The Boy and the Heron may not actually be Studio Ghibli co-founder Hayao Miyazaki’s final film after all.
Currently, the Toronto International Film Festival is going on, and the event features a screening of The Boy and the Heron. According to reporter Eli Glasner, Studio Ghibli VP Junichi Nishioka claimed the movie would not be Miyazaki’s last, and that he’s continued to come into the office with new ideas.
Related: The Boy and The Heron Gets First Full Trailer, Release Date
Exiting news for fans of Hayao Miyazaki. Studio Ghibli VP Junichi Nishioka tells us The Boy and the Heron is not Miyazaki’s final film and that he is already coming into the office with new ideas. #TIFF23 pic.twitter.com/u9DyyPhJwu
— Eli Glasner 🎥 (@glasneronfilm) September 8, 2023
Miyazaki, who is 82-years-old, has directed some of the best-loved animated films of all time, with his credits including Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away, Howl’s Moving Castle, and more films that it feels wrong to elide, as they’re wonderful. Frankly, I’m happy to know there’s a chance Miyazaki is going to continue making great movies, even if I would understand him retiring.
The news The Boy and the Heron may not be Miyazaki’s final film comes only a few short days after the first trailer for the movie released. The footage teased the adventures of protagonist Mahito, a young boy living during World War II. The trailer features some especially astonishing imagery, which is exactly what I’ve come to expect from a Studio Ghibli film at this point.
I’m reticent to provide much more information on The Boy and the Heron than that. Marketing around the movie has been notoriously secretive, with no trailer or synopsis releasing prior to the film’s release in Japan. Still, as the film has already released in Japan, plot descriptions and other synopses for the film are available online, if you’d like to seek them out.
Known in Japan as How Do You Live?, The Boy and the Heron is slated to release in North America on Dec. 8
