Honest review of Miyazaki's The Boy and the Heron

the movie has the potential but definiely lacking of something😅 lets be honest guys other ghibli films are better!

Nothing new..

Without Doubt A Masterpiece .
As much as I admired Oppenheimer it isn't .

100% agree with your opinion. Especially regarding the soundtrack

Very disjointed, boring movie. Mahito was not 2 dimensional - he was 1 dimensional. Boring boy who's purpose was to carry the camera from one place to another. I would not botter watching it a 2nd time. Older Ghibli movies I will watch untill I die.

Honest reviews are good. I found it both beautiful and a tad confusing but then confusing is also good! I agree with the notion it is not his 'best' but it is all kind of subjective. Ultimately it is a beautiful piece of art. I also saw Godzilla minus one the weekend I saw these (In Exeter, UK) and that was utterly amazing.

The movie is way more mature then other Studio Ghibli movies. It felt like a goodbye. Honestly I think, this is Miyazakis last movie.
I cried in the end, but if a movie klicks with you or not, is something very personal.

Not my favorite but still really good

Yeah I thought it wasn't his best work. I could see Miyazaki was trying to be philosophical but I think he abandoned the storytelling to do so. Thus leaving the viewer more confused and his philosophical questions feel like cheap exposition than the sophisticated way Miyazaki has asked questions in the past. Still the best animated film in the theatre right now though.

DISAPPOINTING, CONFUSING, BORING. I watched so many ghibli films, grave of the fireflies (left me an emotional wreck for three months), Kiki’s delivery service (cute and childlike), spirited away, ponyo, howl’s moving castle etc… they were all extremely touching, beautiful, and the storyline made sense, this film however, was the worst movie I’ve ever seen in my life! The first half was so slow, the second half of the film was so chaotic and overstimulating, there was no music!!! The plot was so fcking confusing, the boy never questioned anything and just went along with whatever, why is there a middle aged man dressing as a grey heron, why did the boys mother scream at him that she hated him????? Who is the pirate girl with the bandana that rescued him? What’s the point of the golden gate??? He literally got pushed through a golden gate and the pirate girl did a spell of protection to protect him from something?? NO SUBSTANCE AT ALL! Who’s the girl with the fire powers, how is she the boys mom??? No sense whatsoever. There was so much potential for this to have so much emotion to it, they could’ve delved deeper on the boy’s grief of his mother’s death, him being forced to go to a new environment! I didn’t cry at all, was so disappointed that the jokes weren’t that funny, and at the end I understood the symbolism of the story and how this is an autobiography of Miyazaki’s career but it felt like a weird love letter goodbye to his film studio team. The most shocking thing of this film was the fact that I forgot the main character’s name when I was trying to discuss the meaning of the film on my way to the car from the theater.

Didn’t think I’d be bored watching a ghibli film. I sat in the threaten wondering how much of this incoherent mess was, and it just abruptly ends lol. Time to rewatch Kiki’s delivery service, ponyo, spirited away, laputa, Totoro, howl’s moving caste to be reminded of how great Ghibli films are.

The Heron not staying as a mysterious, wise and dangerous figure in the film felt a real let down to me.

I just loved the music, and it caused incredible emotions in me.

Saw this yesterday, and i have to say that i tried really really hard to like it, but in the end it was an incoherent mess of a movie. I understand that art is subjective, and people are free to enjoy whatbthey want to enjoy, however I have seen a lot of people blaming themselves for being confused by the movie and thinking that they are missing out on some higher meaning, however i think it's just a confusing movie! Also i suspect people are afraid of admitting that they didn't understand it, or don't want to say that Miyazaki made a bad movie so are coping in other ways. Don't get me wrong i fsr prefer movies that "show don't tell" and those that delve into deeper themes (for example Aftersun was one of my favourite movies of the year) however i think Miyazaki really missed the mark with the boy and the heron. I had very little incentive to care for the characters, he didn't build any emotional equity in them. I also got mentally fatigued by the incessant increasing incredulity and fantastical nature of the adventure. I will say the animation and soundtrack were phenomenal, but overall this movie was terrible.

I can’t imagine a person in the world that wouldn’t like this movie it was amazing

Yes it’s a flop. Yes it’s meh.

