In July Viz Media will release Starting Point: 1979-1996 ($29.99), a 500-page collection of essays, speeches, magazine articles, manga, and interviews that provide a mosaic of the world view of Hayao Miyazaki, the most acclaimed anime director of our modern era.  During the 17 years covered in this volume Miyazaki directed or produced more than 10 classic anime features including Nausicca, Laputa (Castle in the Sky), My Neighbor Totoro, Kiki’s Delivery Service, Porco Rosso, and Princess Mononoke.  Presented in the traditional Japanese right-to-left format, Starting Point is an indispensible collection for the anime enthusiast.

Miyazaki’s latest film, Ponyo on a Cliff By the Sea, is slated for a summer release from Disney/Pixar here in the States, an event that should lead to even greater interest in Starting Point, which was published in Japan as Shuppatsu Ten.  In addition to the anime master's writings on a wide range of subjects ranging from philosophical musings on the nature of animation to plans for specific films, Starting Point also includes lots of Miyazaki’s extremely expressive drawings as well as the 8-page “Kuuchuu de Oshokuji,” an illustrated essay about some little known aspects of the history of aviation that displays Miyazaki’s superb cartooning skills as well as his firm grasp of aeronautics.

In an interview on the Ghibliworld Website, Viz Media editor Nick Mamatas summed up the book this way: “Miyazaki's dreams, at least those involving animation and film, have all come true. This makes him a very straightforward communicator; he's done the near-impossible. At the same time, he has never forgotten what it felt like to be an awkward child or a self-conscious teen. The tension between what he has achieved in his life and emotions that drive him is what really makes the book interesting to me. It's an honest book, one of the most honest I've ever read’’—and one that anyone seriously interested in animation will want to read.