3 Comments | Add

 

Rate & Share:

 

Related Links:

 

Info:

• Series:

Mary Norton’s The Borrowers Next From Ghibli

The Borrowers
© Studio Ghibli

Studio Ghibli has made formal their plans for 2010 with the new theatrical feature, The Borrowers, which is based off of the novel of the same name by Mary Norton. Ghibli, which had their latest movie released by Disney this past summer with Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea, is making some obvious alterations when bringing this to the screen under the guiding hand of Hiromasa Yonebayashi. The original novels were released in the 1950's with some follow-up material in 70's and 80's, were set in a small town in England. This adaptation has it taking place in Tokyo Koganei set in the year of its release, 2010, and focuses on on fourteen year old Arrietty, hence the Japanese title of the film being Karigurashi no Arrietty (lit. The Borrower Arrietty).

The original books dealt with stories about tiny people who were called borrowers as they would do just that to the normal people that they lived around. They kept their existence a secret and the stories dealt with a young girl of thirteen named Arrietty along with her father, Pod Clock and mother Homiliy Clock. The first book won a Carnegie Medal in 1952 and in 2007 was selected for a CILIP Carnegie Medal for children's literature as one of the ten most important children's novels of the past 70 years.

The director, Hiromasa Yonebayashi, has been with Ghibli for some time as he worked on Gendo Senki as an assistant animation director, provided key animation for Howl's Moving Castle, Spirited Away and Ponyo as well as working on My Neighbors the Yamada's as well as Princess Mononoke. Outside of Ghibli, Yonebayashi has worked on Jin-Roh, Monster and Serial Experiements Lain among others.