His newest film, “The Boy and The Heron,” released in theaters with little prior announcement and promotion. Now that the director, 83, has produced another structurally complex and visually striking film — in March, it won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature — avid fans and critics alike are reflecting on the transformative impacts he has left during his long, celebrated career.

Animated film far precedes Miyazaki: By the time he entered its complex world, the medium had found global success, especially thanks to animation giant Disney. Moreover, in his native Japan, animated content (commonly referred to as anime) was a beloved alternative to traditional live-action cinema, and its films and television series were — and often still are — adaptations of popular manga, or Japanese comics.

While Miyazaki may not have pioneered animated film, he has still influenced its course greatly. Beginning with Studio Ghibli’s first film, “Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind” (1984), Miyazaki established one of his signature storylines: following young protagonists faced with quests highlighting family, adolescence, environmentalism, war and mortality.

While “Nausicaä” is considered to be fairly graphic and violent, other Miyazaki works such as “My Neighbor Totoro” (1988) and “Ponyo” (2008) follow his classic storyline through a more lighthearted, family-friendly lens. Art of Visual Storytelling teacher Terence Kitada noted the underlying themes in Miyazaki’s works.

“Ghibli movies are not about saving an entire world or kingdom,” he said. “Sure, some are more action-oriented, but they are still stories about family, community or friendship.”

According to Japanese teacher Matt Hall, the visual aesthetics of Miyazaki’s films are integral to his success.

“In fact, a lot of people would argue that Miyazaki is not interested in the story,” Hall said. “He’s interested in the images and aesthetics he creates.”

Miyazaki’s cultivation of a traditional hand-drawn anime style has found incredible success at home and abroad. Many of his earlier films gained acclaim in Japan, and American and other Western audiences soon became familiarized with Miyazaki after “Princess Mononoke” (1997) and “Spirited Away” (2001). In 2002, the latter even became the first foreign entry to win the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature.

“(Miyazaki’s style) doesn’t differ much from the other Japanese animation studios, but he was the first to really nail it,” Hall said. “He’s been in this industry for longer than anyone else.”

Today, Western audiences enjoy anime beyond Miyazaki and Ghibli works. Series such as “One Piece” (1999) and “My Hero Academia” (2016) have reached widespread success. Additionally, the release of Ghibli’s blockbusters like “Spirited Away” and “Princess Mononoke” converged with the introduction of franchises like Yu-Gi-Oh and Hello Kitty, creating what Hall refers to as a major “2000s wave” in Japanese pop-culture popularity. Miyazaki’s works introduced Western viewers to Japanese and Asian cultural values, Kitada said.

“There’s this one five-minute scene in Ghibli’s ‘Ponyo’ where the characters make ramen together, and it’s so purposeful,” Kitada said. “It’s very logical to bring childhood memories to Japanese audiences, but I don’t know if you’d see the same thing being done in an American movie like ‘Frozen.’ In that sense, Ghibli movies expose people to Japanese values and different ways of looking at the world.”

All in all, while the popularity of anime far preceded Miyazaki’s iconic tenure with Studio Ghibli, the influence of his work is undeniable for audiences and the industry alike.

“Go around and find the best anime creators around the world and go, ‘Who is your number-one influence?’” Hall said. “I guarantee you the name that will come out is Miyazaki.”

“There’s something lost in translation of the choices of using the comparison of bread and the board because bread-making is a difficult task,” she said. “You have a larger appreciation for the derivation of the expression if you know the literal meaning as well as what the expression figuratively means.”

Another example of a phrase that loses its richness when translated is the Vietnamese saying “lá lành dùm lá rách,” which translates to “good leaf shelters torn leaf.” The expression has become a resounding message of empathy and solidarity among Vietnamese people, according to Vietnamese Culture Club Vice President sophomore Chilton Chau.

“The actual meaning of this is that good people will support and protect those who are vulnerable or in need,” he said. “The more fortunate people should try to help everybody else out, especially those less fortunate.”

Vietnam’s largely agricultural and rice-dependent culture imbues this saying with additional meaning, since popular rice dishes consumed during holidays like T?t are wrapped in tree leaves and steamed. When torn leaves are reinforced with whole leaves, the rice cakes inside will not crack. This imagery advises people to lend a compassionate helping hand, an aspect those unfamiliar with Vietnamese culture may not catch.

Chau also believes that a reliance on nature most distinguishes Vietnamese sayings from English ones.

