When anime director Hayao Miyazaki announced his retirement in 2013, many were heartbroken, resigned to watching Princess Mononoke over and over again. Thankfully, Miyazaki doesn’t like retirement all that much. Following the announcement, Miyazaki revealed that he had been making his first computer-animated short in complete secrecy. It would be ten minutes long and center around a tiny caterpillar. Now, according to the A.V. Club, Miyazaki has revealed that this caterpillar short will be turned into a full-length film. Miyazaki was reportedly “not satisfied” with how the short was turning out, so he decided to abandon retirement once and for all to develop the short into a longer story. Although the anime production house Studio Ghibli hasn’t officially moved forward with the project, which is titled Kemushi No Boro, or Boro the Caterpillar, it makes no difference to Miyazaki, as he has already started storyboarding for the animation. If the movie does get made, it should take around five years to finish, when he will be 80 years old. Until then, the short version of Kemushi No Boro is still in production, and it will be screened exclusively at the Ghibli Museum in Tokyo.
