Review: With Miyazaki’s New “How Do You Live/The Boy and the Heron”, a Master Returns

After a decade, master director Miyazaki Hayao is back with a full-length animated film. How does the mysterious How Do You Live stack up?

By Noah Oskow

When you’re one of the most beloved filmmakers in the world, someone whose fame and global prestige have only grown since semi-retirement, it’s quite the tall order to put out a final film ten years after the last. Even more so when you purposefully shroud that film in mystery, putting out a movie that your audience has no idea what to expect from.

Yet that’s what Miyazaki Hayao, famed co-founder of anime giant Studio Ghibli, just did here in Japan. As it turns out, his new animated film, How Do You Live (now officially titled “The Boy and the Heron” in English), may well be just as mysterious as the marketing campaign (or lack thereof) that came before it.

I’ve only just left the theater after seeing How Do You Live, making it to the second showing of the first day of release. But the nature of this film — one where Ghibli wants you to know as little about it as possible before seeing it — makes it a bit iffy to review. I’ll be discussing some minor plot details, so if all you want…