Pixar Animation Studios' chief creative officer John Lasseter is no stranger to Japanese animation. He can count himself as one of the chosen friends of seminal director Hayao Miyazaki. His animation career has led him to meet more important people than just Miyazaki; namely his wife, although technically he can credit Miyazaki with that, too.

Lasseter shared that while hosting a party at his apartment in San Francisco in 1985, he showed scenes from Lupin III: The Castle of Cagliostro to computer graphics applications major Nancy, a woman he met at a computer graphics conference. The movie held a special importance for John, and Nancy loved it. Three years later, the couple got married and put their mutual interest in 3D graphics into practice with three-dimensional wedding pictures.



Lasseter shared the story as an opener for the two-day U.S. theatrical screening of Miyazaki's 1979 film. The screening celebrates the 50th anniversary of the Lupin III franchise.

Lupin III: The Castle of Cagliostro was the first feature film Miyazaki directed, and it features the master thief Lupin the Third, created by the manga artist Monkey Punch. In the film, Lupin and Jigen search for a counterfeiter who swindled them, and end up in the secluded country of Cagliostro. The story also involves a wicked count and an innocent princess (the latter voiced in Japanese by Sumi Shimamoto, who would play Miyazaki's heroine Nausicaä five years later).

Source: Amid Amidi at Cartoon Brew