Today marks the 72nd birthday of legendary animator and director Hayao Miyazaki. Sometimes referred to as “Japan’s Walt Disney,” Miyazaki is responsible for some of the best animated films of the last 30 years, including (but certainly not limited to) My Neighbor Totoro , Princess Mononoke , Ponyo , and the brilliant Spirited Away — which remains the only film produced outside the English-speaking world to have won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature.

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Growing up, Miyazaki had wanted to be a Manga artist, but reportedly shifted his focus to animation during high school. After working as an animator in other studios in his twenties and thirties, Miyazaki came into his own with 1984’s Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind , the first feature he both wrote and directed. The next year saw the founding of Studio Ghibli with fellow director Isao Takahata, and the animation studio quickly gained a reputation as one of the best in the world.

Beginning with Princess Mononoke in 1999, Disney has released most of Miyazaki’s films in the United States with dubs done by prominent actors and actresses. While that film did poorly at the box office, likely mostly due to lack of marketing, later releases such as Spirited Away and Ponyo have done quite well. Last year, Ghibli found further success in America with a similarly-dubbed version of the studio’s The Secret World of Arrietty , the first of their films distributed by Disney that was not directed by Miyazaki, but rather by his protégé Hiromasa Yonebayashi. Miyazaki’s current project, whose English name is The Wind Is Rising — which he wrote and is directing — has been announced for release sometime this year in Japan. As with all his prior films, I’m sure the English version of it will be worth waiting for.

So please join all of us at GeekDad in wishing Hayao Miyazaki a very happy 72nd birthday, and many more to come!

[A version of this article was published on GeekDad last year on this date.]