Studio Ghibli Announces Miyazaki Goro’s Third Film

Studio Ghibli Announces Miyazaki Goro’s Third Film

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Earwig and the Witch
After a six year hiatus, the legendary animation studio is entering a real revival. See the details on Miyazaki Goro's new film, Earwig and the Witch!

Ghibli Announces Miyazaki Goro’s Third Film: Earwig and the Witch

After a six-year-long hiatus, the legendary animation studio is entering a real revival. See the details on Miyazaki Goro’s new film, Earwig and the Witch! Our main site: unseen-japan.com Follow us on Twitter:https://twitter.com/UnseenJapanSite Support Unseen Japan by becoming a Patreon patron — it’d mean the world to us.

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After a nebulous half-decade for the globally beloved animation studio, Studio Ghibli seems to once again be back on the front pages of every entertainment column worldwide.

Ghibli, the creative force behind innumerable legendary anime films (of which Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke, Howl’s Moving Castle, Grave of the Fireflies, and My Neighbor Totoro only scratch the surface) spent most of the ’80s, ’90s, and 2000s turning out classic after classic on a near-annual basis. Alas, that incredible production run ended in 2014 with When Marnie Was There, directed by Yonebayashi Hiromasa, and the subsequent announcement of the liquidation of the company’s production department. A Ghibli drought of six long years followed.

Thankfully, not all has been gloom and doom for fans of the vaunted studio. 2017 saw Ghibli co-founder and worldwide icon Miyazaki Hayao come out of retirement with the announcement of his new film, How Do You Live? (君たちはどう生きるか, release date still TBA). The past few months have also brought in a wave of Ghibli coverage thanks to the studio’s library, long available only through physical media, finally being made available on streaming throughout much of the world (on Netflix in most places besides Japan and on HBO Now in North America). And this very week, the final piece of this Ghibli revival has fallen into place.

Miyazaki Goro, a Son’s Fall and Rise

His father famously balked at the idea of Goro, a talented artist but not an animator, suddenly being thrust into the director’s chair.

Ghibli itself is primarily the brainchild of three men: directors Miyazaki Hayao and the late Takahata Isao alongside producer Suzuki Toshio. The majority of the studio’s output and the majority of its most beloved films were helmed by the two aforementioned creators.

However, seven of its twenty-two (or so) films are the products of other directors. Many of these movies resulted from an attempt to discover directorial talent that could carry on the Ghibli legacy after Miyazaki and Takahata eventually stopped producing films. The period between 2002’s The Cat Returns (directed by Morita Hiroyuki) and 2014’s When Marnie Was There represented a major uptick in films from such directors; over half of Ghibli’s movies from that period were by someone other than the Old Masters.

Among all these news faces in the director’s chair, only two would reprise that role for Ghibli. One was Yonebayashi Hiromasa, a longtime Ghibli animator who helmed 2010’s successful Arrietty (借りぐらしのアリエッティ) and the aforementioned Marnie. Yonebayashi led an exodus of Ghibli talent away from the studio in 2015 following the liquidation of the production team, founding a quasi-successor studio called Studio Ponoc.

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(You can read my thoughts on their first film, Mary and the Witch’s Flower, here.)

The other was Miyazaki Goro. The last name is no coincidence – Goro is indeed the son of Ghibli’s own legendary Hayao. That Goro ever came to helm a film involved a great deal of conflict. His father famously balked at the idea of Goro, a talented artist but not an animator, suddenly being thrust into the director’s chair. Producer Suzuki Toshio, however, saw a raw talent in Goro that belied his lack of experience. Father and son were not on speaking terms for the entirety of the production of the film that followed.

Goro’s Tales from Earthsea, released in 2006, became Ghibli’s only critical dud. Despite box office success (and even his father’s grudging approval), Earthsea became a source of mass derision for Goro. The young director was even “awarded” the Japanese equivalent of a Razzie for worst film that year. However, Goro still returned to animation in 2011 with From Up on Poppy Hill, co-written by his father. This movie was widely praised, helping to repair Goro’s reputation.

