is a 2023 Japanese animated fantasy film written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki. Produced by Studio Ghibli, the film's Japanese title references Genzaburō Yoshino's 1937 novel How Do You Live? but is not an adaptation of it. The film stars the voices of Soma Santoki, Masaki Suda, Ko Shibasaki, Aimyon, Yoshino Kimura, Takuya Kimura, Kaoru Kobayashi, and Shinobu Otake. It follows a boy named Mahito Maki who moves to the countryside after his mother's death, discovers an abandoned tower near his new home, and enters a fantastical world with a talking grey heron.
Miyazaki announced his retirement in September 2013 but later reversed this decision after working on the short film Boro the Caterpillar (2018). He began storyboarding for a new feature-length project in July 2016, and official production began in May 2017. The film's title was announced in October 2017, initially targeting a release around the 2020 Summer Olympics. By May 2020, 36 minutes of the film had been hand-drawn by 60 animators, with no set deadline. Production spanned approximately seven years, facing delays due to the COVID-19 pandemic and Miyazaki's slowed animation pace, before nearing completion in October 2022. Financing for the project involved streaming deals for previous Ghibli films. According to producer Toshio Suzuki, The Boy and the Heron is the most expensive film ever produced in Japan. The screenplay draws heavily from Miyazaki's childhood and explores themes of coming of age and coping with a world marked by conflict and loss. Joe Hisaishi composed the film's score, while Kenshi Yonezu wrote and sang the film's theme song "Spinning Globe".
The Boy and the Heron was released in Japan on July 14, 2023, by Toho, and was screened in both traditional theaters and in other formats such as IMAX. The release was noted for its intentional absence of any promotion, with Ghibli choosing not to release any trailers, images, synopsis, or casting details of the film in advance of its Japanese premiere except a single poster. The film received critical acclaim and grossed worldwide, making it the sixth highest-grossing Japanese film of all time. Among its numerous accolades, the film was named by the National Board of Review as one of the top 10 films of 2023 and won Best Animated Feature Film at the Academy Awards, the BAFTA Awards, the Golden Globe Awards, and the Japanese Academy Film Prize.
Plot
During the Pacific War, Mahito Maki loses his hospitalized mother, Hisako, in a fire. Mahito's father Shoichi, an air munitions factory owner, marries his late wife's sister, Natsuko, and they evacuate to her rural estate. Mahito, distant to the pregnant Natsuko, encounters a peculiar grey heron leading him to a sealed tower, the last known location of Natsuko's architect granduncle.
After a school fight, Mahito deliberately injures himself. The heron, now speaking, entices Mahito with promises of finding his mother. Mahito is nearly kidnapped by a swarm of creatures, but Natsuko saves him with a whistling arrow, inspiring him to craft his own bow and arrow. The arrow is magically imbued with true aim after it is fletched with the heron's feather. Mahito's reading of a book left by Hisako is interrupted when an ill Natsuko disappears into the forest. Leading one of the estate's elderly maids, Kiriko, into the tower, Mahito is deceived by a watery imitation of his mother made by the heron, which dissolves at his touch. Affronted, he pierces the heron's beak with his arrow, revealing a flightless creature, the Birdman, living inside it. A wizard appears, ordering the Birdman to guide Mahito and Kiriko as all three sink into the floor.
Mahito descends into an oceanic world. He is rescued from attacking pelicans and a forbidding, megalithic dolmen by a younger Kiriko, an adept fisherwoman who uses fire through a magic wand. They catch and sell a giant fish to bubble-like spirits called Warawara, which fly to the world above to be reborn. A pyrokinetic young woman, Himi, protects Warawara from predation by the pelicans. A dying pelican explains that their species is desperate to survive after being introduced to this world with no other food. Kiriko mediates peace between Mahito and the Birdman, and Mahito plugs the Birdman's beak, restoring his flight. The two are separated by anthropomorphic, man-eating parakeets. Himi saves Mahito and shows him a counterpart of the tower which contains doors to many worlds. They enter a door leading back to Natsuko's estate and are spotted by Shoichi, but Mahito returns through the door to continue his search for Natsuko.
Infiltrating the parakeets' kingdom, Mahito finds Natsuko in a delivery room. Natsuko rebuffs him, and Mahito calls her his mother. Himi incinerates the paper attacking them, but all three are rendered unconscious by the encounter. In a dream, Mahito meets the wizard, Natsuko's granduncle. The wizard, preoccupied with a stack of stone toy blocks representing their dimension, requests Mahito, possessing the power of his bloodline, to succeed in the custodianship of this world. Mahito notices that the blocks are infused with malice. Waking up, he is freed from captivity by the Birdman. They climb the tower to pursue the Parakeet King, who is delivering Himi to the wizard, hoping to convince him to maintain the world. The wizard has collected replacement blocks free of malice for Mahito and implores him to build a better world with them. Mahito refuses, acknowledging his own malice embodied by his self-inflicted scar, and vows instead to embrace those who love him.
