Miyazaki, the second of four brothers, was born in the town of Akebono-cho, part of Tokyo's Bunkyō-ku. During World War II, Miyazaki's father Katsuji was director of Miyazaki Airplane, owned by his brother (Hayao Miyazaki's uncle), which made rudders for A6M Zero fighter planes. During this time, Miyazaki drew airplanes and developed a lifelong fascination with aviation, a penchant that later manifested as a recurring theme in his films.

Miyazaki's mother was a voracious reader who often questioned socially accepted norms. Miyazaki later said that he inherited his questioning and skeptical mind from her. His mother underwent treatment for spinal tuberculosis from 1947 until 1955, and so the family moved frequently. Miyazaki's film My Neighbor Totoro is set in that time period and features a family whose mother is similarly afflicted.

Miyazaki attended Toyotama High School. In his third year there, he saw the film Hakujaden, which has been described as "the first-ever Japanese feature length color anime". His interest in animation began in this period; however, in order to become an animator, he had to learn to draw the human figure, since his prior work had been limited to airplanes and battleships.

After high school, Miyazaki attended Gakushuin University, from which he would graduate in 1963 with degrees in political science and economics. He was a member of the "Children's Literature research club," the "closest thing to a comics club in those days".

In April 1963, Miyazaki got a job at Toei Animation, working as an in-between artist on the anime Watchdog Bow Wow (Wanwan Chushingura). He was a leader in a labor dispute soon after his arrival, becoming chief secretary of Toei's labor union in 1964.

In October 1965, he married fellow animator Akemi Ota, who later left work to raise their two sons, Gorō and Keisuke. Gorō is now an animator and filmmaker, and has directed Tales from Earthsea at Studio Ghibli. Keisuke is a wood artist who has created pieces for the Ghibli Museum and who made the wood engraving shown in the Studio Ghibli film Whisper of the Heart.

Hayao Miyazaki's dedication to his work has often been reported to have impacted negatively his relationship with his son Gorō.

Joe Hisaishi was born in Nakano, Nagano, Japan as Mamoru Fujisawa (藤澤 守 Fujisawa Mamoru). When he started to take violin lessons at age five, Hisaishi discovered his passion for music. Realizing his love, he attended the Kunitachi College of Music to major in music composition in 1969. Hisaishi collaborated with music minimalists as a typesetter, furthering his experience in the musical world.

He enjoyed his first success of the business in 1974, when he composed music for a small animation called Gyatoruzu. This and other early works were created under his real name. During this period, he composed for Sasuga No Sarutobi (Academy of Ninja) and Futari Taka (A Full Throttle).

In the 1970s, Japanese popular music, electronic music, and new-age music flourished - those genres, as well as the Yellow Magic Orchestra (a Japanese electronic band in 1978-1983), influenced Hisaishi's compositions. He developed his music from the ideals of minimalism and expanded toward orchestral work. Around 1975, Hisaishi presented his first public performance, spreading his name around his community. His first album, MKWAJU, was released in 1981, with its first work, Information, being released a year later.

As his works were becoming well-known, Hisaishi formulated an alias inspired by Quincy Jones, an African-American musician and producer. The name, "Quincy Jones," was retranscribed in Japanese as "Joe Hisaishi." ("Quincy," pronounced "Kuishi" in Japanese, can be written using the same kanji in "Hisaishi"; "Joe" comes from "Jones.") This pseudonym became part of Mamoru Fujisawa and remains with him.

In 1983, with his new name, Hisaishi was recommended by a record company to create an album for Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind. Hisaishi and the director of the animated movie, Hayao Miyazaki, became great friends and worked together on many projects. This big break led to Hisaishi fervently composing more Japanese movie soundtracks; in 1986, Laputa Castle in the Sky was released; later, in the 1990s, Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away were revealed to the public. Hisaishi cemented his reputation as one of the budding anime industry's top musical contributors and his compositions (including eight theatrical films and one OAV) would go on to become one of the very hallmarks of early Anime in the 1980s and 1990s. Hisaishi scored such TV series hits as Sasuga no Sarutobi, Two Down Full Base (both 1982), Sasrygar (1983), Futari Taka (1984) and Honoo no Alpen Rose (1985). He also scored the sci-fi adventure Mospeada (1983), which was later reworked (without his music) into the third segment of Carl Macek's compilation, Robotech. The remaining movies, in order of appearance, are Arion, Totoro (1988), Venus Wars, Kiki's Delivery Service (1989), and Porco Rosso (1992).

As more exposure was given to Hisaishi and the anime industry, Joe Hisaishi's career grew. He not only started a solo career as a musician, but he also started to produce music and create his own label (Wonder Land Inc.). A year later, the label produced its first album, Pretender, in New York.

Because of his hard work throughout the years, Hisaishi has won the Japanese Academy Award for Best Music five times - in 1992, 1993, 1994, 1999, and 2000. He also received the 48th Newcomer Award in 1997 from the Ministry of Education (Public Entertainment Section) and many other music awards as a revered figure in the Japanese movie industry.

