The first images from Studio Ghibli’s forthcoming film Aya and the Witch, directed by Goro Miyazaki, have landed. They’re quite a departure from the house style.
The film follows Aya, a young girl who has grown up an orphan, unaware that she’s the daughter of a witch — and ends up being adopted by a witch, no less. It is the renowned Japanese studio’s first fully cg-animated feature. As Ghibli doesn’t have the in-house capacity to produce a cg feature, we’re curious to know which animation studio(s) it has partnered with on this project.
Goro Miyazaki has previously directed two features at the studio, Tales from Earthsea and From Up on Poppy Hill. He also helmed the series Ronja, the Robber’s Daughter, which was cg-animated by Polygon Pictures and co-produced by Ghibli. Whereas Ronja was cel-shaded, Aya apparently takes a more traditionally 3d approach to volume and shading, while retaining a cartoonish styling.
