The Boy and the Heron

publish #mediareview Watched this subbed 2023-12-07 in the Japantown Kabuki 8.

Themes I noticed

• The boy fearing nature (birds, foliage, caves) and taking solace in urban cities
• Heavy overarching theme of war
  • Birds being evil probably parallels fighter jets, esp. as the father is an industrialist who owns a factory for them
  • Original Japanese name for the movie, “How do you live?”, rooted in a wartime book Miyazaki read
• Groupthink is made scary. Even benign creatures like pelicans and parakeets appear nightmarish when moving as a single ravenous herd
  • Father character
• Theme of opposites
  • boy is terrified by fire irl; enters an ocean world — his doppelganger wields fire confidently as a weapon

Open questions

• Is himi the mom or not? What’s up with her entering a “world” door with the intent to birth the boy and later die in the hospital?
• What do the blocks represent? And what changed between the boy’s opinion of them being tainted in his vision vs being clean when he finally sees them in person?