lost people, eventually.
I feel like that Miyazaki's points are more arguments against Peter Jackson than against Tolkien.
it's also more arguments against Miyazaki himself, considering how incredibly biased his opinions are regarding LOTR
@@DatAsianGuy There is no such thing as ''unbiased'' opinion lol.
@@HuraRas did I claim that? No.
@@DatAsianGuy No, you only made a stupid comment that meant nothing in the end.
@@icebox1954 maybe it would have meant something to you, if there was a brain.
Would you like an example of what could be considered an unbiased opinion?
"I think the mariana trench is the deepest spot in the sea"
Now go ahead and tell me where the bias is? And how much biased it is.
If Miyazaki bothered to pay any attention to the books he would have most of his worries eased. What I think is unrealistic on Miyazaki's part though is if he believes that any pure depiction of a good vs evil situation is strictly a Western world cliche. Hard to tell from the video if that's a big reason why he hates Hollywood films or not.
This seems an incredibly disingenuous video essay. Has Miyazaki ever actually said "orcs are supposed to be easterners?" Has he said "Tolkein entirely depends upon racism"? Those are the absurd claims. It seems about ten thousand times more likely that Miyazaki (or anyone with a brain) would be talking about the Easterlings in Middle Earth, which is a small detail overall but still a part of Middle Earth. Why make video essays to claim ridiculous ideas far beyond the few quotes the youtuber bothered to look up?
"Orcs are squat, broad, flat-nosed, sallow-skinned, with wide mouths and slant eyes: in fact degraded and repulsive versions of the (to Europeans) least lovely Mongol-types."
--Tolkien angry that his orcs were portrayed as birds in a cartoon
Yeah, Miyazaki noticing that Tolkien based his evil monsters on Asian features and then said he did so specifically because Europeans are as racist as he is... kind of gives this one to Miyazaki.
Tolkien was an Imperialist. The British Empire was a brutal, bloody regime that slaughtered millions of people and kept them in constant oppression, including Asians.
And then homie writes a book where all the Asians and Africans and extra-evil Asians threaten civilization.
It's fine that you didn't realize Tolkien was racist. But he was. And now you now and have to deal with that.
@@Alic4444 Perhaps this is a sign for you to dig up the truth for yourself. The history between western media represented by Tolkien and eastern media represented by Miyazaki is long, complicated, and very nuanced. Much more so than can be reasonably covered in an 11 minute video. Even beyond those two in particular, this topic has had people from both sides slugging it out for decades. To decry something trying to bring attention to it as 'disingenuous' seems to serve no purpose except to perpetuate the debate. Instead of complaining about it, take action to clear up what you see as a misunderstanding.
Makes sense. Just look at princess mononoke and Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind. Everyone had their own reasons for doing things and most of them were justified.
Miyazaki hates Hollywood films, because they take stereotypes of people, at both the individual and group levels, whether right or wrong, and runs with them.
Also, they do glorify war in how he criticised them, which feeds ultimately back to the stereotypes and their depiction of them. His take on depictions of people from the East and Africans are a case of that, and the stereotypes are of them either being totally outright evil, or misguided and easily manipulated people.
Both stereotypes are totally wrong, of course, but Hollywood films do not allow that to be explored, and of those that are, they are either framed in the slave era in the case of Africans, and WW2 in the case of the East.
There exists only the cop films that are exceptions to that, but even there, they are showing the stereotypes of cops in uniform.
Great authors don’t all need to love each other, and fans don’t need to dislike something just because their favorite author does. Tolkien famously disliked Dune, and Frank Herbert disliked Star Wars. Every author offers a unique perspective, some you’ll agree with and some you won’t. No art is universally loved or beyond criticism, nor should it be.
Whole heartedly agree. No one is saying he needs to agree with everyone. But when his argument for not liking something is built upon total hypocritical bs, then yeah people are gonna call him out on it. I’ve seen tons of comments here point out the objective flaws to his way of thinking.
If he didn’t like it just becuase he didn’t like it, that’s one thing. But to say stuff like how Orcs are racist caricatures of people is a straight up false statement.
Most Manga creators hate Comics and Cartoons, they just use the "Tatemae", which is extreme politeness, something Miyazaki does not gives a fuck about.
While yes, Miyazaki is in the unique camp of just genuinely hating everything. Hates anime, hates LOTR, hates his son, hates America, hates modern Japan. The dude has nothing but hate and anger.
One example of this in classical music, Claude Debussy had really unpopular opinions on Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann, Mendelssohn and Brahms, he loved Wagner but then moved on, while mantaining certain influence, he LOVED Bach as well as other authors from past centuries like Couperin or Rameau, even Palestina.
Sometimes these people sound like the most complicated beings, but they are in the medium, artists are very complicated people, sometimes you might love his work while not his views or who they are.
@@Sun_Simp What's "Tatemae"?
Tolkien would have hated the movies, he also called his fans deplorable, all the lotr people hating on Miyazaki for being woke cuz he called them idiots would be thrilled to find out
I like how Miyuzaki talks about allegory in lord of the rings when Tolkien has gone on record to state that his work is neither allegorical nor topical, Tolkien hates those.
Not entirely accurate. Tolkien professed a dislike of allegory (he didn't think Lewis should have published _The Chronicles of Narnia_ in their final form, or _The Great Divorce_ ), but from what I understand went on record as follows:
" _The Lord of the Rings_ is not allegory about atomic power, but is allegory about Power."
@HuntingTarg It's not an allegory it's literally just the story about it. Story says power bad does not mean it's some kind of elaborate thinng when literally it says it.
Most authors hate each other's work. Tolkien hated Herbert's "Dune", Miyasaki hated Tolkien's LOTR... it's natural.
Its not about what you say about your work.. its about what others think of it.
What you say or attempt to do, might not be the outcome. For instance.. Hitler said he his works were good and laid out the reasons why. WE don't see it that way.
Just because Tolkien says this, does not mean that's what others see- and sometimes, they are right.
Most of the authors didn't hate, they just didn't like the story and the vision of some story.
People like to create beef between authors. Yep, Tolkien didn't love Dune a more nihilistic story than LOTR and it is ok.
@@Yo_Cami Not saying it's not okay.
That's all good. It leads to intersting life decisions.
I do think they all need a good slap on the side of the head, with Time Travel though- to wake them up, cause they muddy around in the dark introducing and attempting to fix the problems of Destiny/Fate/Prescience, etc...
When Time Travel can spare so much self-inflicted suffering and drama.
A few tweaks here and there... and we're set!
It won't make for "interesting" reading though cause we have a lot of imaginary masochists out there.
Miyazaki says that not understanding the historical context or significance of a story then misunderstanding Tolkiens villains is kind of ironic. I understand him not liking the glorification of war, but that is not what Lotr is about. Tolkien wrote about the Anglo-Saxons bravery and self-sacrifice in the face of conflict. Not to unsimilar to Miyazaki and his idealization of WW2 era Japan. The only difference is Tolkien is from England and a Christian, and Miyazaki is not. Tolkien believes there is an evil in the world that man must overcome, and there is a constant evil corruption that will take the hearts of some men.
I suppose if Tolkien were a *Buddhist*, then his views would be very different, because in Buddhism all sentient beings are seen as Buddhas-in-the-making, and evil is due merely to ignorance. His trilogy might then end with all the bad guys becoming good. Hey, what can be impossible in a fantasy world?
@@gwang3103
Only Tolkien wasn't; and it's hard to imagine a Bhuddist fighting in a war as Tolkien had (WWI, France). So if Tolkien had been a Bhuddist he might have written something entirely different from The Hobbit and LOTR.
Miyasaki, if I may dare to say so, is presumably a Shintoist, who sees 'good' and 'evil' as part of the duality in the balance of nature. That Sauron should be utterly destroyed, Saruman and Grima disappear into obscurity, and Aragorn be crowned king of an enduring throne are 'totally out of whack' with his worldview, so his characterization of the movies is at least comprehensible on that point.
He seems, from the recounting here, to miss things like The Ents conquer Isengard and are not themselves conquered by anyone, the Hobbits return to their own idyllic Shire and are not kept as vassals or made feifal lords by Aragorn, and there is no 'occupation' of Mordor or the Southron kingdom. I think his disdain (contempt?) for Hollywood leads him to judge, if not prejudge, the LOTR trilogy out of cultural context and apart from its true merits.
