TOKYO — Oscar-winning animator Hayao Miyazaki on Wednesday threw his weight behind a fund aimed at blocking a controversial plan to move a US military base on the southern Japanese island of Okinawa. Miyazaki, whose intricately-drawn stories have captured imaginations around the world, became a key figure in the Henoko Fund, which was launched in the Okinawan capital of Naha, local assemblyman Yonekichi Shinzato said. “The fund is aimed at supporting — both mentally and physically — anti-US base activists with the goal of blocking the construction of a new base in Henoko... and removing the Futenma base and relocating outside Okinawa,” Shinzato said. The celebrity endorsement is the latest move in a bitter, decades-old dispute involving the Japanese and American governments, and a vocal group of protesters in Okinawa, over the re-siting of the busy Futenma air base. — Agencies
