'Never-Ending Man: Hayao Miyazaki' Clip: The Legendary Anime Filmmaker Works With His First CG Creation

Never-Ending Man: Hayao Miyazaki chronicles the inevitable un-retirement of its legendary subject, but despite the predictable return of Hayao Miyazaki to the world of animation, the Kaku Arakawa documentary has a few surprises hidden up its sleeves. Namely, Miyazaki's first dalliance with an entirely CG-animated project. The famous advocate for traditional hand-drawn animation, who notoriously once called an AI-animated short "an insult to life itself," tackles his first CG-animated film with the short Boro the Caterpillar.

In a new Never-Ending Man Hayao Miyazaki clip released by GKIDS, the documentary captures the momentous scene in which Miyazaki encounters his first CGI creation.

Originally aired on NHK WORLD TV in 2016, Never-Ending Man: Hayao Miyazaki was originally meant to give a peek into the legendary animator's life as a retiree. He sadly muses over the death of animation, at one point sighing, "Our era is ending," as he overlooks the empty desks of the shuttered Studio Ghibli. "Maybe it's for the best."

But Miyazaki being the workhorse that he is, the documentary ends up transforming into his comeback story, with the director overcoming his despair at his aging body to tackle his first CG-animated project ever.

GKIDs shows us Miyazaki's first encounter with his first CG creation, the titular Boro of Boro the Caterpillar, a short that Miyazaki developed for the Studio Ghibli Museum in Tokyo. At first awed by the computer technology that can move the hairs on Boro's back depending on the wind resistance, Miyazaki immediately gets to work at schooling the CG animators with his trademark meticulousness. It goes to show that even out of his element, nothing really changes for the master animator.

Here is the official synopsis for Never-Ending Man: Hayao Miyazaki:

In 2013, film director and animator Hayao Miyazaki suddenly announced his retirement at the age of 72. But he couldn't shake his burning desire to create. After an encounter with young CGI animators, Miyazaki embarked on a new endeavor, his first project ever to utilize CGI. But the artist, who had been adamant about hand-drawn animation, confronted many challenges. The film even faces the danger of being cancelled. Can an old master who thinks he's past his prime shine once again? This program goes behind the scenes over two years as Miyazaki overcomes struggles to create his short film using CGI.

Never-Ending Man: Hayao Miyazaki shows in select theaters for a special two-night event on December 13 and December 18, 2018.