The Boy, The Heron and The Mystery of It All
The Boy and the Heron. Credit: Studio Ghibli
A Hayao Miyazaki Retrospective
Part I
by
Dylan Kai Dempsey
“How Do You Live?”
This was the original Japanese title for legendary filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki’s ‘final’ masterpiece, since renamed for western audiences as The Boy and the Heron. While this new English title feels more in line with traditional Studio Ghibli fare, it belies the deep philosophical underpinnings beneath Miyazaki’s latest adventure. His choice of the somewhat ambiguous question How Do You Live? is especially poignant given the circumstances.
A towering achievement of both animation and imagination, The Boy and the Heron was expected to be Miyazaki’s swan song, a fitting send-off for the auteur whom many see as the world’s greatest living animator. However: It’s not the first time that the 82-year-old master has teased retirement—Indiewire Critic David Ehrlich counts seven farewells, both formal and informal—and as of this October, Studio Ghibli announced that their irrepressible storyteller is already deeply involved in his next opus. “Obsessed” is the descriptive offered by Ghibli president Toshio Suzuki ... which means that Miyazaki’s latest has now been bumped from ‘farewell film’ to an impressive release on top of an even more impressive body of work.
In other words, many riches await, both above-the-surface and below—especially for those familiar with the filmmaker’s backstory.
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Miyazaki’s animation career spans decades. Beginning in 1963, he crawled his way to prominence as an ‘in-between’ animator for Japanese TV; in 1978, he directed his first anime series Future Boy Conan; in 1979, he completed his first feature film as writer/director, the adventure-comedy The Castle of Cagliostro. In 1983, he reinforced his signature style—highly imaginative, surreal, almost abstract—with Shuna’s Journey, a seminal graphic novel, and the preternaturally feminist Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, a sixteen-chapter manga (which literally translates as ‘whimsical picture’). In 1984, he adapted Nausicaä into a feature film. It was his first big professional breakthrough: the film grossed enough yen to solidify his reputation; he co-founded Studio Ghibli the following year. He chose the name Ghibli—Italian for ‘hot desert wind’—because he aimed to blow new life into animation. Over the next three decades, he wrote, directed, illustrated and animated masterpiece after masterpiece, an unparalleled trove of resplendent visuals, impassioned spirit and beloved characters—including (but not limited to) the anime classics My Neighbor Totoro (1988), Princess Mononoke (1997), Spirited Away (2001) and The Wind Rises (2013).
Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1984)
What makes his creations so undeniably spellbinding? Miyazaki uses fantasy to help us explore reality. As film critic Roger Ebert wrote in his 1999 review of Princess Mononoke, “Realistic films show the physical world; animation shows its essence.” Simply put, Miyazaki films feel true—not because they are absolute but because they embrace contradictions. War and peace, flesh and spirit, monstrosity and compassion... Shaped by ancient Japanese reverence for nature mixed with post-WWII regret, these films look both backward and forward: by choosing apocalyptic settings, by highlighting contrasts and leaving questions unanswered, they point to real-world disorder; by featuring conflict and loss, they provoke explorations of pacificism, environmentalism, feminism, progressive politics; by making room for childish wonder, they offer hope.
Critics agree. In her 2001 book Anime: From Akira to Howl’s Moving Castle, professor/anime scholar Susan Napier calls Miyazaki’s films “a collective vision of hope and renewal.” Citing the many images of flight that pervade his works, she emphasizes his recurring “theme of possibility”: “In these soaring images, from gliders and warplanes to the flying island of Laputa to Nausicaä’s climactic walk through the sky, Miyazaki’s vision reaches its most magical heights, suggesting the possibility of freedom, change, and redemption.”
By encouraging our imagination to soar, Miyazaki taps into our elemental desires—and that’s a big part of his spell. Not only do we fly, we suspend disbelief. Gods and humans co-exist. Consider Spirited Away, just one of his many otherworldly examples: the kami—supernatural beings inspired by Shinto folklore—are depressed because they feel neglected by humans; to relieve their stress, they visit a bathhouse. Among them is “No Face,” a fan-favorite apparition who is a lot like us: a creature of consumption with a monstrous appetite, ultimately lonely, who simply wants to be accepted, but doesn’t know how to act.
Depressed Gods? Flying humans? As a storyteller, Miyazaki is fearless: even his most unrealistic creations are convincing, too idiosyncratically detailed to be fake. And the music helps. Beginning in 1983 with Nausicaä, the animator’s collaborations with legendary composer Joe Hisaishi have been a key to the magic. Dubbed “the John Williams of Japan,” Hisaishi has scored all but one of Miyazaki’s eleven features—and has won the Japanese Academy Award for Best Music seven times. [Note to reader: These soundtracks can also provide the ultimate balm for any world-weary commute—as confirmed by the scene in Spirited Away where slumped-over phantoms share a slow train to nowhere.] Soaring strings, whirling keys, wide-eyed leitmotifs— These are ideal companions for Miyazaki’s fantastical journeys. No matter which one you choose, only one rule applies: prepare to be transported (pun intended).
Spirited Away (2001)
Still uncertain? It’s true that older generations sometimes equate anime with childish cartoons, unaware that Japanese animation is typically created for more mature audiences. Anime themes are more serious, the characters more diverse, the graphics more artful. However— For those who do appreciate Miyazaki, the end result is addictive: a near-cult following, a worldwide fanbase. People of all ages and backgrounds who rely on his films as a source of transcendence. A way to escape, to cope, a way to normalize suffering and legitimize dreams.
