The North American manga publisher Viz Media announced at its FanimeCon panel on Sunday that it licensed the film comics for Hiromasa Yonebayashi and Studio Ghibli's Arrietty the Borrower (Karigurashi no Arrietty) movie. The film comics will launch in two volumes in North America in January of 2012. (The film comics had originally shipped in four volumes in Japan last August and September.) Viz has not announced the suggested retail price for the project.
Viz also indicated more Arrietty publications are in the works, but did not make specific release announcements. The film news website Deadline.com reported in January that Disney will release the film itself in North American theaters next February.
The 2010 film re-imagines Mary Norton's 1952 novel The Borrowers by moving the story to a Tokyo suburb. The story revolves around Arrietty, a member of the "little people" who live under the floorboards of a regular human family's home, and their struggle to remain hidden from the human "beans."