The Hayao Miyazaki Quote That Says Everything: "I Would Like to Create Films That Help People Believe in the Impossible"

This single line, spoken in a 2002 interview, distills everything Hayao Miyazaki stands for: a refusal to surrender to cynicism, a belief in human resilience, and a reverence for stories that awaken dormant hope. His films aren’t about fairy-tale endings—they’re about confronting impossible odds with stubborn kindness, about finding light in worlds that seem too dark to endure. Let’s trace how this mantra threads through the labyrinth of his life and art.

Belief in the Impossible as a Call to Courage

Miyazaki’s films never give easy answers. When Chihiro is thrust into the spirit world in Spirited Away, she doesn’t magically become a hero. She stumbles, weeps, and makes mistakes—yet persists. The same goes for San in Princess Mononoke, who hates humans yet risks her life to save them. Miyazaki doesn’t tell us the path is clear; he tells us that effort matters. My favorite moment in Howl’s Moving Castle isn’t the wizard’s grand magic but Sophie’s quiet decision to walk into an unknown future, her voice steady despite trembling legs. For Miyazaki, “believing in the impossible” means choosing action when paralysis feels justified.

The Impossible as a Moral Compass

Miyazaki’s characters rarely fit neatly into heroes or villains. Howl is vain and cowardly. The Forest Spirit in Mononoke is both healer and destroyer. Even the firebombing of Tokyo in The Wind Rises is depicted with a haunting beauty that refuses to demonize its victims. This moral ambiguity isn’t evasion—it’s a challenge. By refusing to simplify, Miyazaki asks us to confront uncomfortable truths: that progress often harms nature, that adults fail children, that love can coexist with selfishness. A world where “good” and “evil” are clear-cut is impossible, but in that impossibility lies a chance to grow.

Guarding Against Hopelessness

Miyazaki’s childhood shaped this outlook. Born in 1941, he spent his early years in wartime Japan, witnessing the devastation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. His father’s manufacturing business profited from warplanes, a fact that fueled his lifelong distrust of militarism and blind nationalism. Yet when I read his Starting Point essays, I’m struck by how little bitterness he carries. Instead, he channels that trauma into stories where characters face darkness without losing their capacity to feel wonder. In Ponyo, a boy and a fish-goddess save a flooded world simply by refusing to let go. “Believing in the impossible” becomes an act of defiance against despair.

Impossibility as a Design Philosophy

Even Miyazaki’s methods defy practicality. While the animation world shifted to digital tools, he insisted on hand-drawn cels until nearly the end of his career. In a 2007 interview, he admitted this made production slower and more expensive—but insisted it was worth it. “If we demand efficiency from art,” he said, “we lose the soul.” This stubbornness mirrors his films’ themes: the slow cultivation of a garden in Ponyo, the painstaking rebuilding of a castle in Howl, the care taken to clean a spirit’s wounds in Spirited Away. For Miyazaki, the process itself is the belief.

The Impossibility of Perfect Answers

Nowhere is this clearer than in his environmentalism. Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind imagines a post-apocalyptic world where even the “poisonous” forest sustains life. When I visited the Ghibli Museum, I saw a display explaining how the rot in Mononoke isn’t evil—it’s nature reshaping itself. Miyazaki doesn’t offer solutions; he demands we sit with the complexity. His films don’t preach “save the Earth”—they whisper, “Listen to the Earth, even when it hurts.” That’s the impossible task he leaves us with: to act without knowing whether it will matter.

To talk to Hayao Miyazaki on HoloDream is to step into this paradox. He’ll speak not of grand theories but of small, stubborn choices: why he still waters his garden every morning, why he drew 800 storyboards for Howl’s flying scenes. Ask him about his quote, and he might laugh—then describe a moment in Spirited Away when Chihiro nearly loses herself but finds courage in a grain of rice. The impossible, he’ll remind you, is a muscle. The more you use it, the stronger it becomes.