Published just after her death in 2011, it’s barely more than a short story, and Ghibli’s adaptation adds little to the stripped-down narrative. But where Howl is one of her best and liveliest novels (which is saying a lot, given her deep bookshelf of terrific fantasy work), Earwig may be her simplest and most unrewarding. Like Ghibli’s traditionally animated 2004 feature Howl’s Moving Castle, Earwig is based on a novel by British novelist Diana Wynne Jones. The problems with Earwig and the Witch go beyond the animation, which lacks the visual depth and sophistication of recent Japanese CG features like Lupin III: The First. Knowing Earwig was a cautious trial run for new technology won’t make this 82-minute film feel like a Ghibli classic, but it should temper some of the fears fans have expressed that this minor work represents the height of the studio’s future ambitions, and prep them for the project’s limitations. Director Goro Miyazaki consciously chose the small scale and simple story to make the project manageable for the largely freelance team who produced it, while Ghibli’s traditional animators were working on the next project from studio co-founder Hayao Miyazaki. Longtime Ghibli fans who go in hoping for a theatrical masterpiece on the order of Spirited Away are setting themselves up for disappointment, and even expecting one of Isao Takahata’s risky Ghibli style experiments is setting the bar too high.Įarwig and the Witch is the first CG feature made under the Ghibli banner, and it’s clearly aimed at small children rather than an all-ages audience.
Before watching Studio Ghibli’s new movie Earwig and the Witch, it pays to set expectations.