The veteran animation genius has said he’s retiring – but as he’s changed his mind before, should anyone take his word for it? We travel to Ghibli HQ in Tokyo to find out what’s going on

When Hayao Miyazaki, the world’s greatest living animator, approached his longtime producer Toshio Suzuki in July 2016 and told him that he wanted to make another film, Suzuki was not enthusiastic. “I said: ‘Absolutely not. This is a bad idea,’” Suzuki recalls. He had his reasons. “I’ve seen many, many great directors, who feel that they can make one more great film and most of the time they fail. I didn’t want to see him go down that road.”

Besides, Miyazaki had supposedly already made his final film. Three years previously, following the release of his highly acclaimed The Wind Rises, Miyazaki told a packed press conference in Tokyo that he was retiring from feature film-making. At 72, he was slowing down, he said, and didn’t feel able to complete the exhausting work of making another feature. “I’m really serious this time,” Miyazaki insisted. “My era of animation is over.”