5 Classic Studio Ghibli Films That Hayao Miyazaki’s ‘The Boy And The Heron’ Will Fondly Remind You Of

It is not quite the masterpiece a la his 2001 Oscar-winning Spirited Away or as delightfully charming as 1988’s magical fantasy My Neighbor Totoro, but Hayao Miyazaki’s latest film, The Boy and The Heron, still bears many whimsical and enjoyable traits of classic Studio Ghibli films.

When it was announced that the legendary Japanese animator was coming out of retirement—for the fourth time if we are counting—to produce yet another feature-length animated film, Studio Ghibli fans were understandably overjoyed.

After his last film which was the 2013 historical drama, The Wind Rises, Miyazaki only popped out of retirement for a 2018 animated short, Boro The Caterpillar, that is shown exclusively in Japan’s Ghibli Museum and Ghibli Park.

With The Boy and The Heron, the 82-year-old writer-director provided animation lovers with a semi-autobiographical drama set during the last years of World War II (WW2).

The story follows a boy Mahito (voiced by Soma Santoki in Japanese and Luca Padovan in English) who, after his mother’s death, was sent to the countryside to stay with his new stepmother Natsuko (Yoshino Kimura/Gemma Chan). One day, he stumbles upon an abandoned tower and is enticed by a talking grey heron (Masaki Suda/Robert Pattinson) to enter a fantastical realm.

The visually stunning, dream-like film is slow-moving in the first hour before the momentum picks up when Mahito enters the alternate dimension where he is led to believe that his mother is still alive. In there, he undergoes a transformative experience as he encounters a number of strange creatures ranging from giant man-eating parakeets to floating bubble-like spirits called Warawara.

A US$100 million global box office hit that has already garnered the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Animated Film and a Golden Globe nomination for the same category, The Boy and The Heron is a poignant, lyrical yarn about dealing with loss, cultivating friendships, and embracing life without conflict.

(March 2024 Update: The Boy and The Heron won Best Animated Feature at the 96th Academy Awards, earning Miyazaki his second Oscar after 2001's Spirited Away.)

And probably the most noticeable thing about Miyazaki’s new film is that it is filled with stirring moments that will fondly remind fans of many other great Studio Ghibli classics.

Here are but five films that The Boy and the Heron paid homage to:

(Warning: Spoilers for The Boy and the Heron ahead.)

1. ‘Grave of the Fireflies’ (1988)

The opening scenes of The Boy and The Heron in which Mahito runs through streets of Tokyo as the Japanese capital is being bombarded by American warplanes during WW2 vividly reminds one of the grim scenes of American firebombing of Japan in 1988’s Grave of the Fireflies.

Written and directed by the late Studio Ghibli co-founder Isao Takahata, Grave of the Fireflies is a gut-wrenching war drama about two Japanese siblings trying to survive the declining days of WW2. It is declared by almost everyone who’d watched it as one of the best war films ever made, but which is way too sad and depressing to garner it a second watch.

2. ‘The Wind Rises’ (2013)

The fact that Mahito’s father Shoichi (Takuya Kimura/Christian Bale) owns a factory that builds warplane parts brings to mind Miyazaki’s last feature film, The Wind Rises, a fictionalized biographical narrative about Japanese WW2 warplane designer Jiro Horikoshi.

In real life, Miyazaki’s father’s aviation company also manufactured fighter plane parts during WW2. It was through his father that the animator developed a fascination for airplanes as depicted in 1992’s Porco Russo about an Italian veteran World War I pilot cursed to look like a pig, as well as birds of all kinds (representing flight) as depicted by herons, parakeets and pelicans in The Boy and The Heron.

3. ‘Spirited Away’ (2001)

The Boy and The Heron also evokes many elements from the critically acclaimed fantasy adventure Spirited Away—widely regarded as one of the best animated films of all-time—about a young girl Chihiro who finds herself trapped in a supernatural bathhouse.

Heron's kooky maids are like miniatures of old granny Yubaba; the talking grey heron is akin to the kimono-clad frog spirit Aogaeru; and the feisty maid/fisherwoman Kiriko (Ko Shibasaki/Florence Pugh) is not unlike Lin, the feisty bathhouse worker with a kind heart.

The abandoned tower that Mahito enters into also resembles the creepy tunnel that Chihiro and her parents wander into in Spirited Away, and Mahito being plastered by papers in one scene is reminiscent of Chihiro being plastered by paper birds after she saves a Haku in dragon form from them.

4. ‘Princess Mononoke’ (1997)

The moment the Warawara appeared in The Boy and The Heron, you could hear all other fellow cinema-goers cooing as well, “Oh, soooo cute!!” In the fantastical world that Mahito travels to, these adorable bubble-like souls float up towards the boy's real-life world where they will be born and embark on new lives—that is, if they can avoid being eaten up by starving pelicans on the way up.

The Warawara easily reminds one of the ghostly white tree-residing spirits Kodama in 1997’s fantasy epic Princess Mononoke, a mythical tale about a war between forest gods and an environment-unfriendly human mining colony.

5. ‘Howl’s Moving Castle’ (2004)

In the alternate dimension, Mahito meets a young woman named Lady Himi (Aimyon/Karen Fukuhara) who has magical fire powers. When she is engulfed in her fiery powers, one instantly thinks of the hilarious fire demon Calcifer from the 2004 whimsical fantasy, Howl’s Moving Castle.

When Mahito meets up with his stepmom Natsuko’s granduncle (Shohei Hino/Mark Hamill) a.k.a The Wizard on an idyllic hilltop glancing at a huge monumental tower, it is also reminiscent of many scenes in the 2004 film when Howl’s moveable castle is either moving along or sited stationary atop a grassy green field against a cloudy blue sky.

The Boy and The Heron is showing at cinemas worldwide.

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