The First Animation That Hayao Miyazaki Directed on His Own: Watch Footage from the Pilot of Yuki’s Sun (1972)

Hayao Miyaza­ki began his career as an ani­ma­tor in 1963, get­ting in the door at Toei Ani­ma­tion not long before the com­pa­ny ceased to hire reg­u­lar­ly. Miyaza­k­i’s equal­ly retire­ment-resis­tant con­tem­po­rary Tet­suya Chi­ba, already well on his way to fame as a man­ga­ka, or com­ic artist, pub­lished the series Yuki no Taiy­ou, or Yuk­i’s Sun, that same year. But the paths of their work would­n’t cross until 1972, when Yuki no Taiy­ou was adapt­ed into a pilot for a prospec­tive ani­mat­ed series, the very first project Miyaza­ki — who had by that point amassed a good deal of expe­ri­ence as not just a key ani­ma­tor and col­lab­o­ra­tor with Stu­dio Ghi­b­li co-founder-to-be Isao Taka­ha­ta, but also as a man­ga­ka him­self — direct­ed solo.

Despite hav­ing been orphaned as an infant, the tit­u­lar Yuki grows into a high-spir­it­ed tomboy so cheer­ful as to have devel­oped the odd habit of phys­i­cal­ly strik­ing oth­er peo­ple when she gets too hap­py.

And as with so many par­ent­less pro­tag­o­nists in chil­dren’s fic­tion, she has not just a dis­tinc­tive per­son­al­i­ty but also a sto­ry-dri­ving desire to dis­cov­er the truth about her ori­gins — which, it’s inti­mat­ed, may not be ordi­nary, and may indeed be spe­cial. Her search for her moth­er sends her on a quest through moun­tain, val­ley, wood, and, giv­en the set­ting of Japan’s north­ern­most island of Hokkai­do, a great deal of snow (the Japan­ese word for which is a homo­phone of Yuk­i’s name).

Alas, this is a quest tele­vi­sion audi­ences would nev­er see, since the plot for Yuki no Taiy­ou, footage from which you can see in the five-minute teas­er above, did­n’t draw a net­work order for a full series. In some respects, it seems con­cep­tu­al­ly sim­i­lar to Sasur­ai no Shou­jo Nell, or Wan­der­ing Girl Nell, a volu­mi­nous­ly loose adap­ta­tion of Charles Dick­ens’ The Old Curios­i­ty Shop that aired in Japan at the end of the sev­en­ties. By that time, Miyaza­ki had com­plet­ed work on his first ani­mat­ed fea­ture as direc­tor, The Cas­tle of Cagliostro. A few years there­after, he would adapt his own man­ga Nau­si­caä of the Val­ley of the Wind into a motion pic­ture now wide­ly con­sid­ered the debut of the lav­ish, cap­ti­vat­ing Stu­dio Ghi­b­li style — and whose epony­mous pro­tag­o­nist has more than a lit­tle in com­mon with the adven­tur­ous, nature-lov­ing Yuki.

Relat­ed con­tent:

Watch Hayao Miyaza­ki Ani­mate the Final Shot of His Final Fea­ture Film, The Wind Ris­es

The Phi­los­o­phy of Hayao Miyaza­ki: A Video Essay on How the Tra­di­tion­al Japan­ese Reli­gion Shin­to Suf­fus­es Miyazaki’s Films

Hayao Miyaza­ki, The Mind of a Mas­ter: A Thought­ful Video Essay Reveals the Dri­ving Forces Behind the Animator’s Incred­i­ble Body of Work

The Films of Hayao Miyaza­ki Cel­e­brat­ed in a Glo­ri­ous Con­cert Arranged by Film Com­pos­er Joe Hisaishi

Hayao Miyazaki’s Uni­verse Recre­at­ed in a Won­der­ful CGI Trib­ute

Based in Seoul, Col­in Marshall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His projects include the Sub­stack newslet­ter Books on Cities and the book The State­less City: a Walk through 21st-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.