Spirited Away director and Studio Ghibli co-founder returns with How Do You Live?, aka The Boy and the Heron, a mythic fantasy coming to the US on Dec. 8.
This first impression of Hayao Miyazaki’s How Do You Live? comes from the movie’s opening in Japan. GKIDS recently announced a December release date for the movie in American theaters.
It’s been 10 years since The Wind Rises, the movie that fans of Japan’s famed Studio Ghibli assumed at the time would be the final project for Hayao Miyazaki, director of classics like My Neighbor Totoro and Spirited Away. But Miyazaki — who has famously retired multiple times without noticeably stopping work — has returned, at age 82, with another animated feature: How Do You Live?, known internationally as The Boy and the Heron. And while its very long development time strained Studio Ghibli’s resources, it’ll make back its budget quickly, just from the same people going back to rewatch it over and over again until they finally get what it’s all about.
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After just one viewing, it seems that the only question Miyazaki is willing to answer for certain is why How Do You Live? wasn’t marketed at all. Up until the premiere, there were no trailers or advertising campaigns promoting the new Ghibli production, because when taken out of context, any scene or shot from this movie would only confuse audiences. The cutesy, human-sized, man-eating parakeets and a gaggle of rubbery grandmas who seem to have pudding for bones are just some of the things that probably made Ghibli’s marketing department cry.
Let’s take it from the beginning. In World War II-era Japan, a young boy named Mahito moves to the countryside after his mother dies and his father marries his late wife’s sister, Natsuko. Suddenly, a gray heron starts harassing Mahito, finally speaking with a human voice and telling him his mother is alive. Mahito follows the bird to a strange tower built by his great-uncle and enters another world where he looks for his birth mom, tries to save his stepmom, and generally deals with fantasy challenges as he finds a new maturity.