@@HuntingTarg Some if not many of the Japanese who fought during WW2 were Buddhists. (And regretfully, they were mostly unwilling conscripts as well.) The Shaolin monks occasionally engaged in wars, too.
I don't see why Tolkien couldn't have written The Hobbit and LOTR if he were a Buddhist. He still could, except there would be major differences in the storyline. (Shrugs.)
@@gwang3103
We saw buddhists in WW2, and Japan killed about 9 000 civilians a day.
Shame he feels that way, I always assumed he'd see the similarity in themes between his and Tolkien's work.
It really doesn't sound like he's actually read LOTR though if that's what he's come away thinking. That Sam line is exactly what sprang to mind just before you brought it up.
Or the Faramir line, "War must be, while we defend our lives against a destroyer who would devour all; but I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend."
Myazaki's cristicism is fair.
"(The Orcs) have squat, broad, flat-nosed, sallow-skinned, with wide mouths and slant eyes: in fact degraded and repulsive versions of the (to Europeans) least lovely Mongol-types."" - J. R. R. Tolkien
The association between orcs and Asians isn't a "interpretation" some readers got from the text, it came out from the literal mouth of Tolkien. This videos's author omited this fact, for some reason.
@@monnaranzoti732 you tired of posting that crap over and over again
@@chrisrapp7733 Why would that be crap? He did write it, and it seems relevant to the subject matter, even though one may suspect that his choices have more to do with traditional in-group preferences regarding human beauty than with racist perceptions per se of Asians being evil. (After all, the Orcs are not even human.)
@@monnaranzoti732
Which part is offending you?
The part where Tolkien lists some physical features that aren't even the features that the Orcs in his story are written with? If you track the features to his descriptions in books, what's he describing seems to be the half-Orcs of Saruman (not the Uruk-hai).
The part where Tolkien feels the need to elaborate on physical features, listing them at all? Because the context (often completely omitted when this quote is bandied about by bad actors) is him responding to a movie script in which someone has turned Orcs into bird people. He's only pointing out human characteristics and where you might see something similar to them because someone gave them beaks.
@@monnaranzoti732
Tolkien was creating something that his audience would almost certainly find repulsive; the fact that they have similarities to certain human ethnicities is belied by the fact that Orcs aren't human at all - they're corrupted elves. Which should amplify, not diminish their grotesqueness, and not be a slant or a slur on any human ethnicity.
There is a difference between being able to see 'race' (the very term is perverted out of context), and not being able to not see 'race'.
There’s a scene of faramir reflecting on the the death of an Easterling, wondering what his name is and motivation for fighting. He seems to understand war and hates participating in itwhile acknowledging his enemy’s humanity
Didn't Miyazaki get asked if he had actually seen Indiana Jones, then replied no? He gives off the impression that he is a contrarian for the sake of being one. Tolkien often gave praise to the authors of works he didn't personally enjoy such as Dune.
bruh, criticizing the works, one didn't see or read is really anti-intellectual.
@@damienasmodeus928 yeah lmao that is some i saw a youtube short on a ghibli movie and now i have a valid opinion on it level lol.
Really goes to show how a lot of creators do get pretentious. I guess thats just what happens when you devote everything to one thing.
@@damienasmodeus928 I dont think i need to waste my time reading or watching Twilight to be crititical of it, or in the case of say Harry Potter I grew out of it when i was like 15 and realized how shallow it was.
@@krel3358 I agree. If you watch a scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark, you've pretty much got the whole picture. It's a fantastic movie but if you don't appreciate what it is, then yeah, you won't like it. Miyazaki simply doesn't appreciate it.
@@krel3358 To an extent I agree. Its perfectly reasonable to look at what something is and if its not a theme or universe that pertains to someone's preferences then of course its fine to just turn away. I also agree someone doesn't need to see or read everything to really gauge how something is.
As for being critical I think it depends what "level" of critical you're trying to be towards something(no I am not going to defend Twilight). If someone only looks at one part of a work and then decides to criticize the entire thing and the people who like it without looking at reviews or some other source about it that seems like a big leap.
Tolkien:
[Writes about the forces of good prevailing over hordes of cruel barbaric irredeemably evil foes]
Miyazaki:
'It's anti Asian discrimination'
Very evil, but not irredeemable, Tolkien said so himself.
Anti-Asian discrimination? Miyazaki doesn't speak for the rest of us Asians after his people (the Imperial era, not today's modern era) committed terrible atrocities to the other Asian countries, including mine. I do not hate Miyazaki, and I was a fan of him and still a fan of most of his movies, but because of this, my opinion about him is now lower.
@@rockonpurification belive it or not, Miyazaki said hated the Japanese imperialism by hearing what the Japanese army have done to chinese people. But yeah, he's kind of a hypocrite like Alan More. Princess Mononoke literally have the protagonists dismember heads and arms from samurais.
@@craigthebrute8932Hey, genuinely interested why you say that Alan More is a hypocrite. I read his 'V for Vendetta', but I don't know much about his political views, apart from what I can read on Wikipedia.
@@boraicho6144Miyazaki himself is very critical and hated the Japanese imperial army. You shouldn't call someone hypocrite without knowing in details yourself. Just because he is Japanese himself doesn't mean he supported the war by his own government.
Let's get some Korean and Chinese opinions of Japanese history and ethnic attitudes 😅
And Indonesia and Philippines
Miyazaki isn't a very big fan of his own country either, and is very outspoken about it.
Hey don’t leave out the American perspective. Never forget… they touched our boats.
Hahahaha
exactly
Tolkien & Miyazaki: name a more genius, idiosyncratic, and acerbic duo
frodo was very charitative, and didn't want to kill anyone unless needed. same for aragorn, they were not chasing orc, they were reacting to they brutality, what the fuck miyaki ranting at, he must put down the flask a bit more often.
As should you, how bollixed must you be to type such gibberish.
There was no threat from Mordor in the first place, if three guys can dismantle millions of your soldiers then you don't stand a chance, second nazguls are funny not really worth on battle field(Witch king killed by female) easterlings are again nonething compare to army of dead.
So Sauron don't stand a chance from the beginning till the end
@@radoslavjovanovic9692tell me you havent read the books without telling me you havent read the books
@@radoslavjovanovic9692wow... thid is the worst take on lotr that I have ever read
@@ancientdarkness3102 This is all from movies, you are confused.
He likes the Hobbit, tho. He included it in a list of his fav children’s books
Source?
Naturally, it's Tolkein's best book.
A lot of his coworkers at Ghibli cut their teeth on the Rankin Bass hobbit adaptation.
@@DIEGhostfish What does that mean exactly?
@@PC-tan I mean before Ghibli was founded most of them worked at the studio Rankin-bass outsourced animation for The Hobbit and Return of the King to
I just watched a video on Frank Herbert hating Star Wars, Tolkien hating Dune, and now this.
Same here, the Algorithm works. But this Video have a flaw. Since Miyazaki only disliked the Movies. So misleading Information. Otherwise the Video is fine.
In short focus on the writers for their work but not their personality
Oh and Tolkien also hated Disney
So now we need someone big hating on Miyazaki. Or is not really ideal since he is still alive and still doing stuff?
Dune is a pretentious story that people get behind to seem sophisticated. I don't find it engaging or sophisticated enough. Maybe it's just me. Star Wars is for kids (big and small).
@_zapatoz_ Weird logic. Are you pretentious or simply factual for disliking pretentious people?
I love Lord of the Rings and I always will, but I totally see Miyazaki's point. The warfare, the (boring and cliche) trope of 'pure' or 'royal' blood, and the dehumanization of 'Easterners' and 'Southrons' are NOT the best parts of LOTR. But IMO, it's ok to love something that isn't perfect. Nobody is perfect. No piece of art is perfect... no piece of art is pure of the creators' ignorance and prejudice. I think it's ok to love a piece of art the same way we might love the beautiful flowers that grow from a stinking pile of manure. In fact, manure, as odious as it may be, provides the ingredients that make beauty possible. Light and dark are forever intertwined.
