Iconic Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki emerged from his self-announced retirement, which began a few years after he made “The Wind Rises” (2013), to tell the autobiographical story of “The Boy and the Heron.” Studio Ghibli president Toshio Suzuki had to reassemble the staff of the production company to complete the task, and the hard work was recognized with the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature in March 2024.
The 2023 film added another Oscar to the animation director’s accolades after “Spirited Away” won the Best Animated Feature Oscar in 2011. The Academy Award win will send the film back into theaters for a limited time, and fresh off the win at the beginning of March, the film set two different streaming homes depending on where you live.
Those wondering how to watch “The Boy and the Heron” in the meantime can read on for details:
When did “The Boy and the Heron” come out?...
The 2023 film added another Oscar to the animation director’s accolades after “Spirited Away” won the Best Animated Feature Oscar in 2011. The Academy Award win will send the film back into theaters for a limited time, and fresh off the win at the beginning of March, the film set two different streaming homes depending on where you live.
Those wondering how to watch “The Boy and the Heron” in the meantime can read on for details:
When did “The Boy and the Heron” come out?...
- 3/22/2024
- by Dessi Gomez
- The Wrap
Howl's Moving Castle.I returned to the films of Hayao Miyazaki last year because the kids I nanny in Brooklyn—A, eight, and J, six—happened upon Studio Ghibli Fest while they were away over the summer in Upstate New York, visiting their grandparents in a town where they had spent the early pandemic. Of the two, J’s infatuation with Miyazki is least surprising: his interests include black holes, rare crystals, and mushrooms, especially the poisonous varieties. Through his eyes, I rediscovered Miyazaki, rewatching once-familiar films with a new attunement to their strangeness. In the process I was reminded of first meeting J, when he was four years old and still reeling from his family’s relocation from a house Upstate to their apartment in Brooklyn. He was particularly incensed about having to wear shoes, which I imagine crystallized the totality of the transformation: in that passage from grass to concrete,...
- 3/11/2024
- MUBI
Warning: contains plot spoilers for The Boy and the Heron.
The English-language title of Hayao Miyazaki’s latest feature at Studio Ghibli is misleadingly simple. The Boy and the Heron suggests an Aesop-like fable in the vein of The Ant and the Grasshopper or The Hare and the Fox. The film itself has nothing like the clarity of a fable. It’s crowded, at times to the point of narrative incoherence, with enchanting but mystifying episodes that elude a single reading.
It’s the story of Mahito, a boy in 1940s Tokyo who loses his mother in a wartime fire. A year later, his father remarries her sister and starts a new family, moving them out to the aunt’s childhood countryside home. There, Mahito is plagued by a menacing heron who lures him to a mysterious tower built by his grand-uncle with the promise of seeing his mother alive.
The English-language title of Hayao Miyazaki’s latest feature at Studio Ghibli is misleadingly simple. The Boy and the Heron suggests an Aesop-like fable in the vein of The Ant and the Grasshopper or The Hare and the Fox. The film itself has nothing like the clarity of a fable. It’s crowded, at times to the point of narrative incoherence, with enchanting but mystifying episodes that elude a single reading.
It’s the story of Mahito, a boy in 1940s Tokyo who loses his mother in a wartime fire. A year later, his father remarries her sister and starts a new family, moving them out to the aunt’s childhood countryside home. There, Mahito is plagued by a menacing heron who lures him to a mysterious tower built by his grand-uncle with the promise of seeing his mother alive.
- 1/19/2024
- by Louisa Mellor
- Den of Geek
After Hayao Miyazaki took three years to finish the initial storyboard for “The Boy and the Heron”, it became obvious that he needed help. With diminished stamina and failing eyesight, the legendary anime auteur was no longer able to control everything. So he invited Takeshi Honda (“Neon Genesis Evangelion”), the supervising animator on his hybrid CG/2D short “Boro the Caterpillar,” to join his upcoming feature.
Honda was flattered and told Miyazaki that he would think about it because he was already committed to “Evangelion: 3.0+1.0 Thrice Upon a Time,” the franchise film finale. “But at that time, Miyazaki san said, ‘I don’t have time — there is no one in the Miyazaki family who is over 80 years old.’ I thought it was a big deal,” Honda told IndieWire over Zoom through an interpreter.
