User:Ilikecomputers/sandbox/How Do You Live? (anime)
IMPORTANT
How Do You Live? is a placeholder English title
After GKIDS acquired the NA distribution rights, the English title was changed to "The Boy and the Heron"
When launching this page in the future, the page should be renamed The Boy and the Heron (anime)!
The Boy and the Heron (Japanese 君たちはどう生きるか , Hepburn Kimi-tachi wa Dō Ikiru ka, lit. "How Do You Live") is a 2023 film directed by Hayao Miyazaki and animated by the beloved Studio Ghibli. It is based on the 1937 novel of the same name, written by Yoshino Genzaburo.
In July 2016, animation work was commenced, with Miyazaki starting work on the storyboards before the film's production was approved. Ghibli, struggling for direction after Miyazaki's Ten-Minute Retirement in 2013, reopened its previously shut animation department, and reached out to past contributors. The film was originally scheduled for release in 2020, coinciding with the Tokyo Olympics, although production issues pushed the release date back. In 2020, producer Toshio Suzuki revealed that thirty-six minutes of animation were complete, and that production is going slow due to the increased detail, more frames a second, and Miyazaki's age. Suzuki announced that, each month, only one minute of completed footage was produced. The slow pace was not due to the COVID-19 pandemic — which had little impact on the production of the film — but rather due to the lack of a deadline. It's clear that the studio has since sped up production, as in December 2022, Studio Ghibli announced that the film will be released on the fourteenth of July, 2023 in Japan. The film is 125 minutes long.
Details about the film prior to its release are scarce. So far, we've only got a single teaser poster. That's it. Every question was met with either the vaguest response or the simple Shrug of God. There are no information on Ghibli's official site, either, prior to the release. This is due to producer Toshio Suzuki's promotion strategy, wishing to try out something new. In early June 2023, Suzuki confirmed no details about the film other than the teaser poster will be revealed until its theatrical release, believing that this is what audiences want. After all, Trailers Always Spoil! The soundtrack was composed by Joe Hisaishi (音楽：久石 譲), and will feature thirty seven tracks.
PREEMPTIVE TROPES FROM A WIKIPEDIA PLOT SUMMARY:
PREEMPTIVE TROPES FROM OTHER SOURCES:
- Anime First: While a book titled How Do You Live? does exist, and it does appear in the film, the film tells an original story. The original book is grounded in reality, while the film is a fantasy story. The story has nothing to do with the book apart from the title, and producer Toshio Suzuki stated that Miyazaki "only borrowed the title".
- Invisible Advertising: See that teaser poster at the top? That's all the information we're getting before the film comes out. There are no trailers. No TV placements, no plot summary, no cast information, no nothing. Japanese audiences are able to see the film on release date. Everyone else must patiently wait for information from those Japanese audiences to know anything about the film.
- Minimalistic Cover Art: The teaser poster gives away very little information. Although a large amount of the space is used, the images filling in that space is draw with little detail and coarse outlines.
- The Noun and the Noun: The English title is named like this after distributor GKIDS announced they acquired the North American distribution rights. Other languages seem to retain the original Questioning Title?. It's called 你想活出怎樣的人生 in China, and ¿Cómo vives? in Spain, which matches the original Japanese How Do You Live? title closer.
- Questioning Title?: The Japanese title is "How Do You Live?". This is the English title the film had before it was renamed to The Boy and the Heron. It's difficult to answer the question posed by the Japanese title, especially considering how director Miyazaki and producer Suzuki gave the Shrug of God in interviews before the film's release.
- Story Within a Story: A real story within a story, as the book How Do You Live? is central in the protagonist's life. The film isn't based on the book, instead the book appears within the story.
