While we’re still way in the Sad Camp about Hayao Miyazaki retiring from making featuring films, and Studio Ghibli not making its own features anymore (they animated and co-produced this year’s festival hit The Red Turtle along with French-Belgian studio Wild Bunch), they have committed to making new shorts and television projects—one of the latter coming to Amazon. Announced via a press release on Friday, Amazon has picked up Ghibli’s Emmy-winning Japanese series Ronja the Robber’s Daughter.
The 3D CG series is directed by Goro Miyazaki, the son of Hayao Miyazaki and the director of Ghibli films Tales from Earthsea and From Up On Poppy Hill, and based on the wildly popular children’s fantasy book series by Swedish author Astrid Lindgren, the writer of Pippi Longstocking. The elder Miyazaki famously attempted to adapt Pippi Longstocking to television many years ago. You can take a look at the initial trailer for the show in Japan below.
The series is described as “an epic 26-part animated story of a strong, adventurous young girl who grows up exploring a beautiful and dangerous forest filled with mythical creatures.” That sounds pretty amazing to us already, and despite the 3D-animation, it still has the overall visual stamp of Studio Ghibli. For the series’ English language version, Amazon has tapped Gillian Anderson to be narrator of Ronja the Robber’s Daughter. Anderson had previously voiced Moro, the giant wolf goddess and the adopted mother of San in the English dub of Miyazaki’s 1997 film, Princess Mononoke.
Ronja the Robber’s Daughter will premiere on Amazon later this fall. Let us know what you think of the Ghibli/Amazon pairing in the comments below!
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Image: Studio Ghibli/Fox
Kyle Anderson is the Associate Editor for Nerdist. He’s the writer of Studio Ghibli retrospectives Miyazaki Masterclass and Takahata Textbook. Follow him on Twitter!