Honda couldn’t refuse Miyazaki (now 82) and proceeded to spend the next seven years on a journey of a lifetime,...
Honda was flattered and told Miyazaki that he would think about it because he was already committed to “Evangelion: 3.0+1.0 Thrice Upon a Time,” the franchise film finale. “But at that time, Miyazaki san said, ‘I don’t have time — there is no one in the Miyazaki family who is over 80 years old.’ I thought it was a big deal,” Honda told IndieWire over Zoom through an interpreter.
Honda couldn’t refuse Miyazaki (now 82) and proceeded to spend the next seven years on a journey of a lifetime,...
- 12/28/2023
- by Bill Desowitz
- Indiewire
English dubs for anime are a contentious thing. For many otakus, subbing out Japanese original audio for an English translation is defilement. Yet as anime has become more mainstream in America, the quality of dubs has shot up as well, and it's honestly not hard to find good ones these days (the English version of "Cowboy Bebop" is rightfully legendary).
Some of those quality dubs have been done for the films of anime's greatest genius: Hayao Miyazaki, founder of Studio Ghibli. When you're handling the work of a master, the incentive to do it right is all the more present. Not every single Ghibli picture is a Miyazaki joint, to be clear, but the director and studio remain pretty synonymous.
First, some history of Ghibli's English dubs. Miyazaki's earlier works in the 1980s and early '90s were mostly dubbed by the now-defunct Streamline Pictures. After Disney brokered a licensing...
Some of those quality dubs have been done for the films of anime's greatest genius: Hayao Miyazaki, founder of Studio Ghibli. When you're handling the work of a master, the incentive to do it right is all the more present. Not every single Ghibli picture is a Miyazaki joint, to be clear, but the director and studio remain pretty synonymous.
First, some history of Ghibli's English dubs. Miyazaki's earlier works in the 1980s and early '90s were mostly dubbed by the now-defunct Streamline Pictures. After Disney brokered a licensing...
- 12/10/2023
- by Devin Meenan
- Slash Film
Plot: After his mother dies during WW2, a young Japanese boy, Mahito Maki (Soma Santoki), is sent to live with his Aunt, Natsuko (Yoshino Kimura), with whom his munitions factory owner father is trying to start a new family. Traumatized by the death of his mother and struggling to accept his circumstances, Mahito finds himself lured into a fantasy world out of time and space by an antagonistic grey Heron (Masaki Suda). As Mahito struggles to make sense of the new macrocosm, he ends a vicious cycle of generational trauma, ultimately making peace with his new surroundings by accepting the winds of change.
Review: As an animation enthusiast, few cinematic pleasures are more anticipated than experiencing another potential masterpiece from the “Godfather of Anime,” Hayao Miyazaki. The co-founder of Studio Ghibli is responsible for some of animation’s greatest treasures, including Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke, My Neighbor Totoro, Howl’s Moving Castle,...
Review: As an animation enthusiast, few cinematic pleasures are more anticipated than experiencing another potential masterpiece from the “Godfather of Anime,” Hayao Miyazaki. The co-founder of Studio Ghibli is responsible for some of animation’s greatest treasures, including Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke, My Neighbor Totoro, Howl’s Moving Castle,...
- 12/9/2023
- by Steve Seigh
- JoBlo.com
If you ever want to stir up a heated debate among anime lovers, then there’s no quicker way than a very simple three-word question: “Subs or dubs?” Purists tend to swear by subtitles, whilst mainstream moviegoers often appreciate the convenience and accessibility of a solid English-language dub. Anything that gets more people watching Japanese animation can surely only be a good thing – and frankly, when you see the star-studded English-language voice cast assembled for :a[Studio Ghibli]{href='https://www.empireonline.com/movies/features/studio-ghibli-every-movie-ranked/' target='blank' rel='noreferrer noopener'}’s upcoming :a[The Boy And The Heron]{href='https://www.empireonline.com/movies/news/the-boy-and-the-heron-first-trailer-for-hayao-miyazakis-new-studio-ghibli-film/' target='blank' rel='noreferrer noopener'}, you’ll want to check the dub out, whichever side of the fence you sit on.
