So I've been doing some reading on Miyazaki and I think I've figured out why he hates Bruce so much. I think the chief reason Miyazaki hates Bruce so much is due to his ardent pacifism and war trauma with some major misconceptions about Bruce thanks to his politics and career. So Miyazaki grew up as a child in World War II and his literal first memories were those of the carpet bombing of Japan. Because of this, Miyazaki hates war in all of its forms and has tried to install themes of pacifism in all of his movies. In contrast you have Bruce, someone who is very patriotic and pro-veterans who came to fame as the star of MASH, a show about life in an Army unit during the Korean War. The first season of MASH tended to have more patriotic themes and generally favorable view on military life compared to the strong anti-war themes of the latter half of the show. In Miyazaki's eyes, Bruce is in essence a war monger who gleefully supports American Imperialism and wars of aggression especially with his career starting on the eve of Vietnam War. Making matters more complicated is that while Miyazaki is not racist towards Americans in general, he completely hates the US military because of his trauma from World War II even if he also believes the Japanese Empire is evil, he still views the US military as evil for all of the death and misery it spread to the Japanese islands, and Bruce by being a pro-veteran patriot is in essence condoning his trauma. So yeah, we are literally a walking trigger on Miyazaki's greatest hatred.
But there's other factors too. Miyazaki in general really hates Globalism and the effects its had on Japanese culture. To be clear, he's not a Nationalist or believes that other cultures are inherently lesser in value to Japan. He just prefers for all the nation's cultures to stay within their culture and not influence other cultures. I think this is due to fears of other cultures specific values harming Japanese culture and causing a degredation to destroy the natural beauty of Japan's nature and its people. More specifically, his pet peeve is Western Capitalism, consumerism and industrialism with Miyazaki believing that Japan is under constant attack from Western corruption where they turn Japan from traditional values and obssessed with individualism and market consumption which tears apart the families and destroys the land in pursuit of resources, while art itself is lost in value due to fetishization and consumer pleasing than actual artistic pursuit. So in essence, Miyazaki is fine with his movies being played in America because he's showing pure Japanese values and his movies are a defiance of Western Capitalism, but he gets triggered when American movies are popular in Japan because they tend to also accidentally bring the worst of America's cultural traits with them to influence the youth. It should be noted though he is not against any kind of cultural influence. He has often cited several Western authors in literature as his inspirations with the Snow Queen being what he considers his primary influence in filmmaking for Studio Ghibli. I think Miyazaki likes classic and traditional Western culture but he has beef with modern Western culture.
Building off of his hatred of war and pacifism, Miyazaki hates violence in general and his films never feature the protagonist fighting against a specific and direct villain and instead Miyazaki uses non-traditional forms of storytelling with a focus on the protagonist achieving personal growth or a change in relationships. Bruce is a professional boxer, one of the most violent and bloody sports where participants just punch each other to victory. Miyazaki is probably disgusted by this and linking back to his sentiments that Bruce is a warmonger, he thinks he's a violent brute who teaches the youth to engage in violence instead of fostering community and friendship.
Finally building back to his hatred of Capitalism, Bruce is in essence an American Capitalist. He's a self-made multimillionaire and owns a large business and multiple assets, lives in a luxurious mansion, frequently rubs shoulders with the American elite, and his charities support "Warmongering" i.e being pro veterans. Since Bruce lives in moderate luxury, Miyazaki believes unfairly that Bruce is a self-serving and self-righteous elitist who just consumes and doesn't care about others or the environment, but is instead a willing participant in the economic system that destroys the old world.
Oh and of course he could just naturally not be into our works like American Graffiti or MASH and just have his negative opinions exacerbated by all of his biases.
In short, Miyazaki is a very complicated man with very strong opinions and passions. If you fit within his worldview, then he will look upon you favorably and treat you kindly. If you belong against his worldview, then he hates you and thinks you attack his way of life by existing even if you have a high personal opinion of him. Bruce unfortunately lives a lifestyle and has viewpoints that trigger Miyazaki's past traumas and promote lifestyles and cultural practices that make him scared and angry. It's nothing we can do about it besides changing Bruce's character entirely, and given how his ideology and views are generated from trauma and hardship, I don't hold it against Miyazaki.
Now good news is that it's possible to make Miyazaki like, or at least respect Bruce through different methods. Probably not going to happen anytime soon because Star Wars is definitely going to trigger the hell out of Miyazaki by making war seem like an adventure, but we can make him like us over the course of our career.
The first and probably easiest path is to have Miyazaki be more aware of Bruce's intense love and devotion for his wife and family, especially once Bruce and Carrie have kids and he's presumably a good father. The one thing Miyazaki loves and cherishes above all else is family. A major portion of his works emphasizes family of all kinds and how love brings out the best in people and makes them the most happiest and fulfilled. Miyazaki learning that Bruce loves his family and places it above all else would at least temper the worst of his greivances towards Bruce and make him understand that even though Bruce in essence has a lot of "Wrong" viewpoints, he at least treasures his family and places the family above all else, and if Bruce has a great work-life balance and is involved with his kids then it might drive it home more as Miyazaki despite loving family, was very distant with his children due to work.
Second, Miyazaki is a strong feminist and most of his films have very strong adolescent female characters. Star Wars was at the time noted as a very progressive and feminist film for having Leia be a central character whose active and dynamic instead of just waiting to be rescued. Bruce himself is also at the very least for female empowerment and likes to have his female characters in stories have agency and strong character instead of being arm candy. If Bruce makes films with lots of strong and good female main characters or leads, that may make Miyazaki come around. I actually think The Playground could be the key to changing Miyazaki's viewpoint because not only is it a film about a father connecting with his kids and supporting their sense of wonder and play but also has the fantasy adventure side feature a strong female lead saving the day would really impact him deeply.
Aside from those, films about environmentalism and anti-war would reach an accord with Miyazaki, though the first one would probably be an easier sale whereas Miyazaki may think Bruce is being shallow or insincere with the latter. It stinks that he doesn't like us, but to be fair this is kind of expected where no matter how nice Bruce is or how good of a man, there will always be some good people and great artists who just hate Bruce for irrational reasons or due to Bruce on the outside being against their values like how Mohammad Ali hates Bruce. So long as they don't actively oppose us I don't think it's the end of the world, just need to have Bruce continue to be genuine and change minds with actions and sincerity.
I'd like to see Mr Miyazaki's thoughts on Unit 731
Well very fortunately it turns out that Miyazaki absolutely loathes and is disgusted by Japanese Nationalism and abhors everything Japan did in World War II. He has been extremely outspoken against revisionism in the Japanese school system to whitewash the Empire and has openly called for Japan to apologize for its mass list of war crimes and to give reparations to Korean comfort woman. So Miyazaki is very based and a strong opponent to Fascism.
