Howl’s Moving Castle character designer draws a Calcifer for reminders, jokes, or however else you want to use him.

Studio Ghibli is, far and away, Japan’s most respected anime house. Their artwork is so beloved that there’s an entire chain of specialty stores that sells nothing but Ghibli goods.

At the same time, though, Ghibli can be remarkably generous. During the pandemic, they released a massive collection of backgrounds and stills from their movies to use for video chats or other projects, and on Tuesday night Ghibli handed out another beautiful piece of artwork, this time an original illustration, for fans to use.

https://twitter.com/JP_GHIBLI/status/1551868067227250688

“Please use this within the bounds of common sense, as a message board or for writing funny comments,” says the message from the official Studio Ghibli Twitter account that accompanies the picture of Calcifer, the fire spirit from Howl’s Moving Castle. If the artwork is looking especially authentic, that’s because it was drawn by none other than Akihiko Yamashita, a veteran Ghibli animator who’s worked with the company for decades and served as character designer for Howl’s Moving Castle, a role he also filled for The Secret World of Arrietty and Mary and the Witch’s Flower.

▼ If only there was a way to hug the adorable little guy without also suffering severe burns.

Ghibli’s generosity was met with cries of thanks and comments such as:

“Ghibli is just too cool!”
“So it’s a fire-proof bulletin board, right?”
“Calcifer is so cute!”
“This would be a great sign for marking the end of lines at Comiket.”
“I want to use it for tweets that I think are gonna get flamed.”

There have also been several response tweets with Calcifer saying “Arigatou! (ありがとう), Japanese for “Thank you!”

…and even the official Twitter account for Ghibli Park has joined in, with this reminder that tickets for the soon-to-open Ghibli theme park go on sale August 10.

Now to just keep our fingers crossed that we can actually get one of the tickets, but it’s good to know that even if we don’t, we can still hang out with Calcifer.

Source: Twitter/@ JP_GHIBLI (1, 2)
Top image: Twitter/@ JP_GHIBLI (edited by SoraNews24
Insert images: Studio Ghibli
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