“If you see Vietnam, there’s a lot of trees, and it’s tropical and warm,” Chau said. “Because Vietnamese people have always been surrounded by nature and trees, I think that’s where these phrases come from — living as one with the environment.”

Meanings lost in translation also pose an issue when it comes to internationally best-selling novels that have found their way into the Western market, including Fyodor Dostoevsky’s “Crime and Punishment.” Cultural differences can sometimes be muddled in pursuit of a “pure” translation, challenging not only translators of these texts but also their readers.

For instance, when English teacher Diane Ichikawa tried to describe protagonist Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov’s giddy nature to a Russian-speaking friend, she found that a one-word characterization in Russian took at least a sentence or two in English.

“Culture and language are intertwined inextricably,” Ichikawa said. “There’s no way to be able to translate from one very different culture to another different culture with ease and facility.”

That said, Ichikawa believes that technological advancements have weakened, if not removed, the barrier of cultural differences.

“In the 1970s and 80s, there was this explosion of multicultural literature,” she said. “You had people who were trying to write about their cultural experiences in English but they would do this thing where they would say something in, for example, Chinese and then in parentheses next to it, translate it into English. Now, I think the trend is that — especially because we have search engines at the tips of our fingers — if we read something in another language and we don’t quite get it, if we are that invested in it, we have the ability to look it up.”

Premature deaths of LGBTQ+ characters aren’t isolated incidents. Fans have observed that shows with LGBTQ+ representation tend to rely on harmful tropes and unvaried or inaccurate characterization.

Junior Olivia Souter said this pattern originates from the Hays Code, self-enforced industry guidelines that restricted what content could be shown onscreen between 1930 and 1968. While adherence was not legally required, studios that violated the code could face consequences such as boycotts and loss of their production seal.

“One of those (rules) was that your characters must be straight,” Souter said. “If there are any kisses on screen, they have to be between a man and (a woman).”

In a cinematic world where “good” always triumphed, characters who presented against the straight, white, cisgender ideal were condemned for even existing. Queer characters were often subjected to brutal, gruesome deaths, especially in horror movies such as the “Scream” franchise, “Final Destination” and “The Children’s Hour.”

“You might say, ‘Why is the queer character the one that dies first and dies the most brutally?’” Souter said. “But if you’re outside of the (LGBTQ+) community, and you don’t know the implications of that, you’re just like, ‘Oh, it’s a horror movie, everyone has brutal deaths.’”

The main purpose of these deaths was shock value, so these characters and their stories didn’t lead to meaningful representation, according to Souter.

“People have to die in television,” she said. “That’s just kind of the way it works. But it’s this way of giving queer fans just a tiny little bit of what their relationship could be, and then immediately taking it away in such a brutal way.”

One of these tropes, “Bury Your Gays” — in which queer characters are subjected to tragic, untimely deaths in an attempt to evoke an emotional audience response — disproportionately affected lesbian characters, hurting the LGBTQ+ community.

“Queer fans are tired of seeing their characters die,” Souter said. “Because if that’s all the media is showing, then you’ll believe all you’re good for is dying for someone else’s story.”

Even though television shows, movies and books are moving away from these arcs, other problems have begun to arise, such as stereotypes about how LGBTQ+ characters should act, dress and behave based on their identity. Queer men are often associated with flamboyance and femininity, while queer women are portrayed as masculine or tomboyish.

According to junior Phoebe Mota-Judges, being exposed to a narrow range of perspectives limits one’s self-expression and can skew people’s relationship with their identity.

“It’s always bothered me, when how someone looks and dresses is equated to their sexuality,” Mota-Judges said. “Because even though there can be influence, there is no right and wrong way to ‘look gay.’”

Junior Noah Murase has observed similar problems with how the media utilizes cookie-cutter plotlines for LGBTQ+ characters to avoid losing audience traction.

“Two people can say they’re bisexual and both be bisexual, but have completely different interpretations that are both completely valid,” he said. “Being queer is a unique experience to every person.”

Souter encourages creators and audiences to educate themselves on harmful queer tropes and avoid holding LGBTQ+ protagonists to different standards than their heterosexual counterparts.

“They’re just two people who are in love, or they’re just a person who’s trying to figure themselves out,” Souter said. “If you treat it like it’s this big thing that requires a joke at every turn, and they can’t hold a conversation without talking about (being queer), that’s not going to go the way it should.”

Similarly, Mota-Judges hopes that the media industry makes more space for diverse identities and experiences.

