I definitely was a bit worried. While I adore what Hayao Miyazaki, the Walt Disney of Japan, he hasn’t made a film since The Wind Rises a decade ago, not one of his best. And, great animators like Makoto Shinkai and Mamoru Hosoda had me wondering if Miyazaki still had an animated fastball. My fears were alleviated after watching The Boy and the Heron, proof that when Miyazaki wants to, he can soar to the highest levels of animating craft most only dare to dream about. Never count out a master!
We’re in the thick of World War II in Japan. Little Mahito (Soma Santoki) has already suffered a lot, losing his poor mother in a hospital fire (she was a nurse). In 1944, Mahito’s father Shoichi (Takuya Kimura) takes Mahito to the countryside. Shoichi has remarried, with his new wife Natsuko (Yoshina Kimura) pregnant with their child and eager to meet and raise Mahito. Mahito is more sullen, stuck in a lonely estate with a bunch of old maids like Kiriko (Ko Shibasaki). There are two things that interest him though: an old, abandoned tower built buy one of Mahito’s relatives, and a heron that almost seems like it’s stalking Mahito everywhere he goes on the grounds.
Even for a master, a 10 year layoff is gonna leave some rust that needs to be buffed out. For Hayao Miyazaki, he’s gotta work on his intros and endings. Yes, the harrowing hospital fire is thrilling, but we have a 30-45 minute section between that and the meat of the story. Because of the amount of characters we have to meet, Miyazaki really flies us through this section. I wish he had cut some characters and given us more time here to set up the emotional beats of the story better outside of Mahito. That lack of emotional setup in the beginning really hurts during the big emotional payoffs he goes for that land flatter than his usual sterling work. His endings need work too, as he tacks on a pointless coda instead of ending the film 5-10 minutes sooner or with something more emotionally relevant.
But these are mostly smaller details the minute it’s clear the heron and Mahito are going to end up in that abandoned tower. What follows on that journey is what can only be described as Miyazaki magic. New lands and creatures show up every 10 minutes, some version of cute, strange, menacing, or even sometimes all 3. Like in the director’s best works, the story and characters constantly evolve and shapeshift as we find these new places or meet new people. So by the time we’re actually near the initial goal of Mahito’s journey, that goal is now a minor part of the story, as other more pressing goals and adventures that need to happen. Being inside the best parts of a Miyazaki movie are essentially like being inside artistic creation itself. You’re on the edge of your seat, unsure but excited at what new brilliant thing is coming next, until before you know it, you’re at the end of the story, amazed at what you’ve just witnessed.
Only Hayao Miyazaki can take a phrase like Parakeet King and make it the opposite of the cutest thing in the world. If we are to believe this isn’t his heron song (see what I did there?), and he’s got more animation in him, The Boy and the Heron made me more hopeful that this next one could be a real masterpiece. At worst that means the current heir apparents Makoto Shinkai and Mamoru Hosoda can spend some more time with the OG, learning from him and further preparing to carry Hayao Miyazaki’s torch whenever he decides to put his pencils down.