User reviews

Seeing The Boy and The Heron, Hayao Miyazaki's latest movie feels almost like a monumental event in and of itself. It was announced almost as a surprise with the words "Hayao Miyazaki's last movie". With this amount of hype, including the amazing reviews it's got from critics, my hype was built up to the max. The end result? Not what I expected, and that's ok!

Let's get to the positives, the animation is STUNNING. The way Hayao Miyazaki manages to build these worlds and characters is just an amazing feat, they all come alive with the colours and the movement. Another positive is the tone of the movie, I really hate Disney for trying to market this as a kid's movie, when it's not. It's got some unnerving and scary moments and themes that are not suited for kids, which is good. Hayao Miyazaki is at his best when he manages to blend the adult with the fantastical.

The actors are always amazing, I saw the Japanese dub so I don't know how the western VAs are doing but wow; they all do a fantastic job!

Now to the negatives... a huge thing about Studio Ghibli movies in general, especially the ones from Hayao Miyazaki, is that they're always by rule driven by the characters, it's their journey that's in the front. World building and narrative always takes a second place in his movies to be able to not distract from the characters journeys, big examples of this are Spirited Away and Howl's Moving Castle where the world building is built by very simple and effective means and rules. But here in the Boy and The Heron the world building is so convoluted and confusing it almost feels like he wanted it to take center stage in this movie and it's such a shame because it feels at like it's at odds with it's own main character who supposedly undergoes a deep deep emotional journey but it all finishes off in a very abrupt and unfitting send-off in the end which really confused me and just didn't feel like a good payoff.

Also the way this movie introduces characters left and right with no rhyme or reason is super confusing. Once again, Hayao Miyazaki did this very minimally in his past movies where the characters get room to be explored and to leave an impact in the story but here once again it's at odds with its own world building- it all feels very haphazard and messy. The Heron is a fun character but I don't feel like he or Mahito do or learn anything from these adventures.

Now, it may sound like I hated this movie, but I didn't. It's just that I care so much about Hayao Miyazaki movies and Studio Ghibli movies that I can't help to compare them to the movies we've seen before. And despite it not being Hayao Miyazaki's best it's still pretty good, it's very much worth a watch.

The imagery that completely stuck with me is when things overwhelm Mahito. From the frogs, to the pelicans, the warawara, the fish guts, and the parakeets. And Mahito's reaction is not even fight or flight. He stays still as if frozen and completely unable to react.

And that's maybe why it was important for Mahito to know that forgetting is normal. His feeling of loss and grief and the feeling of having to adjust to changes in his environment may be overwhelming and maybe a solution is trying to forget.

The granduncle is Miyazaki himself. He tries to find someone who can continue his legacy but in the end completely accepts that the worlds that he built and the stories he has told may crumble and completely be forgotten. And that is one truth that an artist will find hard to take.

I have been recently getting into Studio Ghibli films and I've been impressed. I was highly looking forward to this movie strictly because it was the first time I got the opportunity to see a Miyazaki film on the big screen. And the English dub is studded with talent.

I must say... I feel let down. I almost fell asleep halfway through, and the ending didn't make sense. There was so much happening and things weren't explained. I understand that there was probably deep symbolism attached to certain writing choices, but what's the point if the viewer has no idea what they're trying to say?

There were some good scenes and some good humor, but overall I feel a little empty.

If you have never watched a Hayao Miyazaki film, I wouldn't recommend starting with The Boy and the Heron.

For an introduction I'd recommend to start with Spirited Away (2001) and Princess Mononoke (1997).

If you become amused and the films resonate with you. Then you will enjoy The Boy and Heron. It isn't the strongest of Hayao Miyazaki and Ghibli films but a very good addition to their filmography.

The film begins with a slow pace of mostly visually defining the world, characters and their dilemmas. As the movie progresses you see touches of another realm. Before you know it, it becomes a full-blown feverish dream of Hayao Miyazaki imagination and story telling. It eventually comes all together back on its feet at the end.

Was it fun and visually pleasing? Yes.

Was I confused at times And had a lot of unanswered question? Also yes.

I'm a huge fan of Ghibli (I even have a Princess Mononoke tattoo to show).

I have to say, this movie left me wanting more.

The beginning of the movie feels slower (and mostly coherent) but slowly devolves into a beautiful collage of animation and music. Generally, it feels like the movie is formed as a sampler of the rest of Ghibli, pulling ideas and art from other titles like Spirited Away, Howl's, and Mononoke.

By the time the story comes together in a somewhat haphazard manner, you're pretty much at the end of the movie, and the deep ideas that were to be conveyed had no time to develop. There are various decisions made by the protagonists that lack rhyme or reason because everything critical was saved for the end. I imagine if you watch the movie another 2-3 more times you might catch onto what Miyazaki was intending, but it was certainly lost in a singular conventional theatre style viewing.