“It would be nice to see more diverse representation getting celebrated and accepted — not just stories that are about struggle,” she said. “They could be science fiction, going on crazy adventures, solving murder mysteries.”

For Souter, heartfelt, dynamic stories that don’t rely on stereotypical and harmful characterizations of queer characters can have a lasting impact.

“Representation is really, really important, especially in media that’s aimed at kids, teenagers and young adults,” Souter said. “Because being able to see someone onscreen who looks like you, acts like you, has similar disabilities or loves the same way that you do is really, really powerful.”

The past few years have seen an upsurge in film or visual-media counterparts to popular childhood book series. Junior Stella Su remembers watching several older adaptations of her favorite childhood books — including “Harry Potter,” “The Giver” and “James and the Giant Peach” — and thinks adaptations may be going downhill.

Composition and Literature of Visual Media teacher Justin Brown said that the rubric for a good adaptation has many dimensions. In his experience, the best and most satisfying adaptations stay true to the original novel: capturing the theme, understanding the characters and imitating the writer’s style.

“In a movie, you need to have conflict in every single moment — otherwise, the audience gets bored,” Brown said. “There needs to be something at stake every moment. And a part of what’s wonderful about books is they just provide a texture to the characters in a way that films can rarely do now.”

Another problem, Brown notes, is that many directors struggle to compress the full depth of a novel into one movie. This notion is shifting, however, as many adaptations such as “Percy Jackson” move away from the movie format and into a multi-episode show.

“Now, so much mainstream entertainment is about serialized streaming stories where they’re going to spend six seasons adapting a book,” Brown said. “Those are situations where you can really do justice to it.”

Su agrees that attempting to cram a large amount of content into a film can ruin the pacing but also notices how adaptations of shorter books, such as “The Giver,” tend to stretch out unnecessary scenes and include their own details.

Freshman Ofer Kranz, who has read the “Percy Jackson” book series and watched both the movie and recent show adaptations, also appreciates the benefits of a series. She recalls the anticipation she and other fans felt waiting for the first episode to air.

“I forced my parents to watch it,” Kranz said. “It was good, really good. And I thought, ‘Finally, it’s here. Finally, we can breathe.’” Though there were a few disappointments with pacing and altered scenes, Kranz recognizes that there is no perfect adaptation and recommends the “Percy Jackson and the Olympians” show for its stronger fidelity to the book series than its movie counterparts.

“They looked at more independent details that weren’t really portrayed in movies,” Kranz said. “They did a really good job with the characters and other details so I definitely prefer the series to the movies, but the books will always be on top.”

With these recent adaptations, Su also hopes to see tributes to smaller book series, and underappreciated or newer novels.

“It’s kind of a shame that (companies) usually only adapt books when they get really popular because a lot of times they try to bank on the already existing popularity,” Su said. “And so obviously some good books don’t get adapted.”

While the studio has produced successful films in the Multiverse Saga, such as 2021’s “Spider-Man: No Way �鶹��ӳ���” — which accumulated over $1 billion in the box office and received a 93% critical rating — many viewers have noticed and criticized the lower quality of more recent projects. Two of the three Marvel films released in 2023 received relatively low critic and fan ratings. According to Rotten Tomatoes, “The Marvels” garnered a 62% critical consensus while “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” received a mere 46%. Conversely, 2017’s “Thor: Ragnarok” received a 93% and 2018’s “Black Panther” attained a 96%.

While English teacher Terence Kitada, who worked as a Marvel intern in 2007, believes that multiple plotlines branching out with no clear connection is contributing to the films’ decline in popularity.

“(Currently, there are) these weird and disconnected storylines,” he said. “In the Infinity Saga, it’s all building towards one story, and so (there was) a clear story arc. Now it’s like, ‘Oh hey, here’s “The Eternals” if you want that, and here’s “Shang-Chi” or “She-Hulk.”’ Do they connect? ‘No, but let’s just keep on making things and see what happens.’”

Senior Jeri Lieberman-Evans believes that Marvel’s historical popularity is difficult to maintain after multiple successful projects with many different plotlines and characters.

“Part of (the decline) could be the general opinion is changing because Marvel is such a big film franchise,” she said. “When they make good movies, they’re overhyped and when they’re bad, like ‘Morbius,’ they get overhyped in the other direction.”