In Miyazaki’s world, transcendence is a necessity.
If his films have one resounding, collective message, it might be his faith in human potential: our ability to face contradictions, to embrace change, to save ourselves from our current path of destruction and imagine a better future. Our ability to evolve. Imagination and dreams are an essential part of this mix; that’s why his films feel more personal than political. Especially in the case of The Wind Rises and The Boy and the Heron, his most recent efforts, completed a decade apart. Both are purportedly ‘farewell films’; both are admittedly autobiographical; both are deeply introspective.
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The Wind Rises (2013)
The Wind Rises (2013) is a warning. A call for self-awareness. A call-to-action.
Adapted from Miyazaki’s manga of the same name, its title was Inspired by Paul Valéry’s 1920 poem, “Le Cimitière Marin,” French for “Graveyard by the Sea” (which already sounds like a Miyazaki film). After an eloquent meditation on body and soul, the poem’s final stanza exhorts readers to savor life while they can: “The wind is rising! We must try to live!”
In many ways, this film is Miyazaki’s Oppenheimer. Sharing a WWII setting, the weaponization of genius minds, a dearth of female perspectives and the use of dream sequences, Wind gives us a fictionalized biography of Jiro Horikoshi, the aeronautical engineer who designed Japanese fighter planes—including the infamous Zero. On its surface, the film is a cultural exploration, a critique of both human corruption and creeping imperialism. Drilling deeper, it tackles the pursuit of perfection and the consequences of dedication, where a goal of aerodynamic excellence obscures the horrors caused by tools of war. Even deeper, it hints at the dangers of creative passion, the unforeseen conflicts often caused by obsession.
At its heart, it is also a portrait of Miyazaki’s own family ... and, at its deepest, himself.
When Hayao Miyazaki began working on The Wind Rises he was in his late sixties, clearly grappling with identity and life choices, both political and personal. Much to his regret, his family had been directly involved in WWII: Miyazaki Airplane manufactured rudders for warplanes; his uncle had founded the company; his father was its director. Like Oppenheimer, like Horikoshi, the senior Miyazaki was obsessed with his craft and had no time for family. All three of these men were so inexorably absorbed by their work, by the illusion of self-control, that they lost touch with time—and squandered their chances at human connection.
Sins of the father, sins of the son. Miyazaki is known for narratives celebrating love and family, perhaps because these are unresolved issues in his life. As his son Gojo (who now directs his own films) blogged back in 2006, “My father gets zero marks as a father, but full marks as a director of animated films.”
The Wind Rises (2013)
Hence, The Wind Rises: Miyazaki’s attempt to deal with past failings. As he tells it now, a particular quote in Horikoshi’s memoir—a quote that echoes his own motivations as a storyteller—convinced him to make the film: "All I wanted to do was to make something beautiful."
Does intention justify result?
Despite its worldwide success, Wind—in another parallel to Oppenheimer—distressed certain critics. Some accused the film of being unfairly critical of Japan; others accused it of noncommittal messaging, of downplaying Japanese war crimes—including the use of Korean forced labor to build warplanes. Village Voice critic Inkoo Kang wrote that Wind is "wholly symptomatic of Japan's postwar attitude toward its history, which is an acknowledgement of the terribleness of war and a willful refusal to acknowledge its country's role in that terribleness."
Ironically, this criticism underscores Miyazaki’s own struggles with guilt and remorse: the distressing admission that—like Oppenheimer, like Hirokoshi, like his own wartime father—he too should be held accountable for the consequences of his choices, no matter how unintended.
He tried to address these compunctions in Wind’s final scenes. After a lifetime of pursuing ‘perfection,’ after witnessing the destruction of his native land, Horikoshi voices regret: my “kingdom of dreams [has become] the land of the dead.” This may sound impersonal, but it’s as close as Miyazaki has come to a direct apology—both to the world, for his nation’s errors, and to his son, for his own neglect.
Then came the announcement that Wind would be his last film. It was 2013; he was 72. He seemed determined to confront real-world failures in the time he had left. And then he pivoted.
The Wind Rises (2013)
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Fast forward ten years: How Do You Live?—aka The Boy and the Heron—is now Miyazaki’s latest ‘finale.’
Once again, he has defied expectations. When the film premiered in Japan this past summer, Studio Ghibli chose to release it without traditional marketing—no trailers, no TV ads, not even a cast list—explaining that Miyazaki’s reputation self-markets better than any trailer. Instead of the usual press kit, Ghibli press notes included excerpts from Miyazaki’s own journal, written back when he started work on the film:
“There’s nothing more pathetic than telling the world you’ll retire because of your age, then making another comeback. Is it truly possible to accept how pathetic that is, and do it anyway? Doesn’t an elderly person deluding themself that they’re still capable, despite their geriatric forgetfulness, prove that they’re past their best?”
It was the ultimate flex. And it worked! His “comeback” film brought in one of the highest Japanese grosses of Miyazaki’s career. And despite some complaints that How Do You Live is less effective than The Wind Rises—too much visual poetry, not enough narrative footholds—the film’s western release is expected to do equally well.
Less effective? Depends what you mean by effective.
For my take on the master’s latest, tune in soon for Miyazaki, Part II !
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The Wind Rises is available for streaming on Max. The Boy and the Heron is now in U.S. theaters.