The Parakeet King takes the blocks and tries to build a better world himself, but the stack is too unstable and falls. The world begins to collapse and flood, and Mahito, Himi, and the Birdman escape, reuniting with Natsuko and young Kiriko. Learning that Himi is his birth mother, Mahito warns her of her fate, but she returns to her own time without worry. Mahito returns with Natsuko, amidst an exodus of animals that revert to non-anthropomorphic forms. The Birdman notices Mahito keeping a stone of power, and advises him to forget his experiences. A charm doll carried by Mahito transforms back into the old Kiriko. Two years after the war, Mahito moves back to Tokyo with his father, Natsuko, and his new brother.
Voice cast
Character Voice actor Japanese English Mahito Maki Soma Santoki Luca Padovan The Grey Heron Masaki Suda Robert Pattinson Lady Himi Aimyon Karen Fukuhara Natsuko Yoshino Kimura Gemma Chan Shoichi Maki Takuya Kimura Christian Bale Granduncle Shōhei Hino Mark Hamill Kiriko Ko Shibasaki Florence Pugh Noble Pelican Kaoru Kobayashi Willem Dafoe The Parakeet King Jun Kunimura Dave Bautista Izumi (Maid #1) Keiko Takeshita Denise Pickering Utako (Maid #2) Jun Fubuki Barbara Rosenblat Eriko (Maid #3) Sawako Agawa Melora Harte Aiko (Maid #4) Shinobu Otake Barbara Goodson Warawara Karen Takizawa Parakeets
Production
Following the release of The Wind Rises(2013), Miyazaki held a press conference in Tokyo in September 2013 announcing his retirement from feature animation, saying: "I know I've said I would retire many times in the past. Many of you must think, 'Once again.' But this time I am quite serious." However, Miyazaki later changed his mind after concluding work on the short film Boro the Caterpillar(2018) and decided to come out of retirement to direct another full-length film; his decision was captured in the 2016 documentary film Never-Ending Man: Hayao Miyazaki. He commenced storyboarding for the film in July 2016 and presented a project proposal for it the following month. This proposal included the children's novel The Book of Lost Things by Irish author John Connolly, which formed "a loose framework" for the project. Edogawa Ranpo's , which Miyazaki loved as a child, inspired the tower in the film.
Although initially resistant, Toshio Suzuki approved the project, taking into account Miyazaki's commitment and storyboard work. After Suzuki announced the start of work on Miyazaki's new film in February 2017, the studio's official website posted a call for staff for the new project on May 19, 2017, and production began in earnest. With Miyazaki coming out of retirement, Studio Ghibli reopened, with many of its past collaborators working on the project. At an event held at Waseda University in October 2017, Studio Ghibli announced the film would be titled , after the 1937 novel by Genzaburō Yoshino. Suzuki clarified that the novel is not related to the film beyond inspiring the title. The release date was not determined, but Miyazaki voiced his desire to release the film around the time of the 2020 Summer Olympics in Japan. Suzuki said that Miyazaki was working on the film for his grandson as his way of saying "Grandpa is moving on to the next world, but he's leaving behind this film."
Suzuki stated in August 2018 that the film was expected to be completed in 2021 or 2022. He stated that it was 15% complete at the end of October 2019. In a December 2019 interview with NHK, Suzuki explained that the film was not to be expected anytime soon; Miyazaki in his younger age used to produce 10 minutes of animation every month, but now his speed was reduced to 1 minute per month. Despite talk of Miyazaki's upcoming film being his last, Suzuki doubted it, asserting that as long as Miyazaki lives, he will likely keep making films. Unlike his previous films, Miyazaki did not oversee every single frame and focused on the storyboards, while the animation director Takeshi Honda took charge of the animation process. In February 2020, the studio decided to release some of its previous filmography on streaming platforms like Netflix in order to finance the production. Suzuki convinced Miyazaki to make the deal as he did not use a computer or smartphone and was unaware of online streaming.
In May 2020, Suzuki recounted to Entertainment Weekly that 60 animators were working on the film, and that an estimated 36 minutes had been completed after three years of production, saying "we are still hand-drawing everything, but it takes us more time to complete a film because we're drawing more frames", and they were "hoping it will finish in the next three years". In December 2020, Suzuki stated that the production was working with no deadlines, similarly to The Tale of the Princess Kaguya(2013), which took eight years to make. He said that COVID-19 pandemic restrictions had not stopped production, and that half of the film's estimated 125 minutes were complete. He also revealed that Miyazaki wanted to adapt Diana Wynne Jones's Earwig and the Witch during development, but his son Goro directed the adaptation instead. Cinematographer Atsushi Okui suggested the idea of using Dolby Cinema to Miyazaki during the production of Earwig and the Witch. Okui was particularly drawn to the technology's ability to maintain image sharpness in bright scenes while preventing dark areas from becoming overly black.
In October 2021, Miyazaki told T that he was making the film because he did not have an answer to the question "how do you live?" In October 2022, the chairman of Studio Ghibli stated that the film was approaching completion, but did not specify a release date. In December 2022, Takuya Kimura, who voiced Howl in Howl's Moving Castle, "hinted" that he was in the film with a post on social media. Suzuki considered The Boy and the Heron to be the most expensive film ever produced in Japan. The production timeline spanned approximately seven years, comprising two and a half years dedicated to pre-production activities and about five years for the production phase.