All of the great anime maestro Hayao Miyazaki’s movies need to be seen again and again to get the most out of them, but they seldom demand a rewatch as much as his 2023 masterpiece — and possibly last film — The Boy and the Heron. Even by his standards, it’s a bewitching and dense piece of work, loaded with resonant themes, intricate details, and rich (not to say deeply weird) imagery. This is one you need to pore over multiple times before it fully reveals itself to you.
You know you need to rewatch The Boy and the Heron — and the Steelbook’s on sale for Prime Day
Miyazaki’s late masterwork only gets better with each viewing
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Image: Studio Ghibli via GKIDS/YouTube
Oli Welsh is senior editor, U.K., providing news, analysis, and criticism of film, TV, and games. He has been covering the business & culture of video games for two decades.
Helpfully, there’s a limited edition steelbook of The Boy and the Heron, including the movie on both 4K and Blu-ray discs, on sale for $27.99 (down 38% from $44.98) for Amazon’s October Prime Day. As well as that handsome case, the edition comes with an exclusive poster and a comprehensive set of on-disc bonus features, including interviews with several members of the film’s production crew — not least, the legendary composer Joe Hisaishi, whose beautiful music for the film was easily the best score of the year not to be nominated for an Oscar. Not bothered about the nice case or the 4K disc? You can also pick up the regular Blu-ray and DVD set for $19.49 (down 44% from $34.98).
The Boy and the Heron - Limited Edition Steelbook
$35$4522% off
$35
The latest film from Studio Ghibli, The Boy and the Heron, is a certified work of art and guaranteed to ruin you emotionally. If you need an excuse to get in a good cry, you can pick up the 4K version with a limited edition Steelbook case.
The Boy and the Heron, which might be Miyazaki’s most personal film, follows a boy named Mahito who moves to a remote countryside estate after losing his mother in a wartime fire; there, a mysterious talking heron leads him into a fantastical world. It’s very loosely inspired by the classic Japanese novel How Do You Live?. But it’s also a meditation on Miyazaki’s own childhood, on his art, and on his relationships with his Studio Ghibli co-founders Toshio Suzuki and Isao Takahata, who are represented (not always flatteringly) in the film by a terrifying magus and an irritating magical heron-goblin-thing. The movie encompasses all this while also doing that Miyazaki thing of folding a wildly surreal, phantasmagoric secret world into a minutely studied reality that somehow feels more real than live action.
It’s a lot, and you’d be forgiven for not having fully wrapped your arms around it on first viewing. Do yourself a favor, pick up this lovely edition, and let your relationship with The Boy and the Heron deepen over time.
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