The heartbreaking true story behind The Boy and the Heron, the animated film of the moment

Thirty-two thousand people went to the cinema to see The Boy and the Heron in its first three days of release in Argentina. The devotion of a certain group of spectators to Hayao Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli It stands firm even in times when theaters are clamoring for ticket buyers.

The major explanation for the film’s success is the high artistic level that master Miyazaki gives to each of his productions.

The Boy and the Heron, although strange, psychedelic and a little confusing, is no different My Neighbor Totoro, The enchanted city OR The incredible wandering castlethree references of his work.

The Boy and the Heron, Miyazaki’s “most personal” film

From here, be careful: there could be spoilers (which do not reveal important content for the plot).

The involvement of the 83-year-old artist in his most autobiographical project is palpable from the first minutes, when the protagonist, a twelve-year-old boy named Mahitohe lost his mother due to the bombing of Japan during the Second World War.

When the boy goes to live in his new home with his father and stepmother, a mysterious heron guides him into a world where the living and the dead coexist.

To think of the story of his “most personal” film, Miyazaki looked to his favorite childhood book, “How do you live?” (Genzaburō Yoshino) and in his childhood, but also in his friendships.

In the words of the Ghibli executive, Toshio SuzukiMiyazaki represents the boy, he represents the heron and Isao Takahatathe now deceased director and co-founder of the studio, to the protagonist’s great-uncle.

When Suzuki asked Miyazaki why he made that decision, he told him that Takahata would represent his great-uncle for discovering his talent and that he would be the heron because they both have a relationship “where they don’t give up, or give up.” “They don’t even push each other.”

The best example of this last analogy is found in a scene where the heron and Mahito talk, which represents the day Miyazaki and Suzuki met.

“The place where we have our meetings, where we converse is in his studio, in his laboratory. And it has a big table, but we don’t sit across from each other, we sit next to each other and never look at each other when we talk. And what we discussed was very similar,” Suzuki revealed.

The saddest moment of the production

With poor eyesight and a much slower pace of work than twenty years ago, Miyazaki took his time to oversee the production of the most expensive film in Japanese history.

Production on The Boy and the Heron began in 2016 and was not released until 2023. Miyazaki brought together the best artists of today and gave a directorial polish to a work that had to be perfect from the start, since he made it exclusively for his nephew. It.

The production was so long that during it Miyazaki had to face a sad moment that would mark the direction of the project from that moment on: Takahata’s deathco-founder of Ghibli and lifelong friend.

When Takahata died, Miyazaki decided to change history. Keeping the ending he had in mind, he moved the role away from the great-uncle character and focused the plot on the relationship between Mahito and the heron.

The director found it very difficult to draw the character representing his friend, as the memory overwhelmed him. Because of this, Suzuki stated that in the year following Takahata’s death, the director delayed production much longer than he should have.

When Miyazaki gave it to him first storyboards of the film, Suzuki noticed that his great-uncle was practically absent. He asked him why and that’s when he realized what was happening to his friend.

“He built this amazing character, but he never appears in the storyboards he brought me. But it actually took about a year after Takahata’s death to be able to draw that character in the storyboards for the second half of the story,” Suzuki said.

Ghibli, Japanese Disney

Of the seven years of production, two and a half were dedicated to pre-production activities and another five to the production phase.

It was, according to Otro Cines, the animated film with the best average per copy of the entire market in its opening weekend in Argentina. That is, it got fewer theaters than its competitors (Ducks! and Wish), but filled more theaters than both.

The Boy and the Heron marked Miyazaki’s return to directing after releasing The Boy and the Heron in 2013. The wind picks up. And it’s encouraged. When he finishes thinking about his new film and renews his creativity, Suzuki does not rule out making another film.

Studio Ghibli was founded on June 15, 1985 by Miyazaki and his friends Takahata and Suzuki. Since Nausicäa of the Valley of the Wind, his first film, the production of feature films, short films, music videos and even video games did not stop until 2014, when Miyazaki announced his retirement. A retreat that, fortunately, he rejected in 2017 to make The Boy and the Heron.

Miyazaki directed 12 feature films, of which more than half took him to the most important festivals in the world and one of these, The enchanted citygave him the Oscar.

The ten highest-grossing animated films in Japanese history were released from Ghibli. Furthermore, from there a very particular world of completely identifiable themes and images was born. Ghibli is fantasy, bright colors, the transition to adulthood, war, independent women, nature, ecology, humanism.

Who is Hayao Miyazaki?

Miyazaki is originally from the war. He was released in 1941 during World War II. Hence his first memories linked to the war conflict. As a boy he heard explosions and saw flashes that marked him forever, a trauma represented, for example, in his latest film.

Although the context was chaotic, thanks to his father’s work his family was able to move over time. Escape the horrors of war.

Katsuji, his father, worked in the war industry making rudders for fighter planes in his brother’s company. His profession was also the inspiration for the father’s character in The Boy and the Heron.

Hayao never got along well with Katsuji, a man his country had branded disloyal for not wanting to join the army. In contrast, his relationship with his mother, Yoshiko, was different. This was proven later when he had to take care of her for years.

As a child he suffered from digestive problems and was therefore told that he would not live beyond 20 years. However, from 1947 onwards her greatest concern became her mother, a victim of spinal tuberculosis which confined her to bed for years. Miyazaki had to grow up alone, with a distant father figure and a practically invalid mother.