It seems silly for Miyazaki to decry violence in American movies when Princess Mononoke has the protagonist cut off arms in bloody fashion. Saying a mythical creature like an ocr must represent x minority is also nuts. Should we just assume every malevolent creature in Miyazaki's work is really x minority group? It's a good thing his actual movies are stories and don't turn into obivious rants of his political opinions like some Hollywood movies do these days.
So he was first who began all this stuff about: Goblins, Orcs, Demons😈- are just misunderstood minorities.
Hate to break it to you, but Tolkien is the one who compared orcs to minorities. From one of his private letters: "squat, broad, flat-nosed, sallow-skinned, with wide mouths and slant eyes: in fact degraded and repulsive versions of the (to Europeans) least lovely Mongol-types."
I would agree if it was not for the fact that Ashitaka's killing are not intentional. At least not at all, the same premise of Princess Mononoke revolves around in words of the protagonist himself "not seeing the world through clouds of hatred". The Journey of Ashitaka begins as a colateral damage of foreign conflicts that he later tries to calm meanwhile tries to restord the nature that other have been destroying.
The hole narrative of Princess Mononoke is about living at peace with Nature, and people without letting the hate and destructive nature of men disrupt that peace.
I think the major difference is that the protagonist Ashitaka’s violence is portrayed very clearly as something bad. He fights very hard to stop it from overtaking him, and his goal throughout the movie is to cure to curse that is making him violent and hateful. I love both lotr and ghibli but I do believe Miyazaki’s films are pretty much unilaterally conscious in their attitude towards violence and hate.
exactly the orcs dont represent anything in real life except victims of evil, "evil cannot create only corrupt" and that is exactly what they showcase
Should be called "Miyazaki does not understand LOTR, because he was traumatized by being born into WW2 Japan". Seriously it sounds like people who try to insert communism/capitalism debates into stories like Robin Hood, completely missing the part of the story that's firmly asserts the righteousness of a "true king"
I wouldn't be too surprised if it were Miyazaki's comments that are quoted by agenda driven people to explain why Tolkien is somehow racist. I've heard that a lot lately, and I'm a little tired of it.
but why tho? Its fundamentally a political statement at its heart and tolkiens work is heavily influenced by the english royalty and empire. You dont hey to take a whole part of a story and go "it means nothing" it doesnt work that way. And its not like lotr is a storybook fable or smth, tho even then the obsession with monarchy is worth examining
Miyazaki only sees the world through a narrow Japanese lens, he refuses to even attempt to see things from others' perspectives. He seems very ignorant and bitter.
@Nagrom maybe for the best though? While I love the access to the world we have in modern times, I worry that in my lifetime we will lose the cultural differences that make foreign places different. I feel sorry for Miyazaki, but I don't wish he had a different perspective because I think it's his japanese point of view that has given us all his awesome movies
Dude. Stop talking. You're trying to find something where there is nothing.
Have you read Tolkien's works or just LOTR?
There is the Silmarillion, The Hobbit, Morgoth's Ring, Unfinished Tales, The Fall of Gondolin and so on and so forth. Which all cover thousands of years before LOTR.
Lord of the Rings is a epic high fantasy story, in which Aragorn is from a long line of Kings, all related to the first King of Numenor, Elrond's brother, Elros. After the fall of Arnor in the North to the Witch-King of Angmar, Aragorn's ancestors became the Dunedain chieftains and Gondor lost its King, by any logic, Aragorn is the heir rightfully but you have to keep in mind, he only became King because of the War of the Ring happening and the Fellowship forming to destroy the Ring.
You're also forgetting how the LOTR is about hope, friendship, accepting one day we're all going to die, fighting against darkness and such.
There is very little to suggest it is heavily influenced by Empire or Monarchy. It has heavy medieval vibes so Kingdoms are normal for that, it also takes big influences from the Anglo-Saxons, Goths, Finnish, Jewish people, Christianity, Beowulf, The Kalevala, Völsunga saga, Temple of Nodens, Germanic mythology, the First World War which he fought in, moments from his real life and so on. to water it down to " heavily influenced by the english royalty and empire" is a weak statement.
His works are hardly political, you're just trying to find a reason to make it so.
In my writing class we had to take two famous characters from different stories and put them in the same scene together. I had Aragorn meet and talk with Prince Ashitaka. It really showed how similar their worlds and quests were.
That sounds really cool. It's fun to imagine what conversations characters from different worlds would have.
LoL! Just don't tell Miyazaki. 😊
Man that would be an interesting conversation between warriors/soldiers who had to hold themselves to a greater standard to lead by example.
I'd be more interested in a conversation between Aragorn and Paul Atreides tbh. For those who've only seen the first Dune film, Paul is NOT a hero. He's responsible for a religious war that he himself is horrified by. Tolkien infamously hated Dune btw.
@@ArawnOfAnnwnWhy do you talk as if we don’t know about these characters? Dune was a product of its period in the 60s. Lots of stories around subverting hero’s journey has since proliferated in modern fantasy and sci fi literature. And the movie that Villeneuve made isn’t as good tbh. Less nuanced than even Life of Brian did around similar themes in the 70s.
7:49 Just for some perspective, this part of your argument is basically directly addressed by Edward Said's work, "Orientalism". There's a very long legacy of portraying "the East" as being susceptible to being twisted by despots.
Tolkien's experiences and wisdom, as well as the fact that he was a linguist more than a writer, seems to have resulted in him having a far better grasp on reality than most modern writers and artists.
He was on a completely different level of intellect, creativity, and bravery quite frankly compared to modern fiction writers. I don't think Tolkien would have anything pleasant to say about anime, and the state of the "men" who watch it is all that need be observed.
@@intenzityd3181 Now you're being incredibly close minded. Anime is a VERY broad medium.
@@intenzityd3181 If by anime you mean isekai, then yeah, Tolkien would probably condemn it.
Perhaps, though both artists have their 'contradictions', and just as Miyazaki seems oblivious to Japan's role in WWII, Tolkien was also a famously strong defender of Spain's fascist dictator, and fellow Catholic, Francisco Franco.
People that fought in wars, usually make the BEST stories with the most humane characters/plots.
Alot can be told of the human condition through conflict regardless of whether its war or not
Only the East is always villinized.
Bauglir who sat on the north mountains : Am I a joke?
Literally who?
as it should be
@@yourhighness6457 Morgoth Bauglir, AKA Melkor (the original and much worse dark lord)
Middle Earth’s greatest enemies were from Middle Earth, or from another metaphysical plane of existence. Besides that, it’s strongly implied that Easterlings, Haradrim, etc. were manipulated by Sauron into going to war. They aren’t the real villains, even though they are antagonists. There is a massive difference.
@@kolbywilliams7234 well said.
It's kinda funny because the works of both Tolkien and Miyazaki not very subtly involve the perils of imperialism, industrialization, demagoguery, war/conquest, ecosystem destruction etc. You'd think Miyazaki would find a kindred spirit in Tolkien.
Tbf he was talking about the movies rather than the books.
@@Otakumanu he mentioned the books as well, not just the movies
@@itsnotborker456 The translation was a bit confusing though, so I'm not entirely confident saying that he felt the same way about the books. If you have a better translation, do tell me.
Not to say I know more than Miyazaki who is an accomplished story writer and the most celebrated animator of all time. But at its core The Lord of the Rings is not a tail of war. It is an argument of what man is. It is an argument against the Ubermensch philosophy of Nietzsche. That in the end life comes down to the comrades you have along the way; not the absolute power you wield and any man can fall victim to power. Frodo in the end wins out of chance not because he did the right thing. That's why Sam and him are reluctant to address what happened until the end. Where again their bond is the real story of their adventure and not their defeat of “evil”. I think to most westerners given the time The Lord of the Rings was written the Orcs represent the N@zi's and Sauron an allegory for Hitler. Whether it's true or not doesn't really matter; and whether racists cling to the idea that Tolkien based the Orcs on propaganda also doesn't matter all that much because those people have gone so far down an unimportant rabbit hole that they can never articulate a point to be a threat. I'd like to believe this is just a giant misunderstanding on Miyzaki's part; Tolkien famously "stole" The Lord of the Rings from the Poetic Edda and the races of Norse Mythology. He then assigned each race a more UK identity so his readers could relate to the stories. The Hobbits being the most plucky British who carry on through hard times. Tolkien showed respect for the people of Asia when correcting Hitler who referred to the people of Germany as Aryian. With Tolkien responding by fact checking the migration of the Indo-Aryan people Hitler was incorrectly associating himself with in a letter between the to, when Hitler wanted to make sure Tolkien had no Jewish blood in his heritage before allowing The Hobbit to be read in N@zi Germany.