BUT it’s precisely because Miyazaki didn’t make it for us. He didn’t make it for money either. He made it SOLEY for himself.

When I first saw this movie, I left very thoroughly confused. Both at its plot and meaning. But when I started to connect some dots from the movie to what I know of Hayao Miyazaki, I realized that this film wasn’t made for me to watch. But rather, it was made for him to reflect.

It’s a piece that cares not of critique and cares only for its creator’s self-actualization. It wrestles with the struggle of being an artist at the end of his days. The dynamic between an artist’s contentment over his body of work vs his desire to continue expressing himself through his art.

In short, this movie sucks as a movie. But that doesn’t make it bad art. In fact, I would argue that it’s failure as a movie makes it great art. It means that it belongs to Miyazaki alone. Which I think is the point of it.

Derivative from his own works, which made it extremely boring.

This film could've been 1.5 hours or 4 hours, but it needed to either under-deliver on some of the wasted scenes or over-deliver and explain the story further. I felt no emotional attachment to any of the characters. I'm shocked this movie is being raved. It's visually beautiful; and the soundtrack is on point. However, the storyline makes no sense to me. I never really connected to any of the characters. The only scene that really blew me away was when the Water-Water (spelling?) were floating up to be born. That was it. In the 2 hours, that scene made me cry. I'm glad people found it appealing, but someone try to make it make sense because I cannot connect whatsoever.

Really bad movie compared to the previous movies he made. Actually its the worst anime movie I have seen on screen by far. no plot, no emotional scenes, no flow and I feel like the entire story is just a mess that no average viewer would understand.

"Honest review..."
When you have to say it is an honest review, it probably isn't. All reviews are someone's opinion. In this case, the speaker seems to be reading a script.

My least favorite of all his films. Visually it was great but it seemed to drag a lot

I was disappointed in this one, I guess I went in with really high expectations. I love Nasusicca of the Valley of the Wind, Castle in the Sky, Howl’s Moving Castle, Spirited Away, and Princess Mononoke. Those are my favorite Ghibli films.

I watched yesterday! I cried from the beginning to the end of the movie! I found it a masterpiece and it really hits different on me!
The animation, soundtrack stunning as always!
The plot, the overcome the loss of his mother, accepting and deciding to move forward...
When he denied to replace his grandfather because he had malice. It was a masterpiece in the crazy world we're currently living in to me!❤

I agree! I came out of the theatre last night feeling really disappointed, It's a very good film but the hype surrounding it, made it seem as if it was Miyazaki's magnum opus, but it wasn't. It lacked an emotional feel and punch compared to his previous works and the story was simple yet very convoluted. the erupt ending was left to much to be desired.

It's not "tales from Earthsea" bad, but still I was very disappointed by it.

Tbh, this movie's human world part was great. It got you into the grief of the child and how he was feeling about everything that was happening around him. Then comes the spirit world part and is... almost completely meaningless. Nothing happens to challenge the mc and his current situation in the real world, no real special lessons for him to learn. It was just going from scene to scene with no real reason behind it and this is the first time I've felt this way on one of their movies. It was like seeing a shallow pond trying to appear an ocean, just pretentious but without substance. It wasted the real world part, missused the world they clearly put significant effort to make while also managing to not give enough info to understand it better. Movie's biggest sin is wasting like an hour setting up the emotions of the kid and then doing jack on the second hour with it smh

The master of the stone seems to be symbolism to Miyazaki retiring and passing his skills on to the next. I thought he was making a statement on his part of giving up and letting go of what he has created.

I think it's one of his weaker films. While I enjoy Miyazaki's storytelling structure, I think the messages of the film were poorly distributed throughout the set pieces and therefore disconnected. A lot of his messaging was crammed into the final scenes and the majority of the runtime, lacking a cohesive undertone, felt flat.

Furthermore, I couldn't ever connect on an emotional level to the characters, especially Mahito, because he was so expressionless compared to Miyazaki's characters in other films. I understand that's part of Mahito's personality, that he comes from a difficult past and is scarred, but his development throughout the movie was extremely subtle and something I appreciated but didn't latch onto unlike Chihiro, whose growth felt significant. You truly felt like you went on a large, scoping journey with her by observing her emotional maturation which was very clear.

