Earwig and the Witch
Gorō Miyazaki’s fantasy comedy follows Earwig, a clever and strong-willed orphan whose confidence is tested when she is taken from the only home she has known and sent to live with a witch and a mysterious companion in a house full of secrets, spells, and shifting power. As Earwig tries to turn her new circumstances to her advantage, the film leans into mischief, stubbornness, and the pleasure of watching a resourceful child refuse to be intimidated by adults or magic. Its smaller scale and domestic setting give the story a more contained energy, centered less on grand adventure than on personality clashes and hidden motives. With its playful defiance and impish charm, Earwig and the Witch becomes a story about independence, adaptability, and the strange households where power, curiosity, and identity collide.
Why it matters
- Earwig and the Witch marks a major turning point in the Studio Ghibli catalog as the studio’s first fully CG feature, making it an important experiment in both technique and artistic direction.
- Its smaller domestic scale and mischievous lead give the film a different energy from the studio’s grander fantasies, centering personality, control, and adaptation within a house shaped by secrecy and magic.
- Though one of Ghibli’s most divisive works, it remains a significant entry for what it reveals about the studio’s willingness to test new forms, new processes, and a different visual future beyond its hand-drawn legacy.
Watch for
- Earwig’s confidence and resourcefulness, especially the way she treats a house full of magic not with awe but as a system to be tested, manipulated, and gradually understood.
- The domestic scale of the film, where spells, secrets, and power struggles are all concentrated inside a cluttered household rather than spread across a larger fantasy world.
- The tension between Earwig, Bella Yaga, and Mandrake, which gives the story much of its energy by turning everyday chores, rules, and hidden histories into ongoing tests of will.
- How the film’s mischievous tone depends on Earwig’s refusal to be passive, making her less a child swept into magic than an active force reshaping the strange home she has been thrown into.