Miyazaki update 2

So, here's a list of the questions that were submitted. They came up after the actual interview.
Oh yeah. I had a quick note about the previous post. The last line said that to drop dead while drawing would be a lame way to go? How come? I'd rather drop dead doing something I loved. I don't think that would be lame. And it reminded me of something Uncle Rob (the guy who made the documentary) told me. Cause he's a surfer. And He knew or heard about some other old surfer who had a heart attack or something while he was out on the waves on his board. And he died. But he died doing what he loved-surfing. And people thought it was a great way for the guy to go out-on his surf board.
OK, digression aside, here's the questions from the Miyazaki interview.

Q: I heard someone in the lobby boasting (about) how many times they had seen "My Neighbor Totoro." How many times have you seen it?

A: Of course in the process of making it, I have to watch it over and over and over again, many times. But since I finished making it, I haven't seen it. If I saw it now, I would probably get a completely different impression about it than when I was making it and watching it.

Q: Would you rather people see your films just once?

A: It's difficult to ask that of people now. But I'm a person who grew up when we only had a chance to see a film once. You make that one time very precious - it's a very valuable experience. We tried to watch many different things, just once. Not one thing over and over.

Q: In the United States, a lot of parents give their kids a goldfish and it turns out to be their first lesson about death. Did you ever have a goldfish?

A: I have about a 15-year-old goldfish living in my pond in the yard. It has gotten really old. ... Of course, when you have a pet or an animal, you're always faced with its death at some point. But I think it's a really good thing to live with an animal. I think it's really good for a family or children to have a dog, cat, bird or whatever to grow up with.

Q: It's hard to find a young animator who doesn't say they learned a great deal from your work. Do you learn from young animators?

A: Yes, of course I gain a lot from young animators. I feel like I am sucking their blood in order to make the films.

Q: You have a friendship with (Pixar's) John Lasseter. What types of things do you talk about when you meet him?

A: (Holds arms out and pantomimes giving Lasseter a huge hug.) I tell him, "I worry about you. You're working too hard."

Q: The coastal town in "Kiki's Delivery Service" looks a lot like San Francisco. Have you visited San Francisco, did you refer to photos, or did I imagine the whole thing?

A: (Laughs) I did a little trick. I had bits of Ireland, England, France, San Francisco, Sweden. ... I put them in as sort of mosaics. I didn't mix them up completely, but there are fragments that are in there. So when Japanese people saw the film, it just seemed like a normal foreign landscape to them. But when Europeans saw it, they felt very strange because they saw bits of Europe in different locations. And yes, San Francisco was in there too.

Also in terms of the setting of time, I imagined what that world would have been if World War II wouldn't have happened. There were TV sets, but the car models didn't change that much. They look a little old-fashioned. And there were little blips that flew through the air that we don't have. It's as if World War II didn't happen, and the world developed a little differently.

Q: You must receive a lot of admiring letters from fans and young artists. Have you ever written an admiring letter to someone else?

A: Never. I thought it would be rude to write a letter like that when I didn't have enough talent or ability in my youth.

Q: I can tell from your movies that you're a student of weather patterns. What do you think of our weather patterns here in the Bay Area?

A: While we were driving today we saw some fog, and it was a very mysterious scene. So I thought it must be easy to make science fiction movies with this kind of fog as a background. ... In Japan, we have typhoons and severe weather sometimes like that, but we can't see a great distance in Japan. Now of course it's because a lot of buildings have been built up. But even in the past, various plants and mountains are there, so it's hard to see far into the distance. While we were crossing the Bay Bridge today, I thought, "Why is this huge landscape here? Why has it just plopped down right beside us?"