Announced by North American distributor Gkids yesterday, the occasion of Hayao Miyazaki’s latest – :a[and potentially last]{href='https://www.empireonline.com...
Announced by North American distributor Gkids yesterday, the occasion of Hayao Miyazaki’s latest – :a[and potentially last]{href='https://www.empireonline.com...
- 10/18/2023
- by Jordan King
- Empire - Movies
Miyazaki’s first animated feature in 10 years, “The Boy and the Heron” has come out with its official English voice cast.
Gkids, which serves as animation group Studio Ghibli’s North American distributor, announced that the full cast will consist of Christian Bale as Shoichi Maki; Dave Bautista as The Parakeet King; Gemma Chan as Natsuko; Willem Dafoe as Noble Pelican; Karen Fukuhara as Lady Himi; Mark Hamill as Granduncle; Robert Pattinson as The Gray Heron and Florence Pugh as Kiriko.
They’re joined by Luca Padovan as protagonist Mahito Maki and Mamoudou Athie, Tony Revolri and Dan Stevens as the Parakeets. The English-language dub was made in alignment with the SAG-AFTRA Foreign Dubbing Agreement.
Written and directed by Miyazaki, this semi-autobiographical story follows a 12-year-old boy named Mahito Maki. After the death of his mother during a fire-bombing, Mahito is sent by his father, Shoichi to live with his aunt,...
Gkids, which serves as animation group Studio Ghibli’s North American distributor, announced that the full cast will consist of Christian Bale as Shoichi Maki; Dave Bautista as The Parakeet King; Gemma Chan as Natsuko; Willem Dafoe as Noble Pelican; Karen Fukuhara as Lady Himi; Mark Hamill as Granduncle; Robert Pattinson as The Gray Heron and Florence Pugh as Kiriko.
They’re joined by Luca Padovan as protagonist Mahito Maki and Mamoudou Athie, Tony Revolri and Dan Stevens as the Parakeets. The English-language dub was made in alignment with the SAG-AFTRA Foreign Dubbing Agreement.
Written and directed by Miyazaki, this semi-autobiographical story follows a 12-year-old boy named Mahito Maki. After the death of his mother during a fire-bombing, Mahito is sent by his father, Shoichi to live with his aunt,...
- 10/17/2023
- by Valerie Wu
- Variety Film + TV
One of the most vital skills an animator can hone is a sense for how gravity will bear down on their subjects in realistic and legible ways. A character who weighs nothing appears stripped of physicality, and we regard them, consciously or otherwise, as invulnerable.
Miyazaki Hayao, over the past half-century, has conquered gravity. The Japanese artist’s drawings feel like people because they move like people; they’re believable because they’re capable of being hurt. Never is this more apparent than when two of his characters embrace, the total catharsis of human bodies colliding expressed in a tight knot of stumbling feet and clasped arms—that weight, that vulnerability, shared between them. This ability to render subjects with such convincing tactility is only one reason why Miyazaki is possibly our greatest living animator, and his latest, The Boy and the Heron—a fable about, among other things, the...
Miyazaki Hayao, over the past half-century, has conquered gravity. The Japanese artist’s drawings feel like people because they move like people; they’re believable because they’re capable of being hurt. Never is this more apparent than when two of his characters embrace, the total catharsis of human bodies colliding expressed in a tight knot of stumbling feet and clasped arms—that weight, that vulnerability, shared between them. This ability to render subjects with such convincing tactility is only one reason why Miyazaki is possibly our greatest living animator, and his latest, The Boy and the Heron—a fable about, among other things, the...
- 9/29/2023
- by Cole Kronman
- Slant Magazine
Late in the freewheeling action of The Boy and the Heron (Kimitachi wa Do Ikiruka), the director’s young stand-in returns to the realm of the living after encountering an ancestor who gives him a handful of stones, instructing him to build a tower with them every three days to create a world of beauty and balance, free from malice. That’s as apt a summation as any of what 82-year-old anime master Hayao Miyazaki has been doing throughout his celebrated six-decade career as a consummate artist and a storyteller of unfettered imagination.
Miyazaki’s first feature in 10 years follows 2013’s The Wind Rises, a project that was announced at the time as the legendary animator’s farewell. That film’s elegiac tone and inspiring themes of molding dreams into reality and choosing creation over violence and destruction made it a fitting swan song.
