Studio Ghibli will release a new animated film next summer based on a novel by British writer Mary Norton, the leading "anime" creator said Wednesday.
The film, "Karigurashi no Arrietty" ("Arrietty Borrows Everything"), is directed by Ghibli animator Hiromasa Yonebayashi, with the assistance of anime great Hayao Miyazaki, Ghibli producer Toshio Suzuki said at a press conference.
The story, inspired by the novel "The Borrowers," depicts the life of a 10-cm-tall girl, Arrietty, who lives under the floor of someone's house.
"This is a story of a girl who borrows many things from the human world for her life. I think the film will give viewers suggestions about how to survive this tough time," Suzuki said.
According to Suzuki, Miyazaki first got the idea to make a film based on the novel nearly 40 years ago.
Published in 1953, the children's novel tells the story of tiny people who "borrow" various things from humans, for example turning a matchbox into a chest and fashioning part of a glove into trousers.
The tiny people keep their existence hidden from humans, but Arrietty and her family are found out and must move from under the floor to the outside world.
According to Miyazaki, today's world is witnessing the end of the culture of mass production, paralleling the "borrowing" life of the tiny characters in the novel, Suzuki wrote on the official Web site for the animated film.