By Jeremy Kahn

If you’re a Studio Ghibli fan, you know about their upcoming film based on the “Borrowers.” Now news comes of another film coming out in 2013 based on a Japanese folktale “Taketori Monogatari” (“The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter”). In 2009, Ghibli producer Toshio Suzuki hinted that studio co-founder Isao Takahata was working on a new film. Takahata’s previous works include “Grave of the Fireflies,” “Only Yesterday” and “My Neighbors the Yamadas.” The buzz increased when Takahata mentioned “Taketori Monogatari during the 62nd Locarno International Film Festival.

According to animenewsnetwork.com “Taketori Monogatari” is a tale that takes place in the 10th century. ”Known by virtually every Japanese child, [it] revolves around a princess named Kaguya who was discovered as a baby inside the stalk of a glowing bamboo plant.”

This is all, of course, still just rumor, though the possibility is high. If this is true then this will be Isao Takahata’s first film in 12 years, since his  last film “My Neighbors the Yamadas” (1999).