While the beloved Japanese animation house Studio Ghibli is no longer making movies, fans of My Neighbor Totoro, Kiki's Delivery Service, and Spirited Away have a whole lot to celebrate Friday. Amazon Studios announced it has picked up the first television series by Ghibli for streaming in the U.S. later this year, The Verge reports.
The 26-episode series Ronia The Robber's Daughter will feature English-language dubbing by The X-Files' Gillian Anderson (the Japanese-language trailer, with no subtitles, is below).
Although Studio Ghibli hasn't made a feature film since co-founder Hayao Miyazaki's retirement, it has continued to assist in co-productions — for Ronia, it teams with CGI animation studio Polygon and will be directed by Miyazaki's son. The Verge writes:
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Ronia (or Ronja, in the Japanese version) is based on a thoroughly delightful 1981 fantasy novel by Astrid Lindgren, the Swedish creator of Pippi Longstocking. The story follows a young girl growing up wild in a woodland full of strange creatures, as the only child of the leader of a band of notorious thieves. She has various adventures involving the magical creatures of the wood, but eventually forms a Romeo-and-Juliet friendship with a young boy who's the only child of the leader of a rival band of thieves. The animated series features Ghibli's usual phenomenally rich backdrops for the woodland setting, and its familiar rounded character designs, but they're clearly CGI, with a gimbaled floaty quality that Ghibli characters don't normally have. It's an unusual blend of a very traditional style with new computer animation techniques. [The Verge]
Read more about the project at Variety and The Verge.
-
Political cartoons for October 27Cartoons Monday's political cartoons include improving national monuments, the NBA gambling scandal, and the AI energy vampire
-
Donald Trump’s week in Asia: can he shift power away from China?Today's Big Question US president’s whirlwind week of diplomacy aims to bolster economic ties and de-escalate trade war with China
-
The Icelandic women’s strike 50 years onIn The Spotlight The nation is ‘still no paradise’ for women, say campaigners
-
Warner Bros. explores sale amid Paramount bidsSpeed Read The media giant, home to HBO and DC Studios, has received interest from multiple buying parties
-
Gold tops $4K per ounce, signaling financial uneaseSpeed Read Investors are worried about President Donald Trump’s trade war
-
Electronic Arts to go private in record $55B dealspeed read The video game giant is behind ‘The Sims’ and ‘Madden NFL’
-
New York court tosses Trump's $500M fraud fineSpeed Read A divided appeals court threw out a hefty penalty against President Trump for fraudulently inflating his wealth
-
Trump said to seek government stake in IntelSpeed Read The president and Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan reportedly discussed the proposal at a recent meeting
-
US to take 15% cut of AI chip sales to ChinaSpeed Read Nvidia and AMD will pay the Trump administration 15% of their revenue from selling artificial intelligence chips to China
-
NFL gets ESPN stake in deal with DisneySpeed Read The deal gives the NFL a 10% stake in Disney's ESPN sports empire and gives ESPN ownership of NFL Network
-
Samsung to make Tesla chips in $16.5B dealSpeed Read Tesla has signed a deal to get its next-generation chips from Samsung
