Hayao Miyazaki May Be Coming Out of "Retirement"

Lovers of great animated movies were justifiably upset a few days ago when Studio Ghibli producer Toshio Suzuki seemed to imply the studio would be closing its doors. That story has since been walked back a little bit thanks to better translating that said they were simply working off a different production model. The reason for the restructuring is simple: things haven't been quite the same since Hayao Miyazaki retired after directing The Wind Rises, but what if the legendary animator came back?

Suzuki spoke with Variety and revealed Miyazaki could come back to make a short film for the Ghibli Museum in Tokyo....

Suzuki: “This is my guess, but I’m thinking it will be something short.”

He says Miyazaki approached him about the short film but there were no additional details offered. This is nothing new as Miyazaki said last year he hoped to make a series of short films for the museum, and now he's acting on it. Still, it's good to see that Miyazaki is sticking around, even if it's only for smaller projects such as this. And as for the state of  Ghibli, Suzuki reiterated the studio needs a new system for how they make movies...

Suzuki: “We’re changing the way we make [animation]. We wanted to make a dream company. We thought we would make what suited us and not make what didn’t suit us. We were able to realize (that dream) to some extent and we’re very happy about that. But now we’re at a point where we’ve got to think about what we’ll do next.”