A year after the French release of the film The Boy and the Heron, fans of Hayao Miyazaki will be able to rejoice following a nice announcement from Studio Ghibli.
Hayao Miyazaki: a huge gift for fans
Often considered (rightly) as the absolute master of Japanese animated cinema, Hayao Miyazaki is a filmmaker adored all over the world.His cinematographic work is striking as much for the splendor of his drawings as for the poetry and universal character of the stories he tells. His latest masterpiece, The Boy and the Heron, released in Japan on July 14, 2023 and on November 1 in France, won the Oscar for best animated film in March 2024, right under the nose of the film Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. This is the second Oscar won by Hayao Miyazaki, after Spirited Away.
Following the success of his latest film, it has been confirmed by his son Gorō Miyazaki that the legendary filmmaker has returned to the drawing board to work on a new project, described as “an action-adventure type film, nostalgic, and reminiscent of the good old days“. A very enticing program, but one that we may not hear about for a few years. Let us recall that ten years separate The Wind Rises (2013) and The Boy and the Heron (2023) and that the latter film remained a mystery until the release of the first American trailer.
Moreover, even if we should not expect a new Hayao Miyazaki film in the immediate future, fans of the Japanese artist still have a lot to discover. Last November, the French publication by Sabarcane editions of the illustrated book Le Voyage de Shuna, written and drawn by Hayao Miyazaki in 1983, was a small event for French-speaking fans. Especially since Le Voyage de Shuna is a work that links the manga Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, which began publication in 1982 in the magazine Animage and the film Princess Mononoke (1997). We have also learned that editions IMHO will soon publish the book of interviews Hayao Miyazaki – Là ouù le vent revient, in which the master looks back on his cinematographic work.
200% Deposit Bonus up to €3,000 180% First Deposit Bonus up to $20,000We learned today that the Japanese publishing house Iwanami Shoten will publish individual volumes comprising the preparatory drawings and storyboards hand-drawn by Hayao Miyazaki himself for each of the filmmaker's films within Studio Ghibli. The first two volumes, expected on December 5, 2024 in Japan, will be dedicated to Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind (1984) and Castle in the Sky (1986). The third part, dedicated to My Neighbor Totoro, will be available from March 2025. The publishing house and Studio Ghibli used a very precise scanner to respect both the texture and the size of the original drawings. The books will be enhanced with comments written by Toshio Suzuki, a close friend of Hayao Miyazaki and co-founder of Studio Ghibli, which he has led since its creation.
Other volumes will be devoted to the works that Miyazaki created before the creation of Studio Ghibli, to the short films he designed for the Ghibli Museum and to the films he worked on within the structure, such as From Up on Poppy Hill by Gorō Miyazaki and Arrietty, the Little World of the Borrowersby Hiromasa Yonebayashi. In a press release, the famous producer confided: “Until now, there has never been a complete collection of Miyazaki's image boards. I am perhaps the one who is waiting for this publication with the most impatience.” We do not know if this last sentence is true, in any case our impatience is at its peak.
Note: if for the moment no French publication has been announced, deliveries will naturally be open to international markets. Each volume will be available from 4620 yen, or approximately 28 euros. Given that Glénat is the publisher of Hayao Miyazaki's official Art Books, “Albums” and “Anime Comics” of his films, we can hope that the publishing house will be in charge of publishing this new collection, which is now highly anticipated. Fingers crossed!