But Miyazaki clearly was not done weaving his phantasmagorical worlds.
Miyazaki’s first feature in 10 years follows 2013’s The Wind Rises, a project that was announced at the time as the legendary animator’s farewell. That film’s elegiac tone and inspiring themes of molding dreams into reality and choosing creation over violence and destruction made it a fitting swan song.
But Miyazaki clearly was not done weaving his phantasmagorical worlds.
- 9/8/2023
- by David Rooney
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
More often than not, Hayao Miyazaki’s heroes have been young women — from Ponyo to Princess Mononoke, mischief-seeking Kiki to the two sisters spirited away by furry forest guardians in “My Neighbor Totoro.” That’s the most obvious departure the anime maestro’s fans will notice in “The Boy and the Heron”: It’s about a boy, Mahito Maki (voiced by Soma Santoki), grieving the loss of his mother during wartime. He’s surrounded by women, but this quest falls on the shoulders of a character who’s reportedly closer to Miyazaki than any of his previous protagonists.
In 2013, the world-renowned toon auteur announced his retirement from feature filmmaking. He disbanded Studio Ghibli, the company he’d co-founded, and let its artists scatter to find work where they could. But Miyazaki couldn’t stop drawing. And this time, the adventure he imagined centered on a 12-year-old boy and the...
In 2013, the world-renowned toon auteur announced his retirement from feature filmmaking. He disbanded Studio Ghibli, the company he’d co-founded, and let its artists scatter to find work where they could. But Miyazaki couldn’t stop drawing. And this time, the adventure he imagined centered on a 12-year-old boy and the...
- 9/8/2023
- by Peter Debruge
- Variety Film + TV
When Guillermo de Toro reminded the world that animation isn’t merely “a genre for kids but a medium for art” in his Oscars and BAFTA acceptance speeches as he won awards for his “Pinocchio” last year, he probably wasn’t thinking only of his own animated movie, or that of a specific filmmaker. But it’s a spot-on assertion for any Hayao Miyazaki picture — most recently, his beautiful, mournful and ultimately hope-filled “The Boy and The Heron.”
This is the Japanese master’s first feature film in 10 years — his last was 2013’s elegiac “The Wind Rises,” a title that was supposed to be Miyazaki’s official retirement from filmmaking. But you can’t stop an artist’s natural craving for making art any more than you can halt your instinctual need for air.
Thus, we’re graced with the existence of “The Boy and The Heron,” a kaleidoscopic and reflective rumination on life,...
This is the Japanese master’s first feature film in 10 years — his last was 2013’s elegiac “The Wind Rises,” a title that was supposed to be Miyazaki’s official retirement from filmmaking. But you can’t stop an artist’s natural craving for making art any more than you can halt your instinctual need for air.
Thus, we’re graced with the existence of “The Boy and The Heron,” a kaleidoscopic and reflective rumination on life,...
- 9/8/2023
- by Tomris Laffly
- The Wrap
In cinema, few names are as iconic as Hayao Miyazaki, and his latest adventure carries the weight of expectation. Drawing inspiration from the mysticism of Japanese folklore and grounded in the pain of personal loss, The Boy and the Heron, which opened the 2023 Toronto Film Festival, is a visual spectacle that rekindles the art of 2D animation in an era dominated by the digital.
It is a bit of a mixed bag as there are moments of beauty along with narrative missteps. From Studio Ghibli’s signature heartwarming touches to a plot that might perplex, this visual stunner undeniably reaffirms Miyazaki’s status as one of the world’s most beloved filmmakers.
The film starts with Mahito Maki (Soma Santoki) waking up to the sound of warning sirens. There is a fire in the town hospital that belongs to his mother. He tries to help put out the fire, but...
It is a bit of a mixed bag as there are moments of beauty along with narrative missteps. From Studio Ghibli’s signature heartwarming touches to a plot that might perplex, this visual stunner undeniably reaffirms Miyazaki’s status as one of the world’s most beloved filmmakers.
The film starts with Mahito Maki (Soma Santoki) waking up to the sound of warning sirens. There is a fire in the town hospital that belongs to his mother. He tries to help put out the fire, but...
- 9/8/2023
- by Valerie Complex
- Deadline Film + TV
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