The Prodigal Son Returns

Miyazaki Hayao
Hayao Miyazaki. (Picture: Frazer Harrison/Getty Images)

Poppy Hill‘s positive reception and strong box office inclined many to believe that Goro would soon be back with another film. Surprisingly, nine years passed without this coming to be. Rather, Goro’s one additional foray into animation was as director of a 2014 CG anime TV series based on Astrid Lindgren’s Ronja the Robber’s Daughter. (The show itself was a co-production between Ghibli and Polygon Pictures.) This show also received positive reviews – including for its CG animation.

Six more years passed from Ronja‘s release without any formal announcement of a new project for Goro. Finally, Suzuki Toshio began hinting that a new, CG-animated film was in the works. Only a few weeks prior to this writing, Suzuki revealed that Goro had been assigned to helm said CG film.

And now, at long last, we have the official announcement of Ghibli and Goro’s newest film: Earwig and the Witch (Aya to Majo, アーヤと魔女)!

Earwig and the Witch

Goro’s new film will be a CG-animated movie for television, to be based on a novel by beloved British author Diana Wynne Jones. Famously, Miyazaki Senior adapted Jones’ Howl’s Moving Castle into what became one of his most successful films. Jones crafted a huge catalog of cherished children’s novels during her long career. Earwig and the Witch itself was finished only shortly before Jones tragically passed on in 2011, and was released posthumously. HarperCollins, who published the book, summarized its story as so:

“Not every orphan would love living at St. Morwald’s Home for Children, but Earwig does. She gets whatever she wants, whenever she wants it, and it’s been that way since she was dropped on the orphanage doorstep as a baby. But all that changes the day Bella Yaga and the Mandrake come to St. Morwald’s, disguised as foster parents. Earwig is whisked off to their mysterious house full of invisible rooms, potions, and spell books, with magic around every corner. Most children would run in terror from a house like that . . . but not Earwig. Using her own cleverness—with a lot of help from a talking cat—she decides to show the witch who’s boss.”

NHK, where the film will be airing, has added this small description:

自分が魔女の娘とは知らずに育った少女アーヤが、ある日、奇妙な家に引き取られ、そこで意地悪な魔女と暮らすことになったことから始まる物語です。

One day, Aya, a young girl raised so as to be unaware that she is a witch’s daughter, is brought to a strange house. The story begins as she’s made to live there with an ill-tempered witch.

Worthy of note is that Goro’s father, Hayao, assisted with Aya‘s planning, and is producing and supervising the film. This marks the second collaboration between Miyazakis Jr. and Sr. following Poppy Hill.

Some Things to Think On

The fact that this is a television release is also highly interesting. Ghibli has only ever done one other movie for TV.

There’s a number of aspects that make the announcement of Aya to Majo/Earwig and the Witch so interesting. For one, there’s the implication that the movie must be fairly close to being completed, despite only just having been announced. The movie is already listed in the official selection for the 2020 Festival de Cannes (although said festival will not be physically taking place as a result of the ongoing COVID-19 crisis). Additionally, the movie is scheduled for release on Japanese television network NHK sometime this winter. In other words, we’re only half a year away from seeing Ghibli’s newest work.

The fact that this is a television release is also highly interesting. Ghibli has only ever done one other movie for TV: Ocean Waves (海がきこえる), released almost three decades ago in 1993. That film, meant to be produced “quickly, cheaply and with quality” (Suzuki’s words) famously went over budget and schedule, perhaps leading to the lack of TV films by Ghibli thereafter. This may be the reasoning behind making this TV film using CG-animation, which hopefully has helped keep down cost and kept things on schedule.

