Studio Ponoc have announced that their new project will be Ponoc Short Films Theatre (Ponoc Tanpen Gekijō). They have released a teaser trailer and a poster, both of which can be seen below.
The short anthology series will be based around different themes, the first of these is called Chapter 1 – Modest Heroes. In the short trailer below, we see work from directors Hiromasa Yonebayashi (“Kanini & Kanino”); Yoshiyuki Momose (“Life Ain’t Gonna Lose”), and Akihiko Yamashita (“Invisible”). Yonebayashi, of course, has a long history with Studio Ghibli animation since Princess Mononoke, having also directed The Secret World of Arrietty, When Marnie Was There, and Ponoc’s debut, Mary and the Witch’s Flower.
Similarly, Akihiko Yamashita’s credentials go back to Urotsukidōji (1987-1994), along with numerous Ghibli productions, while Yoshiyuki Momose traces his anime roots back to Tensai Bakabon (1971), and has worked with Ghibli through to the recent video game production Ni no Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom.
Since the start of Studio Ghibli’s “brief pause” in 2014, Hayao Miyazaki is making us wait until 2021 for their next feature How Do You Live? Ponoc’s output may just be the magic we need to get us going until then. In fact, many of Ponoc’s team are former Ghibli animators, so we imagine that these shorts will be not too dissimilar to the Ghiblies pieces that the world famous studio produced.
Modest Heroes will be released in Japan in August this year, so here’s hoping an international screening isn’t too far behind.