Miyazaki literally did the "black people look like orcs" twitter meme...
Theyre based on African slaves they speak the black tongue Tolkien is a religious fundamentalist who believes whites to be superior because of God
I took offense to this as a Turkish man. The general consensus around here is that Tolkien-based Orcs on Turks. So, back tf off, we're more oppressed here.
@@soloistdeve what a thing to proudly assert.
@@soloistdeve Jesus fucking christ I don't even know where to start here
@@soloistdeveTURKEY NUMBER ONE 🇹🇷!!!
Its very strange that Miyazaki would have such a hateboner for lord of the rings and how it "glorifies" war, considering that, while Im fairly positive Miyazaki never took part in any conflicts, only saw the outcome of it, and how his fathers business of making airplanes worked out, Tolkein served in the trenches of one of the two worst wars in all of human history, saw many of his friends and comrades die, and was eternally scarred by the experience. Lord of the Rings was never meant to glorify war, the orcs are representations of good men(or elves) twisted and perverted into caricatures of their once good selves and predisposed towards the hatred and destruction of all things good or peaceful. They are much more the representation of what happens when good men go to war and are twisted by their leaders into weapons, killing machines that abandon all morality.
Tolkein hated war, probably more than Miyazaki does, for what it does to good people, for how it inspires such hatred and mistrust, and he had a front row seat for it.
I think Miyazaki just needs to not be such a curmudgeonly old coot tbh. I mean Tolkein was too, he notoriously hated anything that infantilized fantasy or myth. But Miyazaki is just a grumpy old man.
dude miyazaki isnt grumpy hes a dick called his own son a disappointment
It's his opinion dude let it go
Miyazaki has great respect for Tolkien and loves Hobbit, he even recommended it. In his quote he meant that the book was better than the film in portraying this aspect. This is just a wrong interpretation!
@@RyanRoemer8624 i mean if the interpretation is correct, then Miyazaki is kind of a hypocrite considering his many, many, many depictions of warfare and especially nazi tanks in a positive to neutral light. For the record I don't really care about either Miyazaki or Tolkien
Tolkien hated Dune with passion, but he never said anything about it because he respected Frank Herbert as someone with the same profession. Only after his death we knew that he hated Dune.
So, yeah, Miyazaki is just being grumpy old man lol
I respect Miyazaki as an artist and writer, but frankly, his opinions come from a perspective of perceived superiority, and narcissism. He often claims to know better, but speaks from a place of ignorance.
He speaks out of his position of authority, its kinda common in Japan to have old people complaining about everything and criticizing everyone because they are of higher social status.
Japan and Asia in general have a culture of total respect and obedience before authority and especially "elders" so Miyazaki pretty much says whatever he can because who's gonna oppose him?
I mean a lot of people do..if I asked you things in a casual interview setting or convo you would no doubt say dumb things from time to time or just say things you don't REALLY mean but you have strong feelings about so they come out that way
@@Redcloudsrocks True, but Miyazaki makes a pattern of treating others as lesser than himself, it's not just Tolkien. He thinks everyone and everything should cater to his perspective. He comes off as one of the righteous types he himself claims to despise.
Right? He hates everything
Myazaki's cristicism is fair.
"(The Orcs) have squat, broad, flat-nosed, sallow-skinned, with wide mouths and slant eyes: in fact degraded and repulsive versions of the (to Europeans) least lovely Mongol-types."" - J. R. R. Tolkien
The association between orcs and Asians isn't a "interpretation" some readers got from the text, it came out from the literal mouth of Tolkien. This videos's author omited this fact, for some reason.
I dont know if those quotes are old, but today Miyazaki's criticism of Western racism is hopelessly outdated and wrong factually. American culture hasn't produced work remotely pro-white or anti-asian, african, or whomever in decades (early 2000s).
Applying these criticisms to LOTR shows he never gave it more than a shallow surface level viewing/reading, and he applied his prejudices thoughtlessly. Anything remotely "racist" or racialist in Tolkien's work is tertiary and only detail aside from the Orcs, but even the Orcs and every context surrounding them has nothing to do with "racism" in the popular context. The conscious choices Tolkien made to characterize the Orcs even appears to be anti-racist: he needed forces of pure evil for his story, but the Orcs aren't purely foreign or evil, they aren't entirely unsympathetic. They are basically our own kind but twisted and corrupted against their will by forces of evil, that reduced them to this level.
In short, Miyazaki's stated reasons for disliking LOTR are dumb and inconsistent with his own views.
i guess miyazaki would claim that 'western racism' has morphed, not ended. the classic nordicist tropes are no longer used and even discouraged but they've been replaced by something that keeps the essence while discarding the front, namely rhetoric about western liberal democracy justifying intervention against 'autocracies' in the third world. This maintains western agreession and thus western racism. Note, this is not necessarily my view, just what i think miyazaki would argue.
@@dangin8811 Sad that many people need a disclaimer. I mean I have my personal biases and loyalties but I don't really care which people have or what they sympathize with. It's just that Miyaziki's opinions here seem based on tenuous facts. Yeah, it is a bit understandable for a non American who formed his understanding and opinions 40+ years ago to be out of date, especially when American society and politics changed so much in a fraction of time.
It seems like for alot of paleo leftists, the notion of the US (or west) having racist motivation in its 'liberal democratic imperialism' is such a central motivation and underpinning of their beliefs that they can't consider otherwise. I would share many of their criticisms of the US, but to believe George Bush and Bill Clinton's generation of politicians and business elite are secretly hovering over maps of the third world giddily thinking "how do I exploit the inferior brown races today" ignores a lot of evidence to the contrary. The mainstream of elite society has been heavily anti racist for a long time. Is some of it a smokescreen to distract from class inequality? Yes. But to believe the George Bushes are insincere when painting all those immigrants or that there's an unyielding secret racist elite behind them? How many non-whites need to live in Martha's Vineyard or marry into the royal family before they can accept it's meaningful?
bro I swear Miyazaki sometimes sounds like the most active user of twitter
To pull a passage from one of Miyazaki's own works, one must view the world with eyes unclouded by hate to truly grow.
And yet, he was blinded by his anti-West hate, which prevented him to understand Tolkien
Cry harder
Indeed.
@@carlosalbuquerque22. It’s just the truth.
@@carlosalbuquerque22it's just a reflection, not that's relevant for a random troll.
Why are commenters assuming Miyazki is A-ok with what Japan did in WWII. His works and his statements on the war show that he hated what his country did in WWII. Is his criticism of Tolkien fair? No. But that doesn’t mean he is a Japanese imperialist.
Far from it, if you delve into the two, them and their works are ideologically quite similar.
Why does Miyazaki assume Tolkien also liked the British Empire & what they did too? Tolkien likes his Englishness & condemned the empire, as much a Miyazaki likes his Japaneseness & dislikes the empire as well.
@@mumak333 Probably the same character flaw that has compelled so much of this comment section to assume that Miyazaki liked the Japanese Empire. It's rather ironic.
As we all know, since thing A and thing B are in opposition, it is impossible to dislike thing A without supporting thing B. Truly a galaxy brained way of viewing the world.
@@LunamrathP 100%. And both also have kind of a cranky opinionated views on life--and often are sharply critical of certain works that don't fit how they view fiction should be done (i.e. Tolkien disliked Dune and Disney). But imo at this point-they get to be a bit cantankerous even if I don't agree with everything they believe.
I believe JRR and Christopher Tolkien specifically refuted the idea that the races of LOTR had a real-world equivalent. It's actually a common misconception so it shows that Miyazaki didn't really do his research at all. Also the orcs were specifically meant to represent evil. Yes orcs were victims, but they were elves corrupted by Morgoth and beyond saving, that was their whole schtick. There are a few things we don't know about the orcs and it's believed JRR Tolkien felt conflicted with his depiction of the orcs, if he lived longer he might have changed things
it sounds like Miyazaki misinterprets the films to be literal spiritual representations of the books. But it's widely believed Tolkien would probably not have enjoyed the films himself for similar reasons.
