With the assumption that animation is a medium for children, I want to make movies that reaffirm the future, and let them know that this world is a world worth living in.

I think the inner and outer aspects of the self together make one person.

We are on the verge of losing the traditional idea of the family, especially in Japan, where the declining birth rate shows no signs of stopping. This is precisely why I think we should consider with a sense of urgency what the new image of "family" should be like, and not fall into the nostalgism that days gone by were just better.

It struck me that when we read picture books to children, we parents, and people as a whole, do not appear in them very much, and that they are more constructed to be a world of children and animals.

I think of movies as depicting moments of change. Change is growth, and that change also possesses the same dynamism that movies do.

I do not draw any of the pictures for my movies as an animator. The reason for that is that I am terribly lucky to have many staff members who I look up to, and who are overflowing with talent, that work with me on each project.

Usually, people tend to see someone on the surface and think that that's who that person is.