Oscar-winning anime director Hayao Miyazaki of Studio Ghibli announced his retirement in 2013, although he later vowed he would “continue making anime until I die”, but he would only be working on short features, not his full-length films like Spirited Away, Howl’s Moving Castle, My Neighbor Totoro, Kiki’s Delivery Service, and Princess Mononoke.
The end of his 50+ years in feature filmmaking was quite a loss to the art world; not only did Spirited Away win an Oscar, for example, but it’s also the highest-grossing movie of all time in Japan. Which is why this next news is a great thing to hear in this “uncommonly sh*tty year”. Hayao Miyazaki is making a feature film now, because he feels the short film he was working on (“Kemushi no Boro”, or Boro the Caterpillar) is better suited to a full-length movie.
Miyazaki revealed the news on television special Owaranai Hito Miyazaki Hayao (The Man Who Is Not Done: Hayao Miyazaki) on Sunday.
Anime News Network reports:
Miyazaki suggested that the film could be done by 2019, before the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo. Ghibli producer Toshio Suzuki commented that Miyazaki will draw storyboards until he dies, and another staffer dryly noted that this would make the movie a huge hit. […] Miyazaki planned the story for almost 20 years and describes the short as “a story of a tiny, hairy caterpillar, so tiny that it may be easily squished between your fingers.”
I know we’ve said this before, but please live forever, Hayao Miyazaki.
(Via Anime News Network)
