Hayao Mizayaki | Photo by Frazer Harrison / Getty Images
The next release from famed animation house Studio Ghibli is due to hit Japan next year. How Do You Live (still a tentative title), the latest feature directed by Hayao Miyazaki, will be in theaters in the country on July 14th, 2023. There’s no word on the international release yet, but as part of the announcement, Ghibli also put out this new poster for the film:
— スタジオジブリ STUDIO GHIBLI (@JP_GHIBLI) December 13, 2022
Miyazaki and the studio have been working on the film for some time; the legendary director actually came out of retirement to lead the project, which was first announced in 2017, following the release of The Wind Rises, which was expected to be his final film. It’s an adaptation of a 1937 novel of the same name, written by Yoshino Genzaburō. It’s been a long process.
“We are only able to come up with one minute of animation in a month,” Ghibli producer Toshio Suzuki told Entertainment Weekly in 2020. “That means 12 months a year, you get 12 minutes worth of movie. Actually, we’ve been working on this film for three years, so that means we have 36 minutes completed so far. We’re hoping it will finish in the next three years.”
How Do You Live will be Ghibli’s first feature-length film since 2020’s Earwig and the Witch, a CG project directed by Hayao’s son Goro Miyazaki. Last month, the studio also released a tantalizingly brief short about Star Wars’ Grogu on Disney Plus.