Makoto Shinkai’s Weathering With You aired on Japanese televisions few days after the premiere of Studio Ghibli’s Earwig and Witch. Ghibli’s movie aired on December 30, 2020. Weathering with you aired four days later on January 3, 2021. Earwig and the witch amassed a rating of 6.1% at the time of it’s viewing. On the other hand, 11 million( 8.8 per cent of Japanese population) were watching Shinkai’s film on January 3.

Earwig and Witch was Studio Ghibli’s first film after 6 years since Hayao Miyazaki’s retirement in 2013. This was the first television airing of A Whisker Away as well. A Whisker Away hit the theatres in 2016.

Earwig and the Witch overview by AnimeNewsNetwork :

Not every orphan would love living at St. Morwald’s Home for Children, but Earwig does. She gets whatever she wants, whenever she wants it, and it’s been that way since she was left on the orphanage doorstep as a baby. But all that changes the day Bella Yaga and the Mandrake come to St. Morwald’s, disguised as foster parents. Earwig wisks off to their mysterious house full of invisible rooms, potions, and spell books, with magic around every corner. Most children would run in terror from a house like that . . . but not Earwig. Using her own cleverness—with a lot of help from a talking cat—she decides to show the witch who’s boss.

Source : CBR, AnimeNewsNetwork.