Rejoice! Cinematical is reporting that Nausicaa.net is reporting that Hayao Miyazaki has finished the storyboards for his next film, Ponyo on the Cliff.
Cinematical claims that a finished storyboard set is akin to the completion of principal photography on a live-action film. I’m not sure about that, but there’s no question that the film is one step closer to screens.
In addition, GhibliWorld recently posted the English translation of an interview with Miyazaki that appeared in the Yoriumi Shimbun. It’s got the basic plot rundown, which we more or less knew (at a seaside town, Ponyo,
who wishes to become a human, and a 5 years old boy make a story) and some elaboration from the director:
[It is] a story like Tsuru no Ongaeshi (The Crane’s Repayment)
or like one of those stories in which a mountain lord snake comes back
as a handsome man. It’s a kind of IRUI-KON-IN-TAN (marriage of human
and animal).
So…like Manimal? Probably not. Still, this one is in the ‘desperately awaited’ column.
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