Does Hayao Miyazaki really draw key frames by hand for every Studio Ghibli film?

The answer

Hayao Miyazaki, co-founder of Studio Ghibli in 1985, is renowned for his hands-on approach to animation. He personally draws or corrects a massive number of key frames for each film - reportedly checking and redrawing portions of up to 70% of the frames in some productions. For Spirited Away (2001), which won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, the film contained approximately 112,000 individual frames, mostly hand-drawn on paper. Miyazaki famously distrusts computer-generated animation, saying it produces movement that 'doesn't capture the beauty of the human hand.' Even at age 83, for his 2023 film The Boy and the Heron, he continued this practice across a seven-year production, with a team of roughly 60 animators working under his meticulous supervision.