Yuki's Sun (found Hayao Miyazaki unaired pilot short of cancelled anime series; 1972)

The title card for the short film.

Status: Found

Date found: 26 Dec 2013

Found by: Studio Ghibli; TMS Entertainment; Aeon Entertainment; Toho Co., Ltd.

Yuki's Sun was a 1972 short film produced by TMS Entertainment and directed by Hayao Miyazaki. The short film was based on Tetsuya Chiba's (of Tomorrow's Joe fame) manga of the same name, and it was a pitch pilot for a planned TV series. It is also notable for being Hayao Miyazaki's directorial debut long before the founding of Studio Ghibli.

Availability

The pilot short film would not see the light of day, and the planned series was never picked up and greenlit.

For many years, the mere existence of the short film was not known to the general public, and the first time the existence of the film became known was when fragments totalling 2 minutes (out of 5) were shown in a Nippon TV behind-the-scenes documentary for Spirited Away in 2001 (29 years after it was originally produced).

The full 5-minute version would only be released in December 26th, 2013, as a lead-in with select Japanese theatrical screenings of Isao Takahata's The Tale of the Princess Kaguya at Aeon Cinemas, 41 years after its production. The theatrical run lasted until January 13, 2014.

It would later get a Blu-ray release as part of The Collected Works of Hayao Miyazaki box set on July 2nd, 2014, released alongside the home video premiere of The Wind Rises, and remastered Blu-ray releases of Spirited Away and Lupin III: The Castle of Cagliostro. Said box set would be released internationally, including English subtitles for the short film. The film would also later see a worldwide streaming release on Mubi in November 30th, 2023.