And indeed, Aya represents the first-ever CG-animated film for Ghibli, a studio renowned for its devotion to high-quality hand-drawn animation. The studio has engaged in digital drawing and painting in the past (notable examples being Takahata’s My Neighbors the Yamadas and The Tale of the Princess Kaguya), but has always maintained a 2D appearance. The only exception was Miyazaki Sr.’s recent short film for the Ghibli Museum, Boro the Caterpillar (毛虫のボロ, 2018). That short represented a chance for Miyazaki to experiment with new animation technologies, although he’s returned to traditional animation for How Do You Live? The decision to eschew 2D animation may sit uneasily with some, although Goro’s experience on Ronja does make him the ideal Ghibli director for this task.

(For more on Boro, see my review here.)

Worthy of consideration is the film’s length, also recently announced via Cannes. At 82 minutes, Aya to Majo will be somewhat short by Ghibli standards. Most Ghibli films range between 90 and 120 minutes, and only two of their films has been shorter than Aya looks to be – The Cat Returns, at 75 minutes long, and the other Ghibli television film, Ocean Waves, at 72 minutes. Conversely, the average length of a Ghibli film is approximately 107 minutes. Some of Ghibli’s best films are surprisingly short, however. (Grave of the Fireflies is 88 minutes long, and Totoro lasts only 86.) Hopefully the slim running time won’t be a detriment to Aya‘s story. The fact that the original novel itself is a brief 124 pages should make that more doable.

Lastly, while we don’t know much about the actual plot of the film (Ghibli adaptations tend to differ greatly from their source material), it does share some noticeable commonalities with related movies. This will be the second Ghibli film with “Witch” in its Japanese title (Kiki’s Delivery Service was originally Majo no Takkyuubin, or “Witch’s Delivery Service”). The story as seen in the book synopsis also bears some small similarities to Studio Ponoc’s Mary and the Witch’s Flower (a film which itself has often been accused of being overly derivative of previous Ghibli movies). Of course, Miyazaki Senior made three separate movies with “Castle” in the title*, so hopefully, Aya can find its own identity as well.

*Lupin the 3rd: Castle of Cagliostro (1979), Castle in the Sky (1986), and Howl’s Moving Castle (2004). In the early 1980s, Miyazaki also sought to make a film to be entitled Warring States Demon Castle (戦国魔城), although the idea was rejected.

Ghibli, Truly Back in Business

Suzuki Toshio, often tasked with presenting and describing Ghibli creations and goings-on to the public, had the following to say about Aya:

“What will our world be like after Corona? At current, this is the most important matter of concern for many people. This is unavoidable for film and television as well.

Is Aya as a work something that can withstand the aftermath of Corona? I considered this many times as I looked over the film rushes. It’s then that I realized that the defining aspect of this work is Aya’s cleverness.

With cleverness, you can make your way through any era. When I thought this, I felt a sense of relief. If “Pippy Longstockings” is the world’s strongest girl, then “Aya” is a tale of the world’s cleverest girl.

Aya is herself a bit odious, and yet somehow cute. I hope many people will come to love her. By the way, when I was thinking of who Aya might remind me of, it was, in fact, Goro-kun, the very director of this movie.

When I pointed this out, Goro became bashful, as if embarrassed.”

With Aya suddenly right around the corner, 36 minutes of Goro’s father’s own How Do You Live? completed, and Ghibli films streaming around the world, it looks to be a good time to be a fan of the legendary studio. The Ghibli revival is happening, and in the case of Aya to Majo, it will in fact be televised.

For an in-depth look at every Ghibli theatrical film, short, music video, direct-to-DVD feature, pre-Ghibli Film, and spin-off, check out my The Ultimate Ranking of the Studio Ghibli Universe series.

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Noah Oskow

Serving as current UJ Editor-in-Chief, Noah Oskow is a professional Japanese translator and interpreter who holds a BA in East Asian Languages and Cultures. He has lived, studied, and worked in Japan for nearly seven years, including two years studying at Sophia University in Tokyo and four years teaching English on the JET Program in rural Fukushima Prefecture. His experiences with language learning and historical and cultural studies as well as his extensive experience in world travel have led to appearances at speaking events, popular podcasts, and in the mass media. Noah most recently completed his Master's Degree in Global Studies at the University of Vienna in Austria.

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