Way back in 2013, Hayao Miyazaki – the legendary Japanese anime director, and founder of anime powerhouse Studio Ghibli – announced that his 2013 wartime drama, The Wind Rises, would be his last film. With no obvious successor, the studio that he launched subsequently went into hiatus. Now it looks as though he may be back for one last job.
According to Anime News Network, the veteran filmmaker revealed in an interview with Japanese television network NHK that he has tentative plans for an anime feature film.
Miyazaki had been working on a CGI short for the Ghibli Musuem in Tokyo, entitled Kemushi no Boro (Boro the Caterpillar), but was unhappy with the project, and instead plans to expand it to a full-length feature.
Now aged 75, Miyazaki admitted that the project would likely take five years, up to his 80th birthday. There are few details on what the film will look like, or how likely it will see the light of day – the project has not yet been officially greenlit.
Since The Wind Rises, Studio Ghibli has released The Tale Of Princess Kaguya and When Marnie Was There, with no firm plans for future films. Miyazaki, who won an Oscar in 2003 for Spirited Away, will “draw storyboards until he dies”, according to Ghibli producer Toshio Suzuki.
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