‘How Do You Live’: Studio Ghibli animation’s mystery-surrounded release

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Long, which opened this Friday (14/07) in Japan, is supposedly the last film from renowned animation director Hayao Miyazaki. ‘How Do You Live’ poster in front of a Japanese cinema BBC How Do You Live opened in Japanese cinemas on Friday (7/14). It’s Studio Ghibli’s newest production — and supposedly the last film from renowned animation director Hayao Miyazaki. It’s hard to overstate the influence of Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli, the animation studio he co-founded with the late director Isao Takahata. Three of Miyazaki’s films — Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away and Howl’s Moving Castle — are among the top 10 highest-grossing films in Japan, and he has inspired generations of animation and live-action filmmakers at home and around the world. Spirited Away, from 2001, won the Golden Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival and the Oscar for Best Animation at the 75th edition of the awards. Miyazaki himself received an Honorary Academy Award in 2014. How Do You Live (Kimitachi wa Do Ikiru ka) takes its title from the 1937 novel by Genzaburo Yoshino, but its story is entirely original, written by Miyazaki. The film takes place in Japan, during World War II, and revolves around a boy named Mahito, whose mother dies in a fire. Shortly after, his father, who works at a fighter plane factory, marries his late wife’s younger sister, Natsuko, and moves the family into their huge house in the countryside. Mahito, who is resentful of Natsuko for taking his mother’s place, begins to explore the area around the house and discovers a mysterious tower which he is instructed not to enter. He also encounters a heron that can talk (it appears on the film’s poster, in the main photo of this report) who claims that Mahito’s mother is, in fact, alive and in the tower waiting to be rescued. Mahito rejects this claim, but when his new stepmother disappears in the tower, he sets out to rescue her. As soon as he enters, he is transported to an alternate world filled with magic, where his quest brings him into contact with new friends and enemies. The film is filled with Miyazaki’s obsessions, quirks, and thematic preoccupations. There are the usual visual treats like cute yet mysterious creatures, great-looking food and gravity-defying flights of imagination — mostly hand-drawn and moving with the fluidity and sense of heaviness that characterize the work of this master of animation. . Thematically, like films like Kiki’s Delivery Service and Spirited Away, How Do You Live is a coming-of-age tale in which a child must overcome his selfishness and learn to live for others. ‘Spirited Away’ is one of Japan’s highest-grossing Studio Ghibli films – NDDTM/via BBC How Do You Live also echoes the director’s own biography. Miyazaki’s father, like Mahito’s, worked for a company that produced parts for fighter planes, and his own family was also taken out of the city and into the countryside during the war. Furthermore, Miyazaki also had a deep bond with his mother, who is said to have had a major influence on his work and the strong female characters in his films. How Do You Live did not have the same level of buzz on opening day that one might expect for a new release from a famous director like Miyazaki. There were no trailers or promotional television spots, and the only hint as to what the film might be came from a single cryptic poster. The lack of publicity was a deliberate strategy by Studio Ghibli president and How Do You Live producer Toshio Suzuki, who told a leading Japanese magazine in June, “I thought giving too much information would reduce public interest.” A scan on Friday afternoon at several cinemas in Shinjuku, one of Tokyo’s main entertainment districts, showed that morning and early evening showings were nearly sold out. However, there were plenty of places available for the afternoon and late evening sessions. Many of the friends I informally consulted last week had no idea that a new Miyazaki film was set for release this Friday. Box office numbers released after the weekend will tell a fuller story, but the strategy may be to start slow and build up audience over the next few weeks through word of mouth. Miyazaki’s last film — is this time for real? Miyazaki threatened to retire from cinema several times, most notably in 2013, after the release of the film Vidas ao Vento. It didn’t happen: the director started working on How Do You Live in 2016. As the production of this film took seven years, and considering the director’s age (he turned 82 in January), How Do You Live is apparently his last film. While Miyazaki’s legacy is assured, Studio Ghibli’s future is less clear. The studio, founded to produce films by Miyazaki and Takahata, has made several attempts to pass the baton to the next generation over the years with relative success. A potential successor, Yoshifumi Kondo, who directed the well-received Whisper from the Heart in 1995, died shortly after his 47th birthday. Miyazaki’s son Goro has directed three films at the studio, including the recent computer-animated production Aya and the Witch, but his films have not met with the same level of critical or financial success as his father’s. Studio Ghibli president Toshio Suzuki has announced that they are planning their next film, and the studio has recently branched out into ventures such as Ghibli Park, a distinctly different Disney theme park in Nagoya, Japan. (At the How Do You Live session I attended, I received flyers advertising the park as I walked into the theater.) In the decade after Miyazaki’s first retirement, directors like Makoto Shinkai (Your Name) and Mamoru Hosoda (Belle) had huge successes. domestic box office success with its own original anime, while in 2020 an adaptation of the Demon Slayer manga displaced Spirited Away, becoming Japan’s highest-grossing film of all time. Whatever happens to Ghibli itself, Miyazaki’s ultimate legacy may be helping to cement animated films as Japan’s most beloved form of entertainment. * Matt Schley is an independent film and anime critic based in Japan. Text originally published in

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