Hayao Miyazaki was heavily influenced by family friends, especially their five young daughters with whom he often spent summer holidays. In interviews, he has stated that he found the popular Shoju mangas to be not representative of what young girls really need. Therefore he decided to make a movie that departs from the typical young love theme and focusses heavily on a young female heroine that overcomes her own troubles.
The production, while being aided by computer animation, was mostly drawn by hand. This decision was made as to not take away the magic of the story. Miyazaki faced severe difficulties shortening the movie to an appropriate length, meaning that many visually stunning parts had to be removed. He had a major influence on the whole animation process, wanting to get it just right. Interestingly, he refused to make the heroine a typical "pretty girl", which is a common trope in anime.
The English adaptation was mostly spearheaded by John Lasseter, after the distribution rights were bought by Disney. While the marketing campaign was rather small, the adaptation took great care to keep the original feeling of the movie. Writers went out of their way to write text that closely matches the original Japanese lip movement of the characters.