Is it worth watching simply based on art and music? In my opinion, yes, but if you're expecting a Ghibli level movie, you might be disappointed.

This is one of the good ones. However it reflects as much the passion and skill of Hayao Miyazaki as his old age confusion. His latest "last movie" starts one way and ends (abruptly) another. It has elements from his own life, his previous work and some new ideas, but the gist of the film is reconciling with loss and moving forward, recognizing there isn't much one can do. A very old man mentality in a movie about a child entering a magical world filled with wonder and dream logic.

The animation was so beautiful, the story a bit disjointed, but quite captivating. It was the ending that kind of disappointed. This film has been a long time in the making (in 2019 it was 15% complete, allegedly, with Miyazaki directing a minute of the film a month) and it shows.

The Japanese title is "How do you live?", the same as the Genzaburo Yoshino's instructional coming-of-age novel that Miyazaki's mother gifted him. In the film, the boy finds the book with a message from his dead mother, instructing him to read it, but it never goes anywhere. There are a lot of other hints and symbols that are quite opaque to non-Japanese, so I felt that I've missed chunks of what the movie was supposed to convey.

Perhaps the most interesting quality of the film is how easily it can be interpreted multiple ways, the ambiguity both confusing and thought provoking. As we experience dream and child logic we get a glimpse of the transmuted reality underneath. The grief, the loss, the benevolent yet oppressive culture, the futility and pain of war, the missing and missed parenting and so on.

Bottom line: is it a masterpiece or a slice of Miyazaki, jumbled beyond recognition? Both. I felt it might be a fitting farewell film, but also that I missed so many meanings from it. I liked it.

Bombs rain down on the city and in the fire, chaos, and rubble a boy, Mahito, searches for his mom. He hears her voice calling him, but he can't find her. Even when Mahito, his dad, and a new woman move to the countryside, he still hears his mom's voice calling to him from the fire. In dreams and with the encouragement of a mysterious heron, Mahito enters an abandoned and magical tower where he hopes to get clues to his mom's whereabouts. It may be an elaborate trap.

This complex, beautiful, deeply imaginative, and many-layered film continues Miyazaki's amazing and awe-inspiring legacy. He is one of my favorite directors. In nature, wisdom about living, magic, charismatic guides (female as well as male), folklore, cute puffball critters, war/chaos, wackiness including flesh-eating parakeets, portals to other worlds, loss, and love, Miyazaki continues to run with favorite and endearing themes. The film is full of insight into what it means to be human. I was so happy to be part of the first audience to see the film outside of Japan.

There is depth in the story, characters, music, voices (much better in Japanese), and especially the artwork. I'm mesmerized just by the drawings and movement of the clouds. Oh and there are fantastic and intricately drawn ocean waves, moonlight reflected on water, vivid colors, resplendent contrasts of light and dark, elaborate tree branches, night skies with resplendent stars and meteors, grasses realistically swaying in the wind, alluring shadows, and so much more. The Boy and the Heron is worth watching for the artwork alone.

Not his best, but a very solid fairy tale from the master with lots of his trademark elements like stoic characters, spirit worlds, flying scenes and characters running through narrow passages.

It is stylistically comparable to Spirited Away and Howls Moving Castle, although a bit less epic in scope. Like those films it inhibits a certain darkness and maturity at times with a war as a backdrop, that is not really aimed at children. I personally liked it and wished that more filmmakers in animation would have similar aspirations, but I guess those who do are expelled to do short movies. But back to Miyazaki's movie: it is bursting with lots of ideas, symbolism and fairy tale motifs like Snow White (with a dead mother, seven dwarfettes and a glass coffin with a sleeping beauty). At other times the character dynamics invoke Jim Henson's Labyrinth, where the protagonist has to rescue a kidnapped loved one and work with a henchman who sells him out at every opportunity until they start bonding.

All the visual ideas are great but sometimes they can unnecessary bloat the picture. It is one of Miyazaki weaknesses to be over-indulgent and unfocused at times, sometimes he needs to tighten the story in certain places - especially during the last stretch it can feel exhausting. I still like the leisurely pace in the beginning and that the movie takes it's time to slowly pull us into another world/afterlife/beforelife however you want to call this place. There are beautiful visual metaphors like when the little balloon creatures fly off into the next world, one can say that those symbolize the protagonists own emotions bubbling up into the surface (this is also the first sequence where we see the main character smile and express genuine emitions) - and that he tries to repress those feelings. Especially towards his new stepmom which he tries to rescue seemingly out of pure obligation for his father. It is also no coincidence that we witness the appearance of an avatar of his real mother in that very same sequence - she tries to protect those cute balloons from hungry predators, but in the process burns most of them. The clinging to the ghost from the past is preventing a new blossoming/beginning. There simply aren't easy and clean-cut solutions, neither in nature nor our society.