Given that JRR Tolkien's son hated the films, it's very likely he would've as well.
That's a huge step. He was annoyed at his son at a young age because he was more obsessive than tolkein himself about the accuracy of his stories.@@samiamtheman7379
@@TT09B5 I mean, I don't think you have the right to say how Tolkien's own son should have felt.
@@samiamtheman7379 Bold assumption, men are not judged by their sons (or grandsons for that matter). Everyone has their own thoughts. I have probably read %90+ of all Tolkien wrote and continue to re-read his works because I find them beautiful.
I do not see anything particularly wrong with Jackson films and I do cherish them. Many readers who I personally know loves those films and think of them as spiritual representations of the books in film form to a certain extend (obviously as a projection). Almost all important themes of those books are in the films. This separation of book vs film does not justify Miyazaki a single bit.
@@TT09B5the thing is that once people read the books after watching the films, their understanding of the books could potentially be clouded by the interpretation presented in said films. But it’s also a massive book with a world that becomes an entire hobby in itself to read, understand, and appreciate (as opposed to speed reading it to check it off a box), so how many people are actually going to read it? Especially after they have what they assume is the gist of the story?
Why would orcs, a race of violent monsters, represent the japanese?
*checks what Imperial Japan did to chinese and koreans civilians
Okay, I get it now
the hypocrisy of Miyazaki talking about how easterners/asians are depicted as barbaric in LOTR, when it was his own nation and culture that was also enslaving, killing and raping his fellow asians to the point that many non-japanese asians dislike japan and still have bad blood and the fact that japan is constantly trying to avoid or outright deny any of the war crimes and human rights violations they committed during the 2nd world war.
Because Miyazaki's life coincided with atrocities committed in Imperial Japan doesn't mean he was complicit or accepting of it. Almost all of his movies are anti-war to a tee.
Tolkien's life coincided with European Imperialism and rising ideas of Nationalism and Race Theory, but he was a staunch egalitarian. Comparing a race or nationality to the actions of governments is racism in its simplest form, no?
@@DatAsianGuy The Wind Rises is a film in full support of war and Imperial Japan, you should watch it. Porco Rosso is also a fascist propaganda film.
/s
Please make sure to verify with primary sources. By the way, Chinese anti-Japanese movies and Korean anti-Japanese dramas are not primary sources.lol
@@やすけん-u7muntil 731 did experiments on half a million people with only about 200 surviving I have no idea how that isn't horrifying to you.
At around 5:15, Miyazaki is quoted as saying the ones being killed in LOTR are Africans and Asians. My understanding is that Tolkien was more likely referencing the Germans and the industrial warfare of WW1.
Yeah he fails to realize a lot of Lord Of The Rings was heavily inspired by Tolkien’s experience as a Soilder during WW1
Alternatively and more thematically appropriate they are all those swayed by the darkness of greed. Many times victims and not perpetrators (AKA Sauron is the big bad, not the generals of orc-kind)
He knows he's just a potato who wants to feel like he's downtrodden, instead of a rich kid who lost his toys
In Tolkien's own words :"squat, broad, flat-nosed, sallow-skinned, with wide mouths and slant eyes: in fact degraded and repulsive versions of the (to Europeans) least lovely Mongol-types." - The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien
Love both Tolkien's and Miyazaki's works. But they come from different perspectives - one with a Catholic theology steeped in Anglo-Saxon linguistics and Western mythology and the other in Buddhist and Shintoist worldview with a nostalgia for a mythical Japan and pacifist yearning. But i get why Miyazaki is dissatisfied with the Western narrative including Tolkien's. Probably in line with the Buddhist/Shintoist view, Miyazaki believes in the respect and compassion for all sentient beings including non-human life forns, and even the villains in his work are capable of redemption and are deserving of compassion. You rarely see an absolutely and innately evil villain in his works. He probably was horrified at Tolkien's story of mass-annihilation of life-forms like orcs, trolls, Easterlings, Haradim, etc. It's just not Miyazaki's style. His work Nausicaa gives insight into how he envisions conflict-resolution in a post-apocalyptic world of scheming and warring factions and gigantic insects that are dangerous but not evil per se.
Miyazaki's critique of Hollywood is fair enough. Even Christopher Tolkien said that his father would not enjoy the LOTR movies for their over emphasis on action scenes. Aside from that, it is obvious that Miyazaki has never read the LOTR. Such a shame. The two have much in common, deriving their themes from nature, history, mythology, and in Tolkien's case, Catholicism. While neither men are perfect, Miyazaki's life is speckled with bitterness and prejudice often against people who have nothing but admiration for his work.
I love Ghibli and I respected Miyazaki man, from themes of coming of age in Kiki to nature vs man in Princess Mononoke, I looked up to him as the father of anime film and anime classics, the one who gave many across the globe their childhood anime, including me. He basically made the Japanese version of Disney (pre-3D animation) and restored that magical moment for us that was gradually lost ever since the 80s-90s. I looked up to him even as both a weeb who's been enjoying manga and anime for about a decade now and an aspiring author-artist who wants to write my own novels, short stories, manga/comics, and create films (especially anime) of my own. But I am also absolutely in love with high fantasy, and world building, and messages of hope and redemption and light and absolute truth, that there always is good in this world despite the darkness and evils. That is what Tolkien created, a beautiful and magical experience in his Lord of the Rings. I absolutely adored LotR and look up to Tolkien in as much as I do to Hayao Miyazaki (alongside other notable Japanese creators such as Eichiiro Oda), and with Tolkien's fellow Westerner authors like Herbert and Orwell (as you can notice by now, I am absolutely in love with the fantastical, world building, and grand storytelling, from the magical, beautiful world of LotR, and the sci-fi world and allegory of Dune, to the gritty and crushing politics of 1984). But this LotR slander I will not let slide. I absolutely love LotR as much as I revere Tolkien himself, and my great love for Ghibli movies will never cease simply because I disapprove of Miyazaki's personal opinions; I continue to respect his craft as a creator and wish to emulate his success in writing, but beyond that I will not approve of his obviously wrong takes about Tolkien and will certainly not accept LotR slander!
Miyazaki has great respect for Tolkien and loves Hobbit, he even recommended it. In his quote he meant that the book was better than the film in portraying this aspect. This is just a wrong interpretation! Watch Archie talks Anime video on this.
@@slivka_1 as a tatar I find it funny when ppl forget the time yellow ppl invaded whites and maybe even spread some bubonic plague. what my ancestors did wasn't nice, so I can't blame europeans for having some trauma any more than I can blame blacks in america for making the media content they do. eventually they will grow out of it, hope it doesn't take them 600 years as well.
This reminds me of all the "Anime was a mistake" memes about Miyazaki
If you look at the context more deeply, you'll see that he didn't actually mean Anime itself but more like the culture it produced as time went on
*"ahem"* , Weebs and Hentai Addicts
Hey! Don't lump us in with weebs!@@echidnanatsuki882
@@echidnanatsuki882 that's also not really the context. Please don't use this as an opportunity to use those terms in a pejorative way.
What he meant in context, is that he believes it's better to create characters that are natural, that are like real people. This is naturally the opposite in many ways to Moe (whether it's bishoujo or bishounen), which is not a representation but an expression where characters are "ideal" and "mercurial", thus behave and express in many different manners that you don't really see in the real world. And Miyazaki sensei believes that this is because of a "hatred for the real people."
In other words, he doesn't understand Moe affect in the same manner as we Otaku do, and he doesn't like it either.
But quite the contrary, otaku culture (not weeb. Even though it's used as a joke, and I use it myself as a joke about myself in English, it's not really the same thing as Otaku) is very united and often accepting of one another, with our flaws as human beings.
Also, at the time, Otaku in Japan was seen as some kind of person who couldn't adapt properly to society (hence in the early 90s sensationalist newspapers in Japan would often ask if "Otaku can tell the difference between reality and fiction or not"). But as time went on Otaku have become more of an integral part of Japanese society, and are more accepted nowadays. Now it's okay to be an otaku of anime in different enviroments, such as school,
But Miyazaki sensei is simply a man from another epoque. Even if I don't agree with him, and I really don't appreciate his remarks on the fans of the LOTR movies fans (he says so about the movies, not the books), there's a lot of respect for him, because his achievements are huge! And his talent undeniable.
