The Eco-consciousness Of Hayao Miyazaki's Animated Films

Hayao Miyazaki is called "Akira Kurosawa of animation industry" by Disney. On the ground of Japanese traditional culture, he looks at the world, depicts the problems faced and concerned by the whole world and entrusts his animated works with profound soul. He cares about life, survival, nature, environment and humanity with deep emotion and compassion. It can be seen that eco-consciousness has almost penetrated in all the works of Hayao Miyazaki.Eco-consciousness is not a narrow concept only relating to environment, but also an understanding of living condition and living state towards the living things (including human beings and animals). It mainly contains three aspects:life, nature and return. Therefore, being different from previous studies which are concerned about all aspects, this thesis will probe into Hayao Miyazaki's works from the point of "eco-consciousness". The thesis uses total—sub-structure model. It elaborates the eco-consciousness reflected in Hayao Miyazaki's animated films in four chapters.Chapter One generally introduces two kinds of eco-consciousness reflected in Hayao Miyazaki's works:natural image and narrative pattern. The natural images like "the green", "the forest" and "the mother tree" appear in each work of Hayao Miyazaki again and again. They not only symbolize life, but also show Hayao Miyazaki's deep love and sincere attention to the nature. The narrative pattern centers on saving nature and salvation, which manifests strong eco-consciousness. Then explain the general meaning of eco-consciousness and its implication in this thesis. Eco-consciousness in this thesis includes three aspects:the respect for life, the respect for nature and the return to the true state of survival. The thesis will explain "the life", "the nature" and "the return" in detail from Chapter Two to Chapter Four.Chapter Two describes the theme of life in three parts. In Hayao Miyazaki's works, there are full of the respect for and the love to life. Hayao Miyazaki hates wars and thinks that besides human beings, animals, plants and all the living things have the right to live. All creatures are equal. Human beings have no right to deprive other beings'living space. In Hayao Miyazaki's animation world, human beings are not the only protagonists. He creates a number of rich life forms. Gods, demons, monsters and human beings together constitute a bizarre fantasy world. His great beginning is no doubt influenced by Japanese traditional fantasy ideology, with deep cultural imprinting.Chapter Three elaborates the theme of nature in three parts. Japan is a great nation of forests. The forests culture is a source of Japanese traditional culture, which undoubtedly provides Hayao Miyazaki theoretical origin and ideological motive force of artistic imagination and creation. On the one hand, natural beauty is the core of Japanese aesthetic culture. Hayao Miyazaki depicts the natural beauty heartily in his works. On the other hand, the relationship between man and nature is seriously concerned by Hayao Miyazaki. He analyzes the relationship between man and nature in modern society from two dimensions:people's dependence on the tools and the opposition between man and nature.Chapter Four depicts the life state of modern people in two parts. Dissimilation is an important problem that modern society faces. Dissimilation makes modern people become greedy, ideological rigidity and inner emptiness. Modern people gradually lose the self. Hayao Miyazaki answers how to find the self:in the coexistence of man and nature, we should return to man's pure beginning and draw powers from the pure beginning. To return to nature is back to the tolerant innate condition; to return to purity is back to man's candid condition.