The son of Hayao Miyazaki talks about making something Ghibli audiences have never seen before.
In the garage, she discovers a car.
Specifically, a yellow Citroen 2CV.
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Then a witch and a Mandrake, disguised as prospective parents, adopted her.
The 2CV offers a hint to both Bella Yaga’s past and Earwig’s.
It’s also a car director Goro Miyazaki knows well.
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It just says that," Miyazaki, 54, tells EW through a translator over Zoom.
“I would automatically associate the manufacturer with that 2CV car, which actually was in theCastle of Cagliostrofilm.
And the reason for that is it was a car that my father used to drive.
I was in that car all through my childhood.”
That includes 1979’sThe Castle of Cagliostro.
“It seeps into everything that I do subconsciously.”
Carving your own path in film hasn’t been easy for the son of a legendary filmmaker.
I realized for the first time how difficult it is to be the son of Hayao Miyazaki.
He almost did have that normal life.
The two had worked together on the planning for the Ghibli museum starting in 1998.
Others drew conclusions by comparing his work to Hayao’s.
I agreed with that," Miyazaki said.
“The process itself isn’t that different compared to hand-drawn animation,” Miyazaki explains.
Suzuki and Hayao broughtEarwig and the Witch, the children’s book by Diana Wynne Jones, to Miyazaki.
Viewers may recognize visual parallels between Bella Yaga’s potions workshop inEarwigand Howl’s disheveled home.
Miyazaki further found Earwig to bear characteristics he would use to describe a classic Ghibli heroine.
They have a little quirkiness to them."
“That would disenfranchise not just the fans, but ourselves,” Miyazaki remarks.
Further along the story, Earwig spies a gleaming cruise ship passing by.
One could draw comparisons to the boat that ferries spirits to the bathhouse inSpirited Away.
And yet,Earwig and the Witchis something Ghibli’s audiences have never seen from the studio.
When asked if he considers himself to be a risk taker, Miyazaki laughs.
“Maybe I am,” he says.
Earwig and the Witchwill premiere in select U.S. theaters Feb. 3 and on HBO Max Feb. 5.
Quotes from Goro Miyazaki have been edited for length and clarity.
