Studio Ghibli Announces New Project, Recruiting Artists For ‘Short Animation’ Until April 24

Summary

Studio Ghibli is hiring staff for a new animation project through job postings on their website.
Applications for background artists and finishing staff close on April 24th.
The studio may be working on either a singular short animation or multiple short animation projects.

The major animation studio, Studio Ghibli, has been in the news a lot in the last week, mostly regarding OpenAI’s use of their artwork to create “Ghibli-esque” remakes of users’ photographs. On the other hand, though, some good news has also arrived regarding the award-winning studio. Studio Ghibli has not made any major announcements since the success of The Boy and the Heron, which released in 2023 – that is, until now. Studio Ghibli has now announced that it is working on a new short piece.

Rather than a straight-forward announcement of “Studio Ghibli is now working on a new project,” though, the news broke through job postings that went online at the end of last week. These new job listings, which appeared on the official Ghibli website, revealed that the studio is looking to hire staff for a new short project. While not a normal way to announce something new is coming, Studio Ghibli fans can still get excited knowing that if people are being hired to work on a project, that means that something new is in the works.

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Studio Ghibli is Hiring Staff for a New Project

Job Listings are Live Now

Two job listings went live on the Studio Ghibli website at the end of last week for staff to work on a new animation project. The first is looking for background artists, and the second for staff to work on “finishing” the studio’s latest piece with digital painting and final checks, both listed as part of the role. Both of the applications will close on April 24th, in a little under a month, with the background artists set to start on May 16th, and the finishing staff starting on June 2nd. Hopefully, that means that the new animation is moving into its final stages, and may be finished sooner rather than later.

If you are hoping to apply for the job, you can check out the background artist application here, and the finishing staff application here. Unsurprisingly, considering Studio Ghibli’s internationally renowned reputation as a top-quality studio, you must already have prior experience to apply for the jobs, and proof of your prior work and abilities must be provided. You must also be living in Japan from April 30th, and speak Japanese fluently enough to work with the rest of the production team (though rest assured, it says nowhere that you must be Japanese, just that you need to live there and speak the language).

In light of the recent AI controversy, and Hayao Miyazaki’s open anti-AI stance, it comes as no surprise that the applications cannot be completed digitally and instead must be sent in the mail. This includes the art samples that are also part of the application for the background artist role. One drawing has to be done traditionally rather than digitally, in keeping with Studio Ghibil’s iconic style.

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A New Studio Ghibli Short?

What Do We Know?

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Because this news comes from open job applications, the truth right now is that we know nothing about what this new animation short is going to look like. Until Studio Ghibli makes a more official announcement, the project is likely to be kept under wraps. The Boy and the Heron never even released a plot description or trailer until the movie opened in the theater, and quite frankly, it didn’t need it. The Studio Ghibli name alone is enough to get people interested in projects, and is more than enough to make people spend money even without knowing what they are going to get.

Casey Baseel of SoraNews24 points out an important distinction in the Japanese used in the job listings, reporting that

…the Japanese vocabulary used in the announcement says that the studio is recruiting for tanpen animeshon sakuhin, which can mean either the singular “short animation work” or multiple “short animation works.”

That means that the studio could be up to even more than we could guess; it could be one new short, but there could also be a few.

Studio Ghibli does have a selection of short films that it has already produced, most of which are on regular rotation at the theater in the Studio Ghibli theme park in Aichi, and at the Studio Ghibli museum in Tokyo. These include exclusive short films like Mei and the Kittenbus, which can only be seen at one of the aforementioned locations. Could the new short animation that Studio Ghibli is hiring for be something exclusive to the Ghibli Park or Museum? Or could it be for another project all together? Studio Ghibli is secretive for now, but there could be an announcement of something by the end of the year.