There are certain moments where someone can get the impression that Miyazaki is making a statement towards his own legacy and the studio he helped to build. There are themes of responsibility & duty versus family sharing a lot of similarities to his last movie 'The Wind Rises' . I appreciated the ending, without getting into any spoiler territory, a lot of people wondered or were baffled why the final scene feels sort of "tacked on". But when you closely observe it, it is sound with the movie's themes and illustrates rather well the important choice of our main character.

If I have to search that hard for meaning it's just not worth it to me. We watched about 3 times. The plot and storyline is just weak. The character development is swift and as someone said before you are supposed to have feelings for characters you know nothing about. I love other Ghibli movies but I'll never willingly watch this one again.

The ending is abrupt and confusing. The purpose of the main character is conflicted to several things almost like labyrinth. But none of this options that pursue the character are really clearly understood by the audience. With are the Jenga blocks supposed to even do much less represent?

Absolute magical, most likely last movie, made by Miyazaki Hayao. To give you an idea as to what you can expect from this movie, it has a similar feel of "Alice in Wonderland" but imbuded with the Ghibli magic you're familiar with. It includes elements of many of the other Ghibli movies "Princess Mononoke", "Pompoko", and "My neighbor Totoro" but adds something new that's never been made before by Hayao. To understand the full scope of it, you'd have to watch it a second time; to fully appreciate why the world is set up as it is and why the characters are the way they are.

I can't wait for the English release and the internationalization. Even though no promotional footage or trailers have been shown, I recommend this movie to anybody looking for something magical and mystical.

The best way to describe this movie is to say the entire film feels like the scene in Spirited Away where Chihiro is on the train going to Yubaba's sister's house. It feels nostalgic, contemplative, and yearning for a time when the world appeared to be easier (ie through the eyes of a young boy).

But, like all of Miyazaki's works, the film is filled with gorgeous animation and incredibly fantastical set pieces. It's a rare end of career film that feels like a filmmaker at the height of their powers. Don't go in expecting Spirited Away, Howl's Moving Castle or Ponyo - it's very different from all of those films even though it shares a lot of the same themes. Just know you're putting your trust in one of the best living filmmakers whose fire for telling stories is far from dimming.

From Studio Ghibli, The Boy and the Heron is an animated movie about a boy that dramatically lose his mother due the war in Japan, and he and his father have to move to a safer place. When they arrive, they live in a nice and quiet home. In a place, were strange things did happen, and will happen, too. First of all, I have to list up what was good about the film. It was absolutely beautiful animation with great paint, drawing techniques, and amazing colors. They had that mix with painting-like animation, but at the same time, classic Japanese anime. And I really liked that, I think it is a very nice thing, and I can see that this is a technique that Studio Ghibli is using a lot, and they are really doing it well. Very nice music. It was soft, easy and quiet, but at the same time it built up a hidden suspense that was holding. The music was some sort of anxiety mixed with calmness. Very strange. Last thing that was good was the overall atmosphere and the feeling of the movie, at least in the first act. Because then things started to get a little weird. Everything became unknown and messy, the story changed the course multiple times, and I wasn't sure which way the plot was going to go. At the end everything became a little more clear, but still a little weird. When you don't know what is really going on, the action becomes a little nonsense, too. And that was exactly what happened. The action sequences were sometimes fun and entertaining, but I was still questioning: Why are they doing it? Why are they running? What are they running from? What's the point of the story? Good enough that they had a good moral at the end. Very great with a good message about the balance of the world, and that the soul value is very important. After all, this was a movie on the middle. Great music and animation. Fine atmosphere in the first act. But it got a little messy, and the story changed course to many times. They rushed a lot and I didn't get time to think. Studio Ghibli could have definitely done better.

Mahito's life is dramatically changed, he's lost his mother, and his father has started a new life in the country, escaping a war. One day Mahito follows a heron, and enters a whole new fantasy world.

This first thing I'm going to start with, the visuals, what a feast for the eyes, it is a vividly, beautiful film, some of the scenes are honestly captivating, not just the animations themselves, but the colours and creativity.

To be honest, I can't say I fully understood what was going on, I did find myself needing to read up about the plot, as some of it did go over my head, I imagine this improves with a second viewing.

It feels like a very personal story, I wonder if Miyazaki was exercising personal demons through it. As always there's a strong moral angle running through it, but plenty of really good scenes.

