Hayao Miyazaki was born on January 5, 1941, in the town of Akebono-cho in Bunkyō,

Tokyo, the second of four sons.[1][c] His father, Katsuji Miyazaki (born 1915),[2]
was the director of Miyazaki Airplane, his brother's company,[4] which manufactured
rudders for fighter planes during World War II.[5] The business allowed his family
to remain affluent during Miyazaki's early life.[6][d] Miyazaki's father enjoyed
purchasing paintings and demonstrating them to guests, but otherwise had little
known artistic understanding.[3] He said that he was in the Imperial Japanese Army
around 1940; after declaring to his commanding officer that he wished not to fight
because of his wife and young child, he was discharged after a lecture about
disloyalty.[8] According to Miyazaki, his father often told him about his exploits,
claiming that he continued to attend nightclubs after turning 70.[9] Katsuji
Miyazaki died on March 18, 1993.[10] After his death, Miyazaki felt that he had
often looked at his father negatively and that he had never said anything "lofty or
inspiring".[9] He regretted not having a serious discussion with his father, and
felt that he had inherited his "anarchistic feelings and his lack of concern about
embracing contradictions".[9]

Several characters from Miyazaki's films were inspired by his mother Yoshiko.[11]
[e]
Miyazaki has noted that some of his earliest memories are of "bombed-out cities".
[12] In 1944, when he was three years old, Miyazaki's family evacuated to
Utsunomiya.[5] After the bombing of Utsunomiya in July 1945, he and his family
evacuated to Kanuma.[6] The bombing left a lasting impression on Miyazaki, then
aged four.[6] As a child, Miyazaki suffered from digestive problems, and was told
that he would not live beyond 20, making him feel like an outcast.[11][13] From
1947 to 1955, Miyazaki's mother Yoshiko suffered from spinal tuberculosis; she
spent the first few years in hospital before being nursed from home.[5] Yoshiko was
frugal,[3] and described as a strict, intellectual woman who regularly questioned
"socially accepted norms".[4] She was closest with Miyazaki, and had a strong
influence on him and his later work.[3][e] Yoshiko Miyazaki died in July 1983 at
the age of 72.[17][18]

Miyazaki began school in 1947, at an elementary school in Utsunomiya, completing

the first through third grades. After his family moved back to Suginami-ku,
Miyazaki completed the fourth grade at Ōmiya Elementary School, and fifth grade at
Eifuku Elementary School, which was newly established after splitting off from
Ōmiya Elementary. After graduating from Eifuku as part of the first graduating
class,[19] he attended Ōmiya Junior High School.[20] He aspired to become a manga
artist,[21] but discovered he could not draw people; instead, he only drew planes,
tanks, and battleships for several years.[21] Miyazaki was influenced by several
manga artists, such as Tetsuji Fukushima, Soji Yamakawa and Osamu Tezuka. Miyazaki
destroyed much of his early work, believing it was "bad form" to copy Tezuka's
style as it was hindering his own development as an artist.[22][23][24] Around this
time, Miyazaki would often see movies with his father, who was an avid moviegoer;
memorable films for Miyazaki include Meshi (1951) and Tasogare Sakaba (1955).[25]

After graduating from Ōmiya Junior High, Miyazaki attended Toyotama High School.
[25] During his third and final year, Miyazaki's interest in animation was sparked
by Panda and the Magic Serpent (1958),[26] Japan's first feature-length animated
film in color;[25] he had sneaked out to watch the film instead of studying for his
entrance exams.[3] Miyazaki later recounted that he fell in love with the film's
heroine, Bai-Niang, and that the film moved him to tears and left a profound
impression;[f] he wrote that he was "moved to the depths of [his] soul" and that
the "pure, earnest world of the film" affirmed a side of him that "yearned
desperately to affirm the world rather than negate it".[28] After graduating from
Toyotama, Miyazaki attended Gakushuin University in the department of political
economy, majoring in Japanese Industrial Theory.[25] He joined the "Children's
Literature Research Club", the "closest thing back then to a comics club";[29] he
was sometimes the sole member of the club.[25] In his free time, Miyazaki would
visit his art teacher from middle school and sketch in his studio, where the two
would drink and "talk about politics, life, all sorts of things".[30] Around this
time, he also drew manga; he never completed any stories, but accumulated thousands
of pages of the beginnings of stories. He also frequently approached manga
publishers to rent their stories. In 1960, Miyazaki was a bystander during the Anpo
protests, having developed an interest after seeing photographs in Asahi Graph; by
that point, he was too late to participate in the demonstrations.[25] Miyazaki
graduated from Gakushuin in 1963 with degrees in political science and economics