Hayao Miyazaki, director of My Neighbor Totoro, Spirited Away, and Castle in the Sky, was recently interviewed on his thoughts about Japan’s anime industry. Anime News Network reports that in the interview Miyazaki said the problem with the anime industry is that it has too many otaku “…who ‘don’t spend time watching real people’ and are ‘humans who can’t stand looking at other humans.’ ” He believes that to animate people successfully, they must be done by those who spend time observing others. In Japan, otaku are stereotypically introverted and obsessed with anime, usually the term has a negative connotation.
Miyazaki expresses views on Japan’s anime industry