GKids has announced another anime film acquisition from Studio Ghibli, continuing a longrunning tradition. Up next, will be the venerable anime studio's first CG anime film, Earwig and the Witch, which is based on British novelist Diana Wynne Jones' 2011 kid's book. Hayao Miyazaki's son Goro will direct the film after the elder Miyazaki previously directed another of Wynne's works, Howl's Moving Castle.
GKids has confirmed that they will release Earwig and the Witch in North American theaters sometime in early 2021.
Though Earwig is billed as the studio's first full-length CG film, Hayao Miyazaki actually completed a 14-minute, CG short titled Boro the Caterpillar (Kemushi no Boro) in 2018 for the opening of the Ghibli Museum. Some anime fans are wondering if Earwig is an indicator of a changing mindset at Ghibli, which has long been held up as the paradigm of traditional 2D animation. Hayao Miyazaki will turn 80 next year and is busy working on his (likely) final anime film, How Do You Live?
The 82-minute CG film is currently without an exact release date in Japan but is presently slated to premiere this Winter on the NHK broadcasting channel.
Everyone knows that orphanages are horrible places. But Earwig has a surprising amount of power over everyone else at St Morwald’s Home for Children, and loves it there. So the last thing she wants is to be sent to live with the very strange Bella Yaga...
Earwig was left at St Morwald's as a baby. Unlike the other children, she loves it there, mostly because she has the run of the place and seems to be able to persuade people to do as she wants. Then one day Earwig is chosen to live with a very strange couple: Bella Yaga, her new 'mother', is actually a horrible witch. Earwig will need all her ingenuity (and some help from a talking cat) to survive...