Stu­dio Ghibli’s next fea­ture will air on TV this winter

At a time when all seems dark and hope­less, the sun­ny world of Stu­dio Ghi­b­li has more escapist val­ue than ever. The addi­tion of the ani­ma­tion house’s full cat­a­log to the stream­ing library of the recent­ly launched HBO MAX has pro­vid­ed many with emo­tion­al nour­ish­ment as Earth descends into chaos, and they’ll soon release a brand new fea­ture to fur­ther soft­en the blow of pan­demics and police vio­lence and any oth­er crises the cru­el hand of Fate sees fit to deal us.

Vari­ety reports that Aya and the Witch will get a release this win­ter through NHK, the biggest TV sta­tion in Japan, with­out any plans to get the film into the­aters. The film returns Hayao Miyaza­ki​‘s son Goro (of Tales from Earth­sea, From Up on Pop­py Hill, and Ron­ja the Robber’s Daugh­ter) to the director’s chair, though Miyaza­ki the elder will still be cred­it­ed as a gen­er­al plan­ner and over­seer with Ghi­b­li cofounder Toshio Suzu­ki on board as producer.

The film adapts the children’s nov­el ​‘Ear­wig and the Witch’, writ­ten by ​‘Howl’s Mov­ing Cas­tle’ author Diana Wynne Jones, with the main character’s name changed to the less creepy-crawly Aya. Just as the young girl has got­ten the hang of life in an orphan­age, she’s adopt­ed by a witch and brought back to her spooky home, where Aya wastes no time get­ting her bear­ings once again. As Suzuki’s quote goes: ​“If Pip­pi Long­stock­ing is the strongest girl in the world, then this sto­ry is about Aya, who’s the smartest girl in the world.”

The notice leaves two major ques­tions for Ghi­b­li fans in the West, the first being when those of us with­out access to Japan­ese tele­vi­sion broad­cast­ing will be able to take a look at the film. The oth­er con­cerns whether the film will employ the studio’s tra­di­tion­al hand-drawn ani­ma­tion tech­niques, or the CG ani­ma­tion style that Goro has recent­ly adopt­ed with Ron­ja and his 14-minute short Boro the Cater­pil­lar.

Hard­core Ghi­b­li fans have a some­what ten­u­ous rela­tion­ship to Goro’s work, which has not been quite as uni­form­ly excel­lent as the out­put of his father or col­league Isao Taka­ha­ta. But as hope grows scarcer and scarcer, any new work from these soul-leav­en­ers will be prefer­able to nothing.

Aya and the Witch will air on NHK in win­ter 2020.