Japan’s Hayao Miyazaki to produce final animated film

Beloved Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki will purportedly produce a final feature film, his studio says.

Studio Ghibli posted on its official website on Thursday a job listing for animators who are interested in working on the latest and purportedly last Miyazaki animation to be released sometime in 2019/2020.

“Studio Ghibli is hiring animators/background artists for Miyazaki's "last" feature,” the Japanese animation film studio wrote.

The movie is rumored to be a feature adaptation of Miyazaki’s short film ‘Boro the Caterpillar’ – “a story of a tiny, hairy caterpillar, so tiny that it may be easily squished between your fingers."

The release date is expected to prelude the 2020 Olympic Games in the Japanese capital, Tokyo.

Studio Ghibli producer Toshio Suzuki said earlier this year that company co-founder Hayao Miyazaki, 76, was heading back to work on his first feature since 2013.

Miyazaki announced his retirement in 2013 after he finished his WWII drama ‘The Wind Rises’, following a career that has spanned over five decades.

He attained international acclaim as a masterful storyteller and as a maker of anime feature films. Some of his famous works include ‘Spirited Away’, 'Ponyo', ‘Howl’s Moving Castle’, ‘Princess Mononoke’ and ‘My Neighbor Totoro’.

Miyazaki has won numerous international awards, including an Academy Award, a Golden Bear from the Berlin International Film Festival, an honorary Golden Lion from the Venice Film Festival and a Japan Academy Prize, among others.

His films often contain recurrent themes, like humanity's relationship with nature and technology, and the difficulty of maintaining a pacifist ethic.

AI/AI