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Ursula Le Guin, the legendary science-fiction and fantasy writer, passed away today at age 88. Her family made the public announcement this morning but did not disclose a cause of death. Generations of writers have been inspired and provoked by Le Guin's writings. I certainly count myself among them, although I would only be, at best, a casual fan. The diehards will be more than happy to share their tales, and you should seek them out in the coming days and months. Ghibli Freaks will remember the 2006 feature animated movie Gedo Senki, titled Tales From Earthsea in the West, and directed by Goro Miyazaki in the midst of a very public feud with his legendary father. Le Guin was personally approached by Hayao Miyazaki and Toshio Suzuki to create an animated adaptation of her acclaimed Earthsea novels, promising that the father would pass the torch down to his eldest son, but carefully oversee the production and treat it like one of his own works. Things unfolded quite differently in ...

Today is Hayao Miyazaki's 77th birthday. Here's wishing a happy day with many more fruitful years to come. The director is busy working on his next "post-retirement" feature animated movie, which should be completed within the next three years. His newest animated short film, Boro the Caterpillar, is expected to be screened at the Ghibli Museum in Japan later this year (and, sorry, there are no plans for foreign distribution). This photograph of a young Miyazaki is from the production of Horus, Prince of the Sun between late 1965 and early 1968. According to the documentary movie Yasuo Otsuka's Joy in Motion, the aspiring animator was 25 years old at the time of this picture, which would date it at 1966. Other than the hair color and lack of beard (which he didn't grow until the 1990s), he looks essentially the same. Imagine spending an afternoon in his company, when he was in the prime of his youth, full of energy and vitality and overwhelming ambition. At ag...