Hayao Miyazaki is Back, Officially Working On New Film

Hayao Miyazaki is back! That’s right, the king of anime has returned to reclaim his throne with a new feature film in the works.

The Japan Press Network reported today that the infamous Studio Ghibli has confirmed that Miyazaki is starting preparations to work on a brand new feature film.

Studio Ghibli producer Toshio Suzuki confirmed the news, as he said he has seen the storyboards for the new work stating,”Even now he is working very hard in Tokyo to create.”

Miyazaki had previously announced back in 2013 that he was retiring from directing feature films. However during a television special back in November of last year, he made a comment about wanting to return to make a new film. This sparked ignited a flame on social media as fans hoped that he would return to make a new legendary anime movie.

Even though we have do not have any official news about what the feature will be about, there is speculation that it will be based off of the CG short that he has been working on recently. Miyazaki has been working on a project named Kemushi no Boro (Boro the Caterpillar), a new short made fo the Ghibli Museum. While working on the project, he stated that he was not satisfied with the project being a short, and he presented an official proposal for a feature-length film. The full caterpillar based film was never confirmed, but it is reported that Miyazaki started working on anyways. He apparently started creating storyboards for the film and planning footage. However, it has not been confirmed that the new feature film that is in the works is related to the Boro The Caterpillar project.

Miyazaki is the legendary founder of Japanese animation company Studio Ghibli, and the director/creator of many of its most popular and iconic films. He is known in the west for films sucha as Spirited Away and Princess Mononoke, which recently returned to theaters to celebrate Miyazaki’s birthday and the 20th anniversary of the film. Spirited Away, which won the Academy Award for Best Animated Film in 2003, is still to this day the highest earning film of all time in the Japanese box office.