Hasta La Gadget!

Last September the brilliant Studio Ghibli co-founder Hayao Miyazaki said that he’s retiring from making animated movies. As a tribute to his idol, artist Martin Hsu designed Miya-san, a 6″ figure of the genius behind modern classics such as Spirited Away, Howl’s Moving Castle and My Neighbor Totoro.

Bigshot Toyworks is going to produce 300 copies of Miya-san, and sales from the toy will be donated to an as yet unspecified charity.

You can pre-order Miya-san from Tenacious Toys for $95 (USD). Again the toy will only have 300 copies so you better order now if you want one. Happy retirement Miyazaki-sensei! Perhaps you can drop by your studio from time to time and give them ideas for new films.

[via Cartoon Brew]

We know there are many fans of Ghibli movies out there who have had a long, patient wait for a new movie from Director Hayao Miyazaki. His new movie, “Kaze Tachinu”, will be released on July 20 in Japan.

It’s an animation movie about the life of Jiro Horikoshi. He had dreamed of becoming a designer of airplanes and finally made his dream come true. However, the time was around World War II and what he created was a famous fighter aircraft A6M “Zero” to kill people. The movie will show his life and inner conflict.

Studio Ghibli already announced that Hideaki Anno, who is best known as film director of the Evangelion series, will play the leading voice part of Jiro. Other famous and popular actors/actresses have also joined the cast as voice actors.