The "but he is famous" Factor

Miyazaki Hayao is known for hugely popular films from Studio Ghibli such as Totoro. A very talented artist and director.

What probably isn’t so widely known are his one man water color manga that were published as a few pages in the  monthly Japanese plastic model magazine Model Graphix. These were on his pet subjects focused on WW1 era plane, tank and ship technology and the characters accompanying these were usually pig people.
The right side of the above image is a 1920 Italian double tri-plane seaplane design in his hobby manga of "The Wind Rises" publised this way.

They have since been collected and published as 2 stand alone books.
I bought the first one with the tanks and what not over 20 years ago, and the other at a Studio Ghibli Exhibition at the Hyogo Prefecture Art Museum last week.

They are roughly drawn and hand lettered in pencil and usually have some educational aspect relaying technical details of the devices. Can have a fantasy element incorporated as well as the pig men.

I have done some similar cartoons over the years, but have mostly kept them to myself. I have a few videos on my YouTube Channel with some of this content that haven't received many views either.

I have a feeling that these other Miyazaki works were published because of his existing reputation and the overlap with the modellers subjects, and not on the merits of these works themselves.

"The Wind Rises" movie was his love letter to the Zero and its designer and is an expanded version of the hobby manga. It was still in a similar vein to the other Model Graphix manga....

I guess he has earned the right to do what he wants and have people let him do it.

Wouldn't it be great if everyone was given the same opportunities!