Maybe that's what these films are doing. They are my way of blessing the child

I intend to work until the day I die. I retired from feature-length films but not from animation. Self-indulgent animation. It's nice that I have the mini-theater in the museum. Most of the museum visitors attend the mini-theater screenings and we've never had a complaint about the quality of the films. I'd like to continue to make films that leave the audience satisfied, but I also think it's pointless unless I offer them the kind of animation they can't get anywhere else. They're fun to do. They're short so it's less stressful.

I’d like to see Manhattan underwater. I’d like to see when the human population plummets and there are no more high rises, because nobody’s buying them. I’m excited about that. Money and desire—all that is going to collapse, and wild green grasses are going to take over.

I don't intentionally make deep movies.

In fact, I am a pessimist. But when I'm making a film, I don't want to transfer my pessimism onto children. I keep it at bay. I don't believe that adults should impose their vision of the world on children, children are very much capable of forming their own visions. There's no need to force our own visions onto them.

You should despair and run away.

You never know how a film will play, whether it will be successful or not, or whether it will touch the audience. I always said to myself that whatever happens, big audience or small, that I would not let the results have an impact on my way of working. But it would be a bit silly for me to change my methods when I have a big success. That means my methods work well.