Furthermore, Marvel’s traditional role as the superhero trendsetter, coupled with its release of mediocre films and television shows, has contributed to a phenomenon called “superhero fatigue.” Though Marvel set a high standard with several blockbusters, recent declines in its films’ overall quality have exhausted cliches and are beginning to wear out fans and viewers.

Since the finale of “Avengers: Endgame” in 2019, there have also been departures of multiple actors at the heart of the franchise, including Chris Evans (Captain America), Scarlett Johansson (Black Widow) and Robert Downey Jr. (Iron Man). The legacies of these actors are etched into Marvel’s history, and the studio has had difficulties establishing new central characters since.

While Marvel has not been successful in box offices recently, there is time and hope for the franchise to return to its previous success. Indeed, some of Marvel’s staple attractions remain: Marvel Club President senior Kaitlyn Gonzales points to the franchise’s ability to transport viewers to fictional worlds.

“I feel like the characters have a lot of versatility when it comes to putting (fans) in their position or identifying with them,” she said. “(The franchise) also serves as an escape from reality. In everyday life, you’re not going to face a supervillain that has powers.”

With the highly anticipated release of “Deadpool & Wolverine” this summer, Marvel will look to reset and transition the franchise into a new phase.

“There’s still an appetite in the sense that people still watch (Marvel) movies,” Kitada said. “However, (Marvel writers and directors) have to find a different way to capture the audience or go in a different direction.”

Traditionally, female narratives center around service, obedience and helplessness. The push for a more diverse, equitable and truthful depiction of women has turned a new page in the history of literature.

Representation in literature depends on representation in authorship. According to a 2023 paper by American economist Joel Waldfogel, in the 19th century, only 10% of books in the Library of Congress had authors with female first names. While this measure does not account for female authors who — like George Eliot — used pseudonyms to disguise their gender, the disparity remains stark: The male-dominated field resulted in books that mostly included male perspectives, in which women were only secondary characters.

These pieces of literature are now part of the American literary canon, which comprises the works deemed highest quality and most important, such as “The Great Gatsby” or “1984.” English teacher Paul Dunlap tries to subvert this trend in his classroom by teaching a mix of canonical works and more female-centric novels.

“What I used to call ‘the canon’ was pretty male-centric and women were peripheral characters,” he said. “I think we’re doing a better job inviting people to read stories that put women as central characters.”

This idea is mirrored in American literary historian Cynthia Griffin Wolff’s “A Mirror for Men: Stereotypes of Women in Literature,” in which she explores themes that seem missing from most historical literature, including motherhood and marriage (or the choice not to), private life, loss of beauty and menopause.

Instead, women are only caretakers — mothers, sisters, wives — or love interests. In Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s “Crime and Punishment,” for example, the female characters all fall under either one of these categories and interact with other characters within the confines of these roles.

More multifaceted and truthful depictions of women started appearing on a larger scale in the 1970s. English teacher Tarn Wilson, who is also a published author, notes that during this time period, a major gender shift in the publishing industry paved the way for better representation of women: According to Waldfogel, the number of female-authored books in the Library of Congress reached 18% by 1960.

Since the early 2000s, books aimed at teenagers have changed dramatically, as have their demands, leading to more accurate characterizations of women. The 2000s saw a revival of the science fiction and fantasy genres in young-adult fiction. These novels included strong-willed, powerful female protagonists.

Published in 2008, Suzanne Collins’ “Hunger Games” trilogy features Katniss Everdeen, a young woman, fighting against an oppressive government. “The Hunger Games” trilogy was an instant hit, initiating a trend of dystopian novels in which women save their worlds, such as the “Divergent” trilogy by Veronica Roth and “Shatter Me” series by Tahereh Mafi.

While these series do contain strong romance arcs, they portray women as more than just caretakers or secondary characters. They are now the protagonists of their own story, making hard decisions and showing an array of emotions.

Senior Fiona Li has seen a growing trend of fleshed-out female characters, with titles such as Alice Walker’s novel “The Color Purple” and Abraham Verghese’s novel “The Covenant of Water” rising to the fore.

“Now, if you look at best-sellers, YA, romance and others, you see a lot of books with female protagonists where it’s based on their life and there’s not as much emphasis on a love story,” Li said.

Diversity in literature allows non-women readers to better understand women’s experiences. American author Toni Morrison’s Nobel Prize speech reflects this idea, according to Dunlap.

‘“Tell us what it is to be a woman so that we may know what it is to be a man,’” he said, quoting Morrison’s speech. “We read literature to empathize with other people, and that’s the only way we can learn about others.”