Sakata, Tomoki
2025.
Miyazaki's philosophy of life behind Spirited Away: with respect to Goethe's bildungsroman and Nietzsche's nihilism.
New Readings
20
, pp. 1-23.
10.18573/newreadings.145
|
Preview |
PDF
- Published Version
Available under License Creative Commons Attribution. Download (476kB) | Preview |
Abstract
This article investigates the symbolism of Hayao Miyazaki's Spirited Away. The aim is, without reducing it to a critique of capitalism or a revival of animism, to hermeneutically reconstruct his concept of life and to compare this position with Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Bildungsroman and Friedrich Nietzsche's nihilism. In the first part, Miyazaki's selected interviews are scrutinized to bring his ambivalent perspective towards the nature of life into the foreground. Subsequently, the results are expounded in two additional studies. The juxtaposition with Goethe's novels will show a tension between two aspects of Chihiro's adventure which are related to the vocational functionalism of Montan and Makarie's illuminating benevolence. In regard to nihilism, Nietzsche's renunciation of idealistic sophistries is linked to Miyazaki's cynical comments on post-modern society. But Miyazaki does not resort to the instinctive will to power, as does Nietzsche, but to the primitive intuition of compassion. The necessity of hard work in a society on the one hand and the innate, innocent sociability of a child on the other are unified magically in the realistic drama of Chihiro.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Date Type: | Publication |
| Status: | Published |
| Subjects: | G Geography. Anthropology. Recreation > GV Recreation Leisure |
| Publisher: | Cardiff University Press |
| ISSN: | 1359-7485 |
| Date of First Compliant Deposit: | 17 June 2025 |
| Date of Acceptance: | 10 September 2024 |
| Last Modified: | 24 Jun 2025 08:44 |
| URI: | https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/179113 |
Actions (repository staff only)
 |
Edit Item |
Dimensions
Dimensions