I thought that quote was completely made up, but many people believed it because they think it's something Hayao would say
@@echidnanatsuki882not even that. He said "My anime career was a mistake"
Miyazaki is a contrarian, anti-Western stick-in-the-mud who never experienced war first-hand (no, being a baby when your country was at war does not count) yet slings mud at the dead for their work which reflects such an experience.
Felt like pointing out something possibly wrong with this Miyazaki quote : "If you read the original work, you'll understand, but in reality, the ones who were being killed are Asians and Africans." Let's say that we do want to make that link to real life. Tolkien was a war veteran, a lieutenant of the British empire, and he fought one foe : The germans, in World War 1. So really it would be germans here.
But anyway, even though I've seen other people point out that orcs may be a reference to the mongols/turkicc people. I don't think Tolkien was really going for real world comparison with the armies of Sauron.
I'm pretty sure Tolkein himself refuted any analogy to the Second World War, or any real life analogy at all, decades ago, which adds to your point even more.
@@belnonaodh1520 He fought in the first WW not the second. But anyway yes I agree, the conflict Tolkien wrote is more inspired from Genesis than any real world event.
it's complicated. short answer: yes, armies of sauron carry a lot of eastern cultural flavor with all of that naming and battle elephants and all, but miyazaki reasoning may be way off
He wasn't. Nobe of his works is a reflection of this world. If people are drawing parallels where there are none, that's on them
@@opticalraven1935 he gathered a lot of inspiration from real folklore, and as such from a real cultures as well. there is CLEAR eastern inspirations in mordor allied cultures, it is undeniable.
i can agree that i don't know about WWII. that is probably a huge stretch
Tolkien went back and forth on whether the orcs are actually inherently evil or not, because it made sense given the mythology he created for his world but it also contradicted his own religious views. At least as far as the story is concerned, both the orcs and the men allying with them are not random civilians, but soldiers who are invading others' lands, and with that in mind it's understandable that they'd be demonized from the viewpoint of the protagonists. Tolkien was inspired by real-world races for these people, but it wasn't just random racism. Middle-Earth is supposed to be an alternative Europe of the past, and if you were a European civilian, what would your perspective on these races be? You'd know about Hannibal besieging Rome with elephants and the Ottoman takedown of the Byzantine Empire, further creeping up the Balkans. You'd know about the constant waves of invaders from steppes conquering Eastern Europe: first the Huns, then the Mongols, then the Magyars. Why would your perspective on these people be positive? Of course you'd mythologize them as monsters, because you don't see the farmers and artisans they have back home. Tolkien once said in a letter that the orcs were definitely inspired by Asian hordes, but that didn't mean he thought Europeans were good and Asians were bad, he knew there were good and bad people everywhere, that just wasn't the kind of story he was trying to tell with Lord of the Rings. It's easy to judge him (and every fantasy writer ever) as being insensitive to foreigners when you live in the modern world and can send entire libraries to someone on the other side of the world in milliseconds.
As a sidenote, there are Japanese works that depict white people in less than flattering ways, but I don't hold it against the authors: it's an exaggeration of something real, which is the entire point of fiction.
Very informative comment. Thanks
Very bad comment, boo you
Which works depict Europeans negatively in Japan? japanese works are known to depict white people often even as sympathetic cool protagonists such as in Anime’s like Attack on Titan, Fullmetal Alchemist, Resident Evil.
some may portray white people as bad, but they can’t always portray someone as good. the problem with western media is that it consistently dehumanizes non white people, systematically. name one Hollywood production with an Asian lead actor.
I like tolkeins biography movie more than his actual franchise.
Tolkiens' works are really reflective of his time serving in World War 1. Miyazaki incorrectly sees them through the lens of World War 2.
Yes.
Tbf a LOT of people even in the west see LOTR through the lens of WW2. Or even modern conflicts, like in Ukraine. They just love moralizing war, and LOTR gives them a well-known metaphor for that. Tolkien would likely be horrified by how many people call other real people 'o*cs' nowadays.
Myazaki's cristicism is fair.
"(The Orcs) have squat, broad, flat-nosed, sallow-skinned, with wide mouths and slant eyes: in fact degraded and repulsive versions of the (to Europeans) least lovely Mongol-types."" - J. R. R. Tolkien
The association between orcs and Asians isn't a "interpretation" some readers got from the text, it came out from the literal mouth of Tolkien. This videos's author omited this fact, for some reason.
@@monnaranzoti732 Copy-pasting your argument doesn't help it, it just makes you seem lazy and like you have a point to push irrespective of whether the OP appeared to initially disagree with you or not.
In this case, Augmenautus said 'Tolkien used his experiences in The Great War as a point of reference, Miyazaki erroneously looked at it as though it was the second world war' and you responded with 'but racism though'.
yeh the renowned genius is wrong and we should listen to some dungeons and dragons kids instead..
Myazaki just angry that the empire and the god-emporor lost the war. His work is good but like three tiers below anything Tolkien wrote. Tolkein was a genius, Miyazaki is a talented hard worker.Did Miyazaki already forget that his country was basically a god-empoeror with nobility class, and the rest were basically slave farmers? America ended that thankfully.
Tolkien's concept of the orcs predates the Second World War, and it's hard to see Tolkien being unduly influenced by American bias against Japan in conceiving of villains.
Miyazaki sounds like a redditor or a twitter user.
And like them, they can be right from time to time (the whole anime is a mistake and its context for example)
Well, he has apparently said he has "appreciation" for communism as written by Karl Marx. He also is like a modern german who hates their countries past so much they think modern people should still be paying for it.
@@aaronlaughter6471 it goes without saying that broken clocks are occasionally "right"
Damn weebs spoil the j a ps so bad
@@alstjrqkr689 Hey never trust a group who unironically use a word (Otaku, which in japan is a bad thing to be) and use it as a fucking badge of honor.
Tolkien was grumpy but Miyazaki simply doesn't even care to even understands the work he created. The original evil of middle earth comes from the North. Miyazaki is just a sore loser who cannot get over the war and see Japan and the West are now friends.
it doesn't change the fact that orcs in his works are dehumanized despite being sentient beings
you can disagree with him but... calling miyasaki a loser is wild my dude lmao
Whine harder
Judging by some of Miyazaki's other words, I would say he is more of a misanthrope. He seems to lash out at nearly everything, both Japanese and American and even China. He seems to look down upon most of humanity from what I have seen.
It's more like Miyazaki knows both America and Japan are fake: but especially America and he's not entirely wrong. Imperial Japan built it's ideology of racial purity over Korean and Chinese based on American race laws and based their expansion into China as their version of "Manifest Destiny."
Miyazaki grew up in the aftermath of Japan's failed attempt at playing colonialism. He views Imperial Japan as stupid for trying to be like America, current Japan for sucking up to America, and America for being a bunch of violent, genocidal, war exporters.
Absolutely nothing in Tolkien's writing states that elves, dwarves, or hobbits of middle earth were exclusively nordic-looking.
Miyazaki: "makes movies about life"
also Miyazaki: "hates everything in life"
(this is not to be taken seriously, writing this for the brainless)
He is probably the Steve jobs kind of guy. Very perfectionist, a tyrant and the “I am the smartest one in the room”
@@doraemon61377 he's not really a tyrant but he's a traditional leftist, you can tell because of his strong views.
@@1ycan-eu9ji yeah but you don’t need to impose your views on others
Toeken fanboys going wild in the comments with the ad hominem attacks just because somebody dares to not like LoTR, lmao
@@darthvadeth6290
Miyazaki fans still reeling from the fact Howls Moving Castle lost to Wallace and Gromit in the 2005 Oscars I see.
Miyazaki also hates in his words "everything that parades its righteousness" like "the righteousness of the US, the righteousness of Islam, the righteousness of China, the righteousness of this or that ethnic group, the righteousness of Greepeace" because "they all claim to be righteouss, but they all try to coerce other into complying with their own standards" so by those quotes we can already see that even if he didn't have misinterpreted this anti-east bias he would still hate Lord of the Rings since it shows that there is a side that is objectivelly good and other objectivelly evil, he would interpret it as self righteousness.
The Eternal Centrist....
