Earwig and the Witch

Earwig and the Witch (アーヤと魔女, 2021) is a Studio Ghibli animated fantasy you can watch online on iFILM. Director Goro Miyazaki based the film on Diana Wynne Jones's novel of the same name — and made history doing it: this is the first fully computer-animated feature in Ghibli's catalogue.

Ten-year-old Aya has figured out the orphanage. She knows which buttons to press, which faces to make, and how to get exactly what she wants from the adults around her. That system collapses when a peculiar woman named Bella Yaga shows up to adopt her. There are boiling pots, locked rooms, and a witch's workshop that Aya is expected to clean rather than touch. She has other plans. Teaming up with Thomas, a talking cat with his own secrets, she starts reverse-engineering Bella Yaga's spells — not to escape, but to gain the upper hand. The voice cast includes Gaku Hamada and Yuji Ueda.

Goro Miyazaki put a manipulator at the centre, not a victim, which gives the story a different energy from classic Ghibli. Aya does not wait to be rescued. Stream Earwig and the Witch (2021) online on iFILM.