The supporting cast also didn't connect for me. Especially the parakeets. In all Miyazaki's best films, the audience can sympathize with the 'antagonists', who sometimes even become allies of the lead character on their journey. The parakeets felt shoehorned in to flush out Miyazaki's metaphors and symbolism but without much care. I felt the same about many aspects of the film as well.

I feel like it requires some context to fully appreciate, and even then I went into the movie with that understanding and came out underwhelmed. I'll give it a few more watches and maybe even read the book he drew inspiration from but yeah, does not hold a candle to his best imo.

Beautifully animated, but the story and dialogue ... well, it's like Biden; dude is old. And all the explaining things? 's up with that? What a mess.

Arrgh, it's super hard for me to watch a review of a film I already have very clear thoughts on, but I'm gonna try to respectfully counter-review, if you don't mind.

When I watched The Wind Rises for the first time, I was about 7 years old.
Granted, I was unable to form an opinion of the movie by myself, and since my parents are big Ghibli geeks I was basically given the answers to every film's meaning before being able to do it myself.
So when I catched the last ticket for a pre-release of the film precisely on my birthday, I knew this meant I had the chance of making up my own opinion and figure it out by myself.

I went on train to the cinema, which made me think about chihiro for a bit. (I'm currently 17 so Spirited Away is getting more and more relevant to me) And finally I reached the cinema. I sat on my seat (a pretty good one btw) and waited for the movie to start as people around me were basically confessing aloud what kind of fans of the studio they were. Then, the lights went off, and we all watched the movie.
After the credits rolled, and a very weak applause from maybe two or three people dissipated as fast as it appeared, people started leaving. I waited for the credits to end and went out to go eat at a restaurant with my family. My thoughts about the movie then were very similar to yours, and if it wasn't because of the amazing animation and the fact that it was a freaking Miyazaki film, I wouldn't have given it another thought.

For about two weeks, waiting for the film to release to watch it again, I thought about it a lot. It didn't feel like a masterpiece, but the impact that it had left on me was surely a sign of something I unconsciously recieved from this, so I was excited to rewatch it and upon doing so, this time with a friend, most of the movie finally clicked to me:

The themes of The Boy And The Heron are so intimate to Miyazaki's life that you may as well call this his magnum opus. Whereas other films of his gravitated towards certain topics, this one straight up said: "Hello, I'm Miyazaki san, here is how I feel about things".
Every single central character has so many beautifully crafted feelings, and Mahito's character arc doesn't allow itself to end traditionally, instead choosing to change course halfway through the movie, centering on miyazaki's other alter ego, the great uncle.
It just feels like, more than ever, Miyazaki chose feelings over story, and I think that this way of storytelling goes super unappreciated.

Besides all of that, the visuals are obviously the best he has ever delivered imo, and the music, although minimalistic, has started to really hit me hard upon listening to it through some sound files I found somehow.

Although this is not Miyazaki's best, and by that I mean it's not a Spirited Away or a Porco Rosso, but close, it would be foolish to be in my place and think this isn't at least the most relevant to himself, and at least comparable to his best work.
I don't know, It's grown to be my favorite film ever by now. I found it amazing, and even if you don't share my opinion, I highly suggest rewatching it in the cinema if you can to truly get a grasp of it.
Great video btw! <3

Incredible need to see it again

i loved it a lot and want to see it second time, as it was so full of everything. To me, this one is one of most emotional movies and two weeks after watching it, it still have emotional grip on me. Can't explain why. And i guess, everyone sees it differently and takes what ever they take based on their own needs and likes.

Thank you very much for your review. Just saw the movie yesterday. Some of the background information you laid out here helped to give a bit more context. Obviously, the movie is downright beautiful. But it really lacks a bit of context in the 2nd half. Let's say, it doesn't really try to be clear to the general audience. That really makes it a bit more difficult to grasp. Still a very enjoyable experience. And I actually liked the musical score too. But that is up to personal taste, I guess.

Totally agree on every topic! I thought it was a wonderful and meaningful film, but didn’t hit me emotionally like many of his others have. Beautiful and interesting, but maybe lacked heart and a satisfying ending. Also agree about the music, I’ve been re-listening to it over the past days and have grown to appreciate it, but in theaters, I too felt it lacked something. Thanks for your review!

Video: "Thanks for watching"

Me: "Thanks for sharing"