@@Fridaey13txhOktober He's not centrist, he's a localist. Ironically much like Tolkien. Both of them dreamed of a world with a multitude of local cultures that each do their own thing. And opposed imperialism, and Hollywood, for spreading more of a monoculture. They both celebrated diversity - true diversity, not how the American left uses that term today.
He sounds like an incredibly exhausting person to be around
I think you have a very good point here.
Ultimately Miyazaki is much like Tolkien in that he loves his own works but hates the modern world and everything about it. Two men who would rather have lived centuries before our time.
The Orks are literally corrupted Elves, one of the two races created by the God of that world.
why do they have darker skin in LOTR while Elves are white
@@dtmt502 Why are Demons generally depicted as Red? It’s because they are corrupted. It’s not a race thing it’s a Good vs Evil thing. Evil in fantasy is always ugly.
@@dtmt502 Your brain is sure working right (not). Darkness and light are often metaphorical representations around stories from around the world. In Near Eastern or any other folklore there’s always something about depicting darkness that isn’t viewed with full innocence and joy.
@@ophanimangel3143it's just your typical dull story of 'good' vs 'evil', white vs black
@@dtmt502Irony is that we see racism, sexism as ideas to be condemned but sure no such thing as actual “evil” or “good”…moral relativism in its full irony.
It's okay because I don't like him or his work the man can't even create a truly cohesive narrative. Many fans love his movies but even they cannot explain the plot to me when I'm scratching my head going what the hell is going on in every one of his movies I've ever seen. I think people just like the look of his movies because they don't make any sense...
Miyazaki's point is just plain flimsy from whichever way you look at it. His own works have never portrayed Western (or any non-Japanese in my experience) cultures in a good light, but he wants to play that card against Tolkein? Tolkein himself even shut down the theories that his stories were based on real world events, and specifically the second world war, very vehemently, likely before Miyazaki even read or saw the stories.
you view the world though a lens of "fairness". You probably call people hypocrites often. Miyazaki is simply taking a side and it is his good right. There's no contradiction in disliking someone's work for showing your culture in a bad light, while you show their culture in a bad one also.
@vornamenachname594 The thing is that Tolkien explicitly said the Easterlings weren't some allegory for asians. And if you think numenoreans were portrayed as the good guys you definitively didn't read the Silmarillion...
@@igorlopes7589well tbf, Numenoreans ARE the good guys.
Considering God sunk the vast majority of them, and Gondar and the Harad killed the rest of the bad one overtime
@@vornamenachname594 Yes, he is taking a side, but he is also a hypocrite, especially, when he talks so much about how in LOTR the barbaric "evil" enemies are based on asians, when it was his own nation and culture, Japan, which committed many atrocities against neighboring asian countries.
for many asian countries, Japan is that evil barbaric people based on history.
@vornamenachname594 the contradiction is it not being true. He's simply putting his own feelings of cultures into other artworks
3:22 Miyazaki is totally right on the part about "meaningless deaths".
This might sound like a strange example, but if you have ever ran a Dungeons & Dragons campaign, you will know the experience of players going out of their way to help a local goblin community that has been making hit-and-run attacks on a nearby town's trade caravans to peacefully resolve their issues with the encroaching human settlements, instead of, you know, just driving the goblins away so the new settlements can thrive.
Nothing seems to be harder than just getting the players to "play the game like it's Lord of the Rings", despite the game being directly inspired by Lord of the Rings.
Maybe I'll try drawing inspiration from some of Miyazaki's works and see how it turns out.
That's because most DnD players nowadays wear lipstick and programming socks. They can't even begin to roleplay as men because they have lost the reference to what it's like being one.
@@gurriato harsh but you really nailed that answer. Everyone I've heard IRL talking about their group of friends' DnD campaign has only been in the last 4 years or so and fully fits that description. the pastime has been taken over by modern-day schoolmarm adult children that treat the spirit of what Tolkien wrote about with pure disdain and disgust, while wearing all the pop culture fantasy junk that was inspired by it like a skinsuit. "Heroism" to them is how hard they can cry about others' suffering while doing absolutely nothing about it.
I can only guess the men (and women too, but who don't feel the need to pretend they're male heroes) that were building up that subculture since before I was born have moved on to actually have families and pass down their values to future generations. They at least have that over the bullies that want to turn everything they held dear from their youth into a monument to the latters' despairing broken souls.
This seems to be just a conflict of beliefs and preferences of world building. Why is it an issue if some DnD players take a more humanitarian route in addressing the Goblins? I'm failing to see the issue here. I'm all for driving the goblins away with strategic brute strength but...part of the interesting ways in which the world works and in LoTR is that whilst aggression and strength is essential in fighting, a nuance of understanding and help is ever-present. Calling the players the equivalent of "sissies" in a most likely derogatory manner seems to be just a matter of arbitrary opinion rather than "truth". Which is ironic coming from dorks like us who got the same uncharacteristic insults in our life for being into this nerdy stuff from the start.
Idk bro, seems lame...
@@gurriato This seems to be just a conflict of beliefs and preferences of world building. Why is it an issue if some DnD players take a more humanitarian route in addressing the Goblins? I'm failing to see the issue here. I'm all for driving the goblins away with strategic brute strength but...part of the interesting ways in which the world works and in LoTR is that whilst aggression and strength is essential in fighting, a nuance of understanding and help is ever-present. Calling the players the equivalent of "sissies" in a most likely derogatory manner seems to be just a matter of arbitrary opinion rather than "truth". Which is ironic coming from dorks like us who got the same uncharacteristic insults in our life for being into this nerdy stuff from the start.
Idk bro, seems lame...
D&D was not "directly inspired" by Lord of the Rings, in fact Gygax personally disliked it, and only included things like elves/dwarves/etc. to appease the others at TSR who were fans of it.
Of the many inspirations that lead to D&D, the strongest is classic sword and sorcery fiction, like the Conan stories. Read some of those, and especially read books by Jack Vance, and you will understand why D&D players act the way they do. The game is tailor made to emulate that style of fiction; characters making and breaking alliances with unconventional factions, like goblins in your example, is expected. Don't try to force D&D to be something it's not, i.e. heroic fantasy.
And then Miyazaky makes a movie about a dreamer and airplane engineer and keeps quiet about what happened in Manchuria. Don't hide behind the West Hayao.
Yeah, it's a bit precious to have him go on about racial superiority and militarism in the West, given that World War II was fundamentally about defeating people who believed themselves racially superior and liberating the "inferior" peoples suffering under their boot, and guess which side of that war Japan was on, and which side of it England was on? Guess who voluntarily gave back all the land they stole from China (Western Europe), who had to be forced to give it back (Japan) and guess who never gave anything back (Russia)? I mean, I despise the history of Western imperialism, and every kind of imperialism, but as Miyazaki would say, a bit of 'self-awareness' doesn't hurt.
@@mikicerise6250 So cos he was Japanese, that somehow means he can't criticise other countries? He didn't like Japan's role in the war either so what's ur point?
@@anonisnoone6125 Well for one thing, the survival rate of POWs taken by the Japanese is close to 0%. Take that in for a second, then think about whether this narrative of the evil exterminationist West versus the pure peaceful East makes any fing sense.
@@mikicerise6250 Stupidly irrelevant, so, Miyazaki did all that? how that makes a point on context? Not to mention Japan does nothing today.
Not as bad as writing a book about operation Barbarossa before WW2 even begun.
Excellent video, my friend. Well debated points, serious thoughts and respect. Well done! Also, very good choice of images. I was hooked.
Here's the problem though. He actually LOVES the BOOKS, he defends the books in that same quote, he referenced Gondor in Castle in the Sky and also put The Hobbit on a list of best children's books. You are spreading misinformation. He talked about the movies here, and yes he sounds likes he's talking out of his ass because he probably is and he probably never saw the films as he stopped actively watching movies almost completely somewhere in the 90s. He was aggravated by the war in Iraq and american blockbusters were an easy target, except he didn't even realize the LOTR movies weren't really made by Americans.
It would be nice to have a source reference, since the uploader has Miyasaki sounding like he hasn't read the books and is just being wholesale critical of American filmmaking (not wholly unjustified, even before 2020).
@@HuntingTarg Well the source for everything he said and more can be found in the book Starting Point
Finally. I just wrote this! This is insanity. I Wonder why this Channel does that. The Clickbait ist fine and this Video could be 95 percent the same and people would liked this one. Misleading information....
