Here’s The First Teaser For The Boy And The Heron

The Boy and the Heron poster

Hayao Miyazaki’s likely final film with Studio Ghibli – and his first feature film in a decade – has been shrouded in secrecy since it was first announced. We’ve seen little bits and pieces here and there, but for the most part details have been kept under lock and key. That’ll change soon when the film is released in the US, but for now, we’ve got the first English trailer — and it’s exactly as cryptic as you’d expect.

The