Studio Ponoc, the new Japanese animation house manned by former Studio Ghibli creatives, has released a teaser trailer for its first film, Mary and the Witch’s Flower.

Yoshiaki Nishimura is the film’s producer, and fellow ex-Ghibli staffer Hiromasa Yonebayashi is the director for their first Studio Ponoc output. Both Nishimura and Yonebayashi worked together on the Ghibli production, When Marnie Was There. Other Ghibli alumni working on the feature include composer Takatsugu Muramatsu.

Hiromasa Yonebayashi is well known for his direction and animation for canonical films like Princess Mononoke, Howl’s Moving Castle, Spirited Away and From up on Poppy Hill. Nishimura also worked on Howl’s Moving Castle as well as The Tale of Princess Kaguya.

The animation is based on The Little Broomstick, a 1971 children’s book by Mary Stewart. The visual story follows a young girl called Mary, who discovers a broomstick out in the woods. When she takes it for a ride, she ends up at a witches’ school called Endor College, where she finds animals under spells being kept in cages. After freeing the animals she is pursued by the evil schoolmaster.

From the promising clip, it seems like the magical spirit of Studio Ghibli will live on in Studio Ponoc.

Watch the trailer for the film below, meant to hit cinemas in Japan summer 2017.

h/t Rice Digital