I think Miyazaki's statements reveal more about himself than about Tolkien's work. I can't understand how one could see Asians in orcs, but when you're fixated on a certain point, you're able to see all sorts of things everywhere. The truth is that The Lord of the Rings is full of subtle Christian motifs: personal evil, the battle of good versus evil, the significant role of hope, temptation as a moral trial, etc. And I believe that this is the main reason for the disdain towards The Lord of the Rings. Miyazaki has repeatedly expressed his disgust for Christian aesthetics.
Typical atheist.
well Japans known a little about christianity in their masses its ok Miyazaki dont see christian references cause he dont knowing about it.
@@Padrino_Tommy I'm not talking about Japan, but about Miyazaki. He is not a fool. He knows Western philosophy and he is simply disgusted by the cross.
“Torture symbolism Christ is repulsive, I’d go insane having to look at it every day. I am glad to be Buddhist with calming Guanyin...”
He sees the cross only as a symbol of torture, not as a sacrifice made out of love.
I agree, he seems very biased. Considering where Tolkien is from and the time he wrote the books one could easily ascertain Sauron and Mordor to Nazi Germany or Soviet Russia but I guess that wouldn't be racist so. Also, it makes even more sense if he dislikes Christianity. Japanese have this philosophy where they believe we as humans are capable of anything if we try hard enough, a theme seen in many animes but apparently venerating the most supreme act of selflessness which is self-sacrifice is disgusting. Fact is, like in LOTR, more often than not there is an enemy, and that enemy is people, under the influence of ignorance or misguidance matters not. The LOTR universe is fictional. If you want to see asians in orcs or africans in goblins I guess you are free to do so. So the british are men, the elves must be swedes, the hobbits are swiss and who are the dwarves? The greek? Lol.
Man would hate Eiji Tsuburaya I guess
Quoting Cowboy Bebop, I think that the answer is that people who are the same just can't help but hate each other.
When hayao Miyazaki saw the orcs, he thought of asians and africans.
I thought that only chronically online leftwingers believed this. This is sad
Just curious. Did Miyazaki ever go on record with his thoughts regarding the wartime Japanese mistreatment ( to put it very mildly) of the Koreans, Chinese, Filipinos, and others? (BTW, I’m not taking anything away from Miyazaki’s work. He’s a genius and created work of lasting beauty.)
He is probably the Steve jobs kind of guy. A perfectionist, a tyrant and a “I am the smartest one in the room” kind.
He isn't very fond of Japan either specially the Imperial era.
I just came from another video on why he hates America, and apparently he hates Japan too, to put it simply, he hates any country ties to war.
Toeken fanboys going wild in the comments with the ad hominem attacks just because somebody dares to not like LoTR, lmao
@@darthvadeth6290 the problem is he probably never have read LOTR and asserted something that is antithetical to what Tolkien put in the LOTR. He has done the same thing with some Works like Earthsea which he eventually backpedaled after actually reading it.
This just goes to show that just because you create beautiful works of storytelling that resonate with people. It doesn't necessarily mean you are good at critiquing others authors work.
So basically the fact that there’s a good/evil struggle and a great many brutal wars/ battles depicted in Tolkien’s works is what bugs him? Even though they agree on so many themes in their works and both clearly exhibit great reverence for nature and peace and simple joys. I think Tolkien’s life experiences in war and chaos really affected him, of course, and so had to outlet into his works. I think he’s saying evil is war, evil is the quest for power for the sake of power at the expense of everyone and everything else. But it IS, all the same. It’s been a constant threat throughout history and so he confronts this truth, and juxtaposes it with his ideal society/way of life (the hobbits). Perhaps Miyazaki would rather not create or consume any works so seeped in the themes of war and “fighting evil” etc…regardless of how they’re being used or why they’re there?
He is probably the Steve jobs kind of guy. A perfectionist, a tyrant and a “I am the smartest one in the room” kind.
Chad Father Tolkien: "I despise allegory in all its forms"
Bad Father Miyazaki: "The orcs are literally me!"
The Easterlings: "Are we a joke to you?"
Miyazaki exemplifies a very specific strain of Japanese thought which is convinced of its superiority but forced to grapple with the nation's near total military, economic, and cultural subjugatation by a barbarian nation. He can't rationally deny that Japan was the aggressor or that America won so he settles for an invented moral superiority where his peaceful rural protagonist live in harmony with nature before modern industrial warmongers attack them unprovoked.
nonsense, he is as left wing as one can get and he doesn't hold punches when it comes to criticism of Japan warmongering.
@dutchmilak agreed I think he's kinda blackpilled to japanese and western thoughts since yknow one ruined their own country through warfare and the other litersllly changed their entire culture and way of life through warfare. He also seems very petty and not totally rational in alot of his arguments so I just think he has a bleak shitty view on the world.
Liked the video, and the sincere and knowledgeable defense of Tolkien's views, beautiful!
I think both Tolkien and Miyazaki view heroism in different light; in Tolkien it is linked to adventure, conflict and overcoming (like in the medieval myths he liked) while in Miyazaki it is in compassion, understanding and a more "taoist" idea of quietism. But even in Tolkien you have characters like Gandalf, who advise against vengeance and cruelty for cruelty's sake. The most powerful underlying action was Bilbo sparing Gollum's life.
I love his movies but the more I learn about Miyazaki's views, the less respect I have for him as a person. That Indiana Jones comment alone really rubbed me the wrong way. He comes across as the kinda person that if I were to watch a movie or show from 2001, he'd be right there to remind me that it came out the same year as 9/11 like gee thanks for ruining the mood, dude
Or the type that thinks every film needs to have a message, and if it doesn't, then its shlock.
To be fair Indiana Jones movie are overrated; only the third one is good.
@@cashewnuttel9054 Factually Wrong. First and Third one are great, the second one is ok.
@@cashewnuttel9054 The quality of the films themselves is completely irrelevant here. We're talking about moral grand standing escapism so I don't why you felt to bring up how overrated you think these movies are other than to show us that you're super different and what not
Well, the more I hear about Miyazaki, The more disenfranchised with him I am. Both and how he treats his son and what he said about his son and the lack of being a good father for his son and also is hateful words toward Tolkien… That paired with his excusing Japanese war crimes and some of his movies all compounded to give him a pretty negative character. I still enjoy his films, but I don’t really like him anymore
Tolkien wouldn't have burdened himself with Miyazaki's opinion on the matter.
“Some who have read the book, or at any rate have reviewed it, have found it boring, absurd, or contemptible; and I have no cause to complain, since I have similar opinions of their works, or of the kinds of writing that they evidently prefer.”
- Tolkien in the pre text notes on Lord of the Rings
He does know that Lord of the Rings,and all of Tolkien’s Works are supposed to be applicable? They’re not allegories? Tolkien wrote that down! Though I suppose he didn’t! I respect Miyazaki but he seems like one who cares for only what he thinks and thinks not of what anyone else thinks… which is often how I am… and is sort of a bizarre exemplification for me not to be that way, as to not seem petty.
Well one can look at Miyazaki's relation to his family and his son. And one can look at Tolkiens relationship to his family when alive and there's a huge contrast and difference.
For Miyazaki it's more an escapism as someone who jas a dark outlook on the world and life. Meanwhile tolkien himself had a deep profound love to nature, community akd so on which he saw as applicable and detested the industrialization of the modern world. He despised nature becoming trivialized.
@@Andalaeknir86 The one thing they share in common above all else is a love of nature, and a dislike for rampant industrialization. Though Tolkien's views where more nuanced, as a lot of his ire was directed at those who chose to industrialize at the expense of nature, as he felt there had to be way to industrialize without destroying the land in which you live. Whereas Miyazaki lives in a country that has to some extent, at least more than any other, managed to put that ideal into practice, and yet still finds fault.
Talk about grasping at straws. It's one thing to not like something, it's something else entirely to try that hard to be offended.
Tolkien was the greater artist and the frankly. The better man. Tolkien wasn’t a war profiteer inlike the Miyazakis. And unlike Miyazaki who lived sheltered and with privilege, Tolkien actually fought in WW1. And despite what Miyazaki would tell you he didn’t turn into a monster. Rather he came out of the trenches a stronger man with a newfound appreciation for humanity.