Hayao Miyazaki was born in 1941 in Tokyo, Japan. After graduating from Gakushuin University in 1963 with a degree in Political Science and Economics, Hayao Miyazaki joined Toei Animation as an animator. Miyazaki co-founded Studio Ghibli in 1985 with Isao Takahata, and has directed ten feature films since, including Castle in the Sky (1986), My Neighbor Totoro (1988), Kiki's Delivery Service (1989), Princess Mononoke (1997), Spirited Away (2001), Howl's Moving Castle (2004), and Ponyo (2008). His latest film, The Boy and the Heron , released in Japan on July 14, 2023, has been awarded the Golden Globe, BAFTA, and Academy Award® for Best Animated Feature in 2024. Terunobu Fujimori was born in Nagano in 1946. He graduated from Tohoku University's School of Engineering in 1971 before entering a master's program with a focus on architecture at the University of Tokyo, which he left in 1978 after completing his coursework. He was a professor at the University of Tokyo's Institute of Industrial Science and in the Faculty of Engineering, and has been the director of the Tokyo Metropolitan Edo-Tokyo Museum since 2016. He made his architectural debut with the Jinchokan Moriya Historical Museum.

In 1997, he won the Nihon Geijutsu Taisho Award for Genpei Asegawa House (Leek House), and in 2001, he received an Architectural Institute of Japan Prize for his dormitories for the Kumamoto Prefectural Agricultural University.