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Cast for Ghibli's Karigurashi no Arrietty Revealed
posted on by Crystalyn Hodgkins
The Japanese newspaper Sports Hochi has revealed a partial cast list for the upcoming Studio Ghibli film Karigurashi no Arrietty (The Borrower Arrietty). Mirai Shida, who previously performed in the live-action television adaptation of Mari Okazaki's Suppli romance manga, will play the lead character Arietty in her first voice acting role. Ryunosuke Kamiki (Howl's Moving Castle's Markl, Summer Wars' Kenji Koiso), will play Sho, the human boy who discovers Arrietty. Tomokazu Miura (Always San-chōme no Yūhi, Yomigaeru Sora) and Shinobu Ōtake (The Mouse and His Child) will play Pod and Homily, Arrietty's parents. Keiko Takeshita (Hi no Tori, Swan Lake) will play Sho's great aunt Sadako, and Kirin Kiki (Taro the Dragon Boy, Kamikaze Girls) will play one of Sho's family's helpers, Haru.
Karigurashi no Arrietty is an adaptation of Mary Norton's The Borrowers (Yukashita no Kobito-tachi) fantasy novel. The original, Carnegie Medal-winning 1952 novel revolves around the "little people" — 10 centimeters (about 4 inches) tall — who live underneath the floorboards of an English country house. (The Japanese title of the book literally means "the little people under the floor.") 14-year-old Arrietty and the rest of the Clock family live in peaceful anonymity as they make their own home from items "borrowed" from the house's human inhabitants. However, life changes for the Clocks when a human boy discovers Arrietty. Ghibli's adaptation will transport the setting from 1950s England to the Tokyo neighborhood of Koganei in 2010. (Koganei is the western Tokyo home of a number of Japanese animation studios, including Ghibli itself.)
The film will open in Japan on July 17.
Image © 2010 GNDHDDTW
Source: Sports Hochi via Tokyograph
