When The Wind Rises was released in 2013, Studio Ghibli founder and master animator Hayao Miyazaki announced that the film, about Japanese Zero engineer Jiro Horikoshi, would be his last. Now, presumably because he’s already bored with sitting around the house playing pat-a-cake with a Totoro that only he can see, Miyazaki has announced he is coming out of retirement to make a new film.
Before you start imagining small masked spirits whisking small children off to lovingly hand-painted worlds of wonder, we should point out that this will be a departure for Miyazaki: The film will be his first computer-generated project, and will be shot in 3-D. The 10-minute film short will tell the story of a hairy caterpillar, and is expected to take three years to produce; we’re guessing the long production schedule is either because Miyazaki is teaching himself computer animation, or that the computers used for the film are powered by mercurial wood nymphs. The film will debut at the Ghibli Museum in Tokyo; it’s not clear at this time if it will be shown elsewhere.
Variety also reports that Miyazaki’s announcement of the film was accompanied by lengthy criticism of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, presumably due to Abe’s nationwide ban on sentient cat buses.