Studio Ghibli’s The Boy and the Heron from director Hayao Miyazaki has finally been released, and reactions are already flooding the internet.
The mighty creator, ex-studio head and anime director of Studio Ghibli, Hayao Miyazaki, has returned for one final film! What is called his final film, The Boy and the Heron (also titled as How You Live?), just released across Japanese theatres on Friday, July 14. It ignited a lot of conversations and mystique around the film when Miyazaki and the studio announced there would be no marketing or trailers released for the film.
Current studio head at Studio Ghibli, Toshio Suzuki stated how the use of no promotional material was intentional because audiences have not seen Miyazaki’s work in over a decade and wanted to bring back some nostalgia. He felt that fans did not need to have any preconceptions going into viewing this film: “A poster and a title – that’s all we got when we were children. I enjoyed trying to imagine what a movie was about, and I wanted to bring that feeling back.”
ComScore reported a $13.2M opening weekend for The Boy and the Heron, distributed by Toho, with IMAX saying it set a new three-day opening record with $1.7M from 44 screens. Even crazier, there were no advance screenings for critics too! Everyone in Japan had the opportunity to view this final work from Miyazaki, all at the same time.
Anime News Network rated the film an overall ‘A’, commenting on its great themes and animation quality. While the story was rated a ‘B’, with the story being about a young boy dealing with the loss of his mother during World War II, they explained the premise was “exceedingly predictable.” The reviewer Richard Eisenbeis said that, “What’s not predictable is everything else. The world Mahito travels through is unlike any seen before – even in Miyazaki’s other similar films.”
BBC Tokyo-based journalist Matt Schley wrote on the film: “There are the usual visual treats, like cute yet eerie creatures, great-looking food and gravity-defying flights of fancy – primarily hand-drawn and moving with the fluidity and sense of weight that mark the master animator’s work.” This is a great first sign that Miyazaki has not lost his style over the years and continues to do what he does best.
Miyazaki has been applauded for blending fantasy and the reflections of real-world current events and/or issues. Miyazaki stated in interviews that the novel had a special impact on him as a child. While Miyazaki told the press he was retired, this special work was said to be a dedicated farewell gift to his grandson. The amalgamated tones that many of the reviewers micro-picked was how the film had a G-rating but still had some dark, mature tones throughout the film. Of course, audiences would have seen these undertones and themes in his past works like Spirited Away or Ponyo.
The story for The Boy and the Heron was inspired and taken from Genzaburo Yoshino’s novel of the same name. The film follows Mahito after his mother is killed during the wartime fire bombings of Tokyo. Based on collected conversations with Miyazaki, his own family was known to have escaped the bombing of Tokyo in real life. He also shared how he had a close relationship with his mother, inspiring his writing for strong female characters across his films.
International audiences like myself will have to wait for its release outside of Japan. Gkids has acquired the film for North America, and a possible release for later this year could be expected at some point. I cannot wait to see one last Studio Ghibli film from one of the greatest and most influential anime filmmakers of our time.
