Amazon has picked up a Studio Ghibli animated series

According to Variety, Amazon Studios has picked up American rights for Studio Ghibli’s fantasy animated series Ronia The Robber’s Daughter. Gillian Anderson, well known as ‘Scully’ from The X-Files,  will be narrating the English dubbed version. The children’s TV series is directed by Goro Miyazaki.

Ronia The Robber’s Daughter will be 26 episodes long and is based on a Swedish fantasy book of the same name by author Astrid Lindgren, the book follows the young girl Ronia, as she grows up in a castle among a clan of robbers in the middle of Scandinavia. Director Goro Miyazaki is the son of the legendary Hayao Miyazaki, he’s the co-founder of Studio Ghibli and has directed two films previously, Tales From Earthsea and From Up On The Poppy Hill. 

Amazon Studios are starting to build up their record of bringing high-quality entertainment to the table, previous films include Nicolas Winding Refn’s The Neon Demon as well as Manchester By The Sea starring Casey Affleck, which is yet to be released, but is garnering serious Oscar buzz this year.

The series will be released on Amazon Prime later this year, hopefully, this will be the start of something over at Amazon Studios, as they seem to be behind in the animation department compared to close competitors Netflix, who champion popular anime series and films.