The Earwig and the Witch trailer gives audiences a first look at Studio Ghibli's first fully 3D CGI feature film. Often considered the "Pixar of Japan," Studio Ghibli was founded by animation legend Hayao Miyazaki and has produced some of the most critically and commercially successful animated films ever made. In particular, Miyazaki's 2001 film Spirited Away remains the highest-grossing movie in Japanese history and is frequently ranked among the most important films of the 21st century so far. Much of Ghibli's charm stems from a commitment to hand-drawn 2D animation, but it looks like the acclaimed studio is about to dive head first into a different animation realm with its next feature.
IAMAG posted the Earwig and the Witch trailer, which is directed by Hayao's son Gorō Miyazaki and will be Studio Ghibli's first movie completely rendered in 3D computer-generated imagery. The movie follows Earwig, a 10-year-old girl in 1990s England who has grown up in an orphanage. She's eventually adopted by a selfish witch named Bella Yaga and must use her wits to escape these terrible new circumstances. Check out the first trailer below:
Earwig and the Witch's CGI format seems to be Gorō Miyazaki's way of carving an animation path separate from his father's. He even explained last summer how he chose young animators over Studio Ghibli's more seasoned hand-drawn animators in order to fully commit to the new CGI direction. However, online reactions to the trailer have been mixed so far, with many yearning for the hand-drawn charm that minted classics like Spirited Away. Ghibli fans in the U.S and Canada should be able to see it for themselves next year, as Ghibli's North American distributor GKIDS said it hopes for a theatrical release in early 2021.
Source: IAMAG/YouTube