I'm nitpicking, but I did prefer Spirited Away, maybe simply because I found it easier to follow, but I'd recommend this very highly.

Worth seeing for the incredible visuals alone.

7/10.

As other Ghibli animation films this one makes its living out of those magical special moments that only Hayao Miyazaki can create. The amazing kaleidoscope that this man see the world through is truly something to behold. There is no surprise in that part of his genius but I felt like this story didn't reach out to us the way it was supposed to or the way other Studio Ghibli movies used to for that matter.

The thing I like the most was the representation of balance. How we must have evil in order for good to exist. It all made for a wonderful metaphor I think suited for the realm of our mind like how we must look for compensation between our good and bad deeds. As usual sending a message for every one of us to decipher in our own different way.

All things considered I still found this worthy of Ghibli but not at the same heights as others of their masterpieces.

This film will be intense. That's what the first five minutes of The Boy and the Heron scream at the audience. Here is an example of impactful subjective filmmaking and the weight of long-standing skill and experience.

Starting as a fairytale rooted in history, it evolves into a surreal quest through a kaleidoscope of worlds. As such, the line between what's cute and what's horrible becomes ever so thin. There is sadness, there is humour. There is something for everyone.

In addition, there is no point in denying the attention to detail and the artistry in the animation. The sound design includes even the subtlest noise, and the animation uses its full potential.

Miyazaki also roots The Boy and the Heron in cultural history by including several settings reminiscent of the painting "Isle of the Dead" by Arnold Böcklin, which also drives home its thematic material: that of grief.

But as a first-time viewer of a Studio Ghibli film, I felt lost. Not only in the story and the myriad of universes it traverses but also in the point Miyazaki (director) wants to make. The lack of coherence was disorienting and stood in the way of a clear conclusion. Accented by some minimalist nonsense music - but at times basking in symphonic glory - the movie swings between near-blandness and emotional sucker punches.

At the same time, my lack of understanding of Miyazaki's life and work got in the way of my experience. Perhaps the movie could benefit from a rewatch - after watching his previous work.

Mid Miyazaki is better than most films, no doubt. But it doesn't make this specific movie any better than it is: an ultimately disappointing skeleton of his previous works, filled to the brim with his prototypical moments of visual splendor and wild characters, but devoid of the connection that made his other films so lasting and memorable. It's a sketchbook of Miyazaki ideas loosely strung together. Characters come and go with seemingly no impact on the plot or its main character, a young boy entirely lacking in emotional expression.

While Miyazaki is clearly attempting to tell a larger story beneath the surface, so is every filmmaker. It's not about the attempt. It's not about the hidden meaning. It's about the artistry by which that meaning is conveyed, how well a story is utilized to leave that impact on its audience. Praise him for trying, but one would be kidding themself to say he succeeded.

I just watched this movie at the theater yesterday.. and let me tell you it was hard to sit till the end. The story is very complicated and for no reason since the essence of the story and the main ideas are simple? And for the characters, I'm really used to being emotionally attached to ghibli movies' characters after watching any of them.. not this one though, the characters were rly bland I didn't feel anything for any of them, also their goals or reasons behind actions were not clear at all, moreover some characters that are kind of important to the story only appear at end? And some characters will be emotionally attached to another character but why? It's not clear.. to be honest this movie is just a huge mess! I gave 4/10 and that 4 is just for the art and music, the soundtrack was beautiful. And art was as usual mesmerizing.

A disjointed mess of a movie, with many confusing elements, and a non-cohesive storyline.

I went into it expecting a thoughtful farewell and bittersweet celebration of Miyazaki's legacy, and instead came out of the theater taken aback and disappointed. A work like this I would expect from Goro, not his father.

I cannot fathom how so many reviewers have given this movie nines or tens. By no means is it deserving of such high praise, and I have to believe this dissonance is due to fanboy-ism and an inability to criticize the work of someone they love.

Well, I love Miyazaki's work as well, but I also understand that it's important to be objective and not biased in an increasingly all too biased world.

I hope he creates another, and redeems himself, as I do not want this to be the note he ends his praise-worthy legacy on. Regardless, thanks for all the fantastic memories and moments you've already provided me, Mr. Miyazaki.

Visually striking, this film at moments took my breath away. The storyline is layered and I cannot wait to watch it over and over again to pick up more. The film itself tackles concepts of grief, loss, and community through the lens and understanding of a child.

I think this is one of Miyazaki's most beautiful creations. The effects are so realistic, the worlds created are new but also feel like they could be in the same universe as Howl's Moving Castle.

The story is less obvious, this one feels muted and subjective. Which I believe is intentional due to circumstances within the written universe and main character.

Truly worth the watch and will be a forever repeat for me with most of his classic films.