Hayao Miyazaki Hates the iPad
Honestly, I don’t get the massive iPad hate out there. I mean, sure it can’t run flash, and sure it can’t do multiple applications at the same time, and sure it’s buggy, but honestly, hands on, it’s quite the device. It fills that gap where cell phones are too little but laptops are too much. It’s absurdly overpriced but it’s cool, and I think we should all be a bit nicer to- HOLY SHIT IT’S HAYAO MIYAZAKI!
OK, so if you don’t know who Hayao Miyazaki is you have no taste in animation. Heralded by some as the greatest animator alive, he is noted for his hit Studio Ghibli classics such as My Neighbor Totoro, Princess Mononoke, and Howl’s Moving Castle. Miyazaki is also noted for his primitive stance toward technology. He rarely watches TV, doesn’t own a computer or a fax, and doesn’t own a DVD player. The very fact that Studio Ghibli is having a game release is somewhat astounding when you think about Miyazaki’s take on technology (even if he is not directly involved). However, there is something beyond videogames that Miyazaki simply doesn’t get, and that is the iPad.
According to Kotaku, Miyazaki called the iPad a “game machine type thing” that people are “stroking with strange gestures.” If you have a dirty mind like the rest of us, then you are on the right track. Miyazaki is comparing the iPad to masturbation. “For me, there is no feeling of admiration or no excitement whatsoever,” Miyazaki said about the iPad. “It’s disgusting. On trains, the number of those people doing that strange masturbation-like gesture is multiplying.” Straight from the greatest animator in the world’s mouth: using an iPad is just technological masturbation.
This isn’t the first time that Miyazaki was angered by a technological advancement. Back when smartphones and even normal cell phones became all the rage, Miyazaki was annoyed that people on trains would use the phones to check their e-mail and send text messages. Heck, back when manga was the in thing, Miyazaki became fed up that everyone had their head buried in a manga or periodical rather than taking in the scenery around them. Guess the iPad is a double whammy for him, considering its wide use as a comic book reader. Oops. Sorry Miyazaki.
Now, we probably won’t ever convince Miyazaki to turn to the dark side of technology. To him, he has never needed it. Miyazaki has said on numerous accounts that the only tools he needs to make great animated films are a pencil and paper. Time after time he proves this statement correct with hit film after hit film. I mean, only Hayao Miyazaki can make a movie about a kid who loves a goldfish genuinely entertaining. Perhaps we all can learn something from his no-nonsense bare-bones living attitude. After I post this on my electronic blog, I’ll have to use my cell phone to tweet all about the merits of staying away from technology
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DAMMIT!
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1 response to Hayao Miyazaki Hates the iPad
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Miyazaki, great animator and all, I thought his hate of technology had a more sound philosophical basis. Something more atuned to a solid dislike of capitalism, globaslisation, and consumerism, but no, none of that, merely a dogmatic and stubbornly ignorant way of thinking. That’s sad. A lot of positive things can cast dark shadows, but we’re in control of the dimmer switch. It’s up to us as users what we do with technology. We are the masters of technology, not the other way round. People who muddle the two are the ones who lose out. Like I said, great animator, but he has a seriously flawed conception of technology.
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