A link between the German existentialist Martin Heidegger and Japanese mainstream animator and author of Spirited Away and Princess Mononoke, Hayao Miyazaki, seems unlikely. But they share a recurring theme — the relationship between humans and nature. In Miyazaki’s animes, this relationship is mediated through technology which threatens the sacredness in nature. But despite the human-nature conflicts, Miyazaki is optimistic, and surprisingly close to Heidegger’s thoughts in his later works.
Technology and the Loss of the Gods
Nature, or earth, in Heidegger’s thought is introduced in the Origin of the Work of Art, where it is contrasted to the human world. Heidegger sees earth as darkness and sheltering because it can never be completely grasped or structured by humans. If humans, Heidegger states, live in a clearing, earth would be the rocks, soil and trees around and beyond the clearing.
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