ついに. At long last. The stunning career of storytelling sensei Hayao Miyazaki soars to further heights with the mystery-shrouded arrival of his first film in ten years, The Boy and the Heron. It’s just taken wing in Japan under the title 君たちはどう生きるか (How Do You Live?), the same name as the 1927 novel by Genzaburo Yoshino, which Miyazaki has said was a childhood favorite, and from whose plot he adapted his story. 

First things first: “It exists!” Letterboxd correspondent Alicia Haddick confirms, in their five-star review of the animated, hand-drawn feature, which they watched on opening day. “This is just… incredible.” Also in Tokyo, also giving a full five stars, Baikunan writes: “I had no prior knowledge of the film, but I hit the jackpot! Hayao Miyazaki, whose imagination has not withered at all!” 

We have known so little for so long, thanks to a beautifully enigmatic anti-marketing campaign (cost? “Studio Ghibli’s decision to withhold synopsis, stills, trailers and marketing materials in the lead up to their North American release—expected to be sometime later this year. 

In a summer sizzling with pre-strike, big-budget movie marketing, with Tom Cruise’s repetitive enthusiasm for big theaters, big screens and big audiences echoing on every red carpet, this approach is a zen revelation.

As ChiaKiii writes, after seeing The Boy and the Heron on opening day, “It’s nearly impossible nowadays to go watch a movie without having any sort of information about it, whether it’s a poster, trailer, music, or teaser, so this was an incredibly refreshing and valuable experience. The shock and excitement of not knowing anything made me giddy.” Fresh off a screening in Shinagawa, Lucas Ōhara agrees: ““It was just so nice to see anticipation and wonder emanating from every single person in that movie theater. Nobody knew what to expect! We don’t get a lot of that these days.” 

So, how much do we already know, and how much more do we really want to know? For most, what you’ve read thus far will be more than enough. For those with more curiosity, we’ve rifled through Letterboxd reviews from the film’s opening day in Japan for some clues (and no spoilers). Read on!

At the center of it all: Miyazaki, born into the thick of World War II on January 1941 and still creating work 82 years later, despite first announcing plans to retire in 1997. Many write-ups mention The Boy and the Heron as his “final film” but, ever-optimistic, we’ll merely refer to it as his latest—and the most recent to explore themes he’s long been drawn to. 

“The nostalgia of all of Miyazaki's works can be felt throughout as well as a sense of deja vu, as if you have walked the same landscape in your dreams,” ChiaKiii writes. “I kept repeating the title in my head, trying to read between the lines and grasp what Miyazaki was saying to us, trying to answer the question ‘How DO you live?’.” (The international title, by the way, was reportedly Suzuki’s idea “so please don’t get your feathers in a fluff over it” suggests the film’s translator, Don Brown.)

Rising spirits: the story and its message

There’s a boy, there’s a heron. “A fantasy on a grand scale,” is all the synopsis on Letterboxd’s own page for the film reveals. We know from the novel that the story takes place during the Second World War, during which Mahito’s mother dies in a Tokyo air-raid. Things depart somewhat from there and the novel itself becomes an object in the film: having moved to the countryside, the boy finds both the book, and the mysterious heron, and magic ensues.  

Tony Gupta kindly reveals little in his five-out-of-five-star review, except to gently reiterate details we already know, from films like Porco Rosso and The Wind Rises, to be storytelling material of interest to the director: “As a child, Miyazaki Hayao’s father managed a plane factory during World War II, and his mother was sick. That’s all I’ll say of the plot.” He does give insights into the vibes: “Miyazaki is operating in a new mode here… slower and more quiet than even The Wind Rises. For perhaps the first time, he lets emotion supersede form.”

And where there is war, there is darkness. “Ignore the other reviews that are also calling it Miyazaki’s something or other. This is Miyazaki’s Inferno,” Painlaser suggests, bringing Dario Argento to the Ghibli party.

Telmwns, who caught The Boy and the Heron at a Dolby cinema in Nagoya, similarly teases: “Couple of scenes genuinely scared shit out of me like I was watching a horror movie. I was like ‘what the hell all those years you had it in you’.” Steph agrees: “I think it’s time Miyazaki gave up on the feel-good stuff and just writes a full fledged horror freak show like I know his heart desires.” 

“Undoubtedly the craziest film Miyazaki has ever made. It was like a fever dream (with giant parrots),” writes Kotank. “Slow-burn, not ‘easy’,” cautions 최탱, “but has very powerful message.”

That message? Mario Pasqualini, writing from Okayama (and translated from Italian) has thoughts after “two hours in the head of an artist who delivers his spiritual testament to the world, which is: the world is beautiful, life goes on. Yes, it really is such a simple message, and so true.”

Plot and Miyazaki have often been ephemeral friends. Things happen, but it’s how they happen that matters. Writing after a sold-out screening at Toho Nijo in Kyoto, Jack Higgins explains: “It did feel to me like the tone of the film changed quite a bit as it developed—almost like getting swept up in the adventure was the point of the journey itself rather than any particularly profound emotional or plot development.”

Back to ChiaKiii, for a deeper dive: “It was an embrace of both life and death, the gruesome cruelty of the world, and the desire to have hope, to hang on to and preserve the little beauty that is left. A graceful acceptance of the finite and the age of time. A bittersweet goodbye to a legend and a brave welcome of the newer, younger generation. The torch has been ed.”

Finally, Pintobuns’ cryptic review embraces the wood-sprite aura of Miyazaki’s oeuvre while giving nothing away. Long live the birds, indeed.