 After the release of "The Castle of Cagliostro", Miyazaki began working on his ideas for an animated film adaptation of Richard Corben's comic book "Rowlf" and pitched the idea to Yutaka Fujioka at TMS.In November 1980, a proposal was drawn up to acquire the film rights.Around that time, Miyazaki was also approached for a series of magazine articles by the editorial staff of "Animage".