The Boy and the Heron
With numerous critically acclaimed anime films to his name, director Hayao Miyazaki announced in 2013, he was 72 at the time, that he would retire. Not much later, this co-founder of Studio Ghibli backtracked on that. In 2016, he started working on a new film that should have been ready in 2020, but corona caused a big delay here too. In the end, The Boy and the Heron did not premiere in Japan until July 2023. The wonderfully beautiful result is a semi-autobiographical story about coming of age in a world dominated by conflict and loss.
During WWII, 12-year-old Mahito loses his mother. A year later, his father having since remarried, they evacuate to an estate in the countryside. He struggles, he does not get along with his stepmother and he is harassed by a grey heron. When he chases the bird, he discovers a dilapidated and sealed tower in the forest. That tower turns out to house a magical world.