Japanese news agency Jiji Press reported Miyazaki’s death on Monday evening.
Akira Miyazaki, the screenwriter who was responsible for writing half a dozen of Nippon Animation’s World Masterpiece Theater anime titles in the 1970s and 1980s, died on Sunday from bile duct cancer.
Miyazaki, who grew up in Tokyo and began his career in the film industry in 1961 at the production company Shochiku, had no background in animation before writing for animation productions.