In 1998, he provided the soundtrack to the 1998 Winter Paralympics. In 1999, Hisaishi composed the music for the third installment in a series of popular computer-animated educational films about the human body.

In 2001, Hisaishi produced music for Takeshi Kitano's film, Brother, and Hayao Miyazaki's masterpiece, Spirited Away. He also served as executive producer of the Night Fantasia 4 Movement at the Japan Expo in Fukushima 2001. On October 6, Hisaishi made his debut as the film director for Quartet, in addition to writing both its music and script. Quartet received excellent reviews at the Montreal Film Festival. His first soundtrack for a foreign film, Le Petit Poucet, was released in the same year.

Another Miyazaki film, Howl's Moving Castle, for which Hisaishi composed the score, was released on November 20, 2004 in Japan. From November 3 to November 29, 2004, Hisaishi embarked on his "Joe Hisaishi Freedom - Piano Stories 2004" tour with Canadian musicians. In 2005, he composed the soundtrack for the Korean film, Welcome to Dongmakgol (웰컴 투 동막골). Hisaishi has a large fan base in Korea due to the popularity of Miyazaki films.

In 2006, Hisaishi released a studio album, Asian X.T.C., the compositions of which demonstrated a significantly eclectic and contemporary style. The following year, he composed and recorded the soundtrack for Frederic Lepage's film, Sunny and the Elephant, released in 2008, and also for the upcoming Miyazaki film, Ponyo on A Cliff, set to be released in the summer.

In 2008, Hisaishi is composing the soundtrack for I Want to Be a Shellfish (我想成为贝壳/Watashi wa Kani ni Naritai), a post-World War 2 war crimes trial drama - based on the 1959 Tetsutaro Kato novel that was made into a film that same year - that is currently being remade and directed by Katsuo Fukuzawa, starring Masahiro Nakai and Yukie Nakama.

He is one of the most famous directors of anime, or Japanese animated films. Born in Ujiyamada (now Ise), Mie prefecture, Japan, he is a long-term colleague of Hayao Miyazaki and co-head at Studio Ghibli. His four animated films at Studio Ghibli have spanned a remarkable range of genres: war-film (Grave of the Fireflies), romantic drama (Only Yesterday), comedy (My Neighbors the Yamadas), and ecological adventure (Pom Poko). Of these Grave of the Fireflies, in particular, is widely considered one of the greatest animated films ever made.

Graduating from the University of Tokyo French literature course in 1959, Takahata joined the newly-created Tōei Dōga animation company (Toei Animation) where a short time later he met Miyazaki, and also directed his first feature film Hols: Prince of the Sun. Ostracized within the company after the financial failure of the film (despite its artistic success), he and Miyazaki left in order to work together, and collaborated on many other films. Unlike most anime directors, Takahata doesn't draw and never worked as an animator before becoming a full fledged director.

According to Hayao Miyazaki, "Music and study are his hobbies". He was born in the same town as fellow director Kon Ichikawa, while Japanese film giant Yasujiro Ozu was raised by his father in nearby Matsusaka.

He is the chief producer and president of the Japanese animation studio Studio Ghibli. He is renowned as one of Japan's most successful producers after the enormous box office success (in Japan) of many Ghibli films. According to Hayao Miyazaki, "If it were not for Mr. Suzuki, there wouldn't have been Studio Ghibli."

Gorō Miyazaki (宮崎吾朗, Miyazaki Gorō) was born on January 21, 1967 in Tokyo, Japan, the son of Japanese animation director Hayao Miyazaki. He has been reluctant his whole life to follow in his father's footsteps, choosing to work in landscaping rather than animation. But after producer Toshio Suzuki persuaded him to work on the Ghibli Museum he began to be involved in Studio Ghibli.

He was asked to draw the storyboards for the anime film Tales from Earthsea. After his work on those it was decided by Suzuki that Gorō should direct the film.

The move to direct the film led to a rift between Miyazaki and his father; Hayao Miyazaki explicitly expressed that he felt his son did not have the experience to direct a film and the two were not on speaking terms throughout the movie's development. Despite this, the younger Miyazaki was determined to complete the project.

On June 28, 2006, Gorō held the first preview of the completed Tales from Earthsea. Surprisingly, his father attended this preview and "(apparently) accepted Gorō". Later a note was delivered from Hayao to Gorō, reading "It was made honestly, so it was good". What this means exactly for Goro's relationship with his father is unknown, but it seems their previous rift is healing. The film has been selected in the Out of Competition section at the 63rd Venice Film Festival. At the end of 2006, Miyazaki was dubiously given Japan's Bunshun Raspberry Award for "Worst Director" and Tales from Earthsea got the award for "Worst Movie". However in 2007, Tales from Earthsea was nominated for the Japan Academy Prize for Animation of the Year.