Studio Ghibli's Hayao Miyazaki renounces retirement for feature film, Boro the Caterpillar

Hayao Miyazaki, one of the prominent Studio Ghibli directors, has announced his next feature film, Boro the Caterpillar to be released in 2019, just before the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

The director has been sitting on the project for almost 20 years, first mentioning the storyline for Boro the Caterpillar in 1997. This will be the sixth time Hayao has come out of retirement.

News of another film by Hayao began to surface back in the summer of 2015, with a plan for the tale of the tiny caterpillar to be a ten minute short completed entirely in CG animation, a first for the director. This short is still set for release in 2017 before the full feature graces our screens two years later. The director will be almost 80 upon its release.

Little is known of the film’s structure but for Hayao to renounce his retirement, we’re guaranteed for an anime treat. Hayao headed up the feature films Laputa: Castle in the Sky, My Neighbour Totoro, Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away and Ponyo.