Pippi Longstocking by GIMLI

Saker man inte visste om Pippi? Sa snalla Lindgrenska familjen, snalla lat Gimli fortsatta med produktionen av Pippi. Det kan val inte finnas nagot battre bolag for tecknad film?

http://www.ghibliworld.com/news.html#1205

4th of May, A RARE LOOK AT MIYAZAKI'S & TAKAHATA'S NEVER RELEASED "PIPPI": Who does NOT cheer up when (re-)seeing the magical scene from Miyazaki's Tonari no Totoro in which Mei falls into a tree hole after following chibi-Totoro and encounters Totoro for the fist time? Mei climbs up his furry tummy… "Anata wa dare? Makkuro korosuke?" … "Tooo… tooo… ROOOOOOO!!!!"… and finally ends up falling asleep.

The unforgettable character of the little Mei was of course inspired by Panda Kopanda's Mimiko, and on her turn Mimiko was unmistakably inspired by the character of Pippi Longstocking. Which brings us to the subject of this short little writing: Miyazaki's and Takahata's never realized animation: Pippi Longstocking, The Strongest Girl In The World (Nagakutsushita No Pippi, Sekai Ichi Tsuyoi Onna No Ko).



Back in 1971 Miyazaki Hayao left Toei for A Pro together with Takahata Isao and Kotabe Youichi. There he co-directed six episodes of the first Lupin III series with Takahata and shortly after they also began pre-production on Pippi Longstocking, The Strongest Girl In The World. In order to come up with ideas, Miyazaki made his very first trip abroad and went location scouting in the port city of Visby on Gotland Island, Sweden. Unfortunately after meeting with the original author, Astrid Lindgren, their permission to complete the project was denied. Pippi got cancelled.

Even though the Pippi animation never got realized, it has still been "unmissable" for those who have watched Miyazaki's later works. Its ideas and influences cannot only be found in Panda Kopanda with Mimiko and her the two long red pony tails and freckles, or the cute characteristics of Totoro's Mei, but also in Heidi's swinging scene or in Kiki's Delivery Service's settings (the pictures Miyazaki took during his trip to Sweden were used to create the port city of Koriko) and even the protagonist of Miyazaki's latest film Ponyo has inherited Pippi's lively features.

Sadly though, not a lot of people, even avid appreciators of the works of Miyazaki, have actually seen the work Miyazaki did for Pippi. Extensive imageboards were made by the master animator, but these can be found only in a book on Miyazaki's imageboards that was released back in 1983, a book that has been long out of print. Especially for the people who don't own a copy of that book, some of these rare & lovely water color imageboards of Pippi by none other than Miyazaki Hayao follow below.