Top animator’s career draws towards close

The Oscar-winner, one of animation’s most admired and successful directors, said that at the age of 72 he wants to do other things besides slaving away over his drawings to meet feature film deadlines.

“I know I’ve said I would retire many times in the past. Many of you must think, ‘Once again’. But this time I am quite serious,” he said.

“This will never happen again,” Miyazaki said at the conclusion of a near two-hour news conference where he shared his thoughts on everything from war to Italian cuisine.

The co-founder of Studio Ghibli, who won an Oscar in 2003 for his critique of modern industrialism in Spirited Away, said he hopes to work for another decade, but at a slower pace that might allow him to perhaps even take Saturdays off.

His studio announced last week that he will stop making feature films following the release in June of his last film, The Wind Rises.