The Boy and the Heron

Did You Know?

• The film was released in Japan without any trailers, images, synopsis, or casting details in advance, only a single poster.
• After the film's release, the novel How Do You Live? was temporarily in short supply, and its total circulation reached 1.8 million copies.
• Kenshi Yonezu's first visit to Studio Ghibli in 2018 led to his collaboration with Miyazaki, driven by his composition of 'Paprika' for the 2020 Summer Olympics.

Plot

Mahito Maki's mother, Hisako, dies in a hospital fire during the Pacific War. His father Shoichi, who owns an air munitions factory, marries Hisako's sister Natsuko, and the family moves to her rural estate. Mahito keeps his distance from the pregnant Natsuko. He then spots a strange grey heron that leads him to a sealed tower, the last place Natsuko's granduncle, an architect, was seen.

After a fight at school, Mahito hurts himself on purpose. The heron, now able to speak, tempts Mahito with the chance to find his mother. A swarm of creatures nearly kidnaps him, but Natsuko fires a whistling arrow to save him, which inspires Mahito to make his own bow and arrow. He fletches the arrow with a feather from the heron, giving it magical accuracy.

While reading a book Hisako left behind, Mahito is interrupted when a sick Natsuko vanishes into the forest. He takes an elderly maid named Kiriko into the tower. There, the heron tricks him with a watery copy of his mother that falls apart when he touches it. Angry, Mahito shoots the heron's beak with his arrow, revealing a flightless creature called the Birdman living inside it.

A wizard appears and orders the Birdman to guide Mahito and Kiriko as all three sink through the floor. Mahito falls into an ocean-like world. A younger version of Kiriko, who uses a magic wand to create fire and is a skilled fisherwoman, rescues him from attacking pelicans and a huge stone dolmen. They catch a giant fish and sell it to bubble-like spirits called Warawara, which then fly up to the world above to be reborn.

A young woman named Himi, who can control fire, protects the Warawara from the pelicans. A dying pelican says its species was brought to this world with no other food and is desperate to survive. Kiriko helps Mahito and the Birdman make peace, and Mahito plugs the Birdman's beak, letting him fly again. They are then separated by man-eating parakeets that walk like people.

Himi saves Mahito and shows him a version of the tower with doors to many worlds. They go through a door that leads back to Natsuko's estate, where Shoichi sees them, but Mahito goes back through the door to keep looking for Natsuko.

Production

After announcing his retirement in September 2013, Miyazaki reversed his 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 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.

Joe Hisaishi composed the film's score, while Kenshi Yonezu wrote and sang the theme song 'Spinning Globe'. 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.'

Themes

The Boy and the Heron draws heavily from Hayao Miyazaki’s own life. The main character, Mahito Maki, shares a childhood much like the director’s. Both Mahito’s father and Miyazaki’s father worked for a company that made parts for fighter planes. Both families also fled to the countryside during wartime. The hospital fire seen early in the film echoes Miyazaki’s personal grief over losing his mother, a strong-willed woman who inspired many of his female characters.

Mahito’s deep bond with his mother reflects Miyazaki’s own love for her. According to Taichiro Yoshino, a relative of the author Genzaburō Yoshino, Miyazaki wanted Mahito to be different from his usual cheerful, optimistic heroes, because he believed real boys are “less pure and swirling with all kinds of things.” The BBC called the movie “a coming-of-age tale in which a child must overcome his selfishness and learn to live for others.” Critics also note that the story is driven by a longing for a mother’s presence and a search for self-worth, a theme Miyazaki often returns to.

This emotion leads Mahito into strange adventures with fantastic creatures. His father marries his late wife’s sister, adding Freudian overtones, and one scene where Mahito is covered in frogs has been described as having “quasi-sexual” elements.

Reception

The Boy and the Heron opened as Studio Ghibli’s biggest debut in Japan, beating the first weekend of Howl’s Moving Castle from 2004. In its first four days, it drew 1.35 million viewers and crossed a major box office threshold. By September 11, it ranked as the 20th highest-grossing anime in Japan. Its gross climbed steadily from ¥8.44 billion in mid-October to ¥8.66 billion by late December, reaching ¥8.98 billion by March 17, 2024.

Film journalist Hiroo Ōtaka observed that the industry was surprised by this rapid success given the film’s “minimalist promotion.” Some distribution representatives worried that skipping traditional advertising could threaten their jobs. Ōtaka noted that the strategy relied on the existing fan base and social media buzz, and that Ghibli’s older films, regularly aired on Friday Road Show for a decade, indirectly helped. The film became the first original anime and Miyazaki’s first to top the box office in both Canada and the United States.

In China, it set a single-day record for a foreign animated film. On Metacritic, it earned a 91 out of 100 from 55 critics, labeled “universal acclaim.” Audiences gave the English-dubbed version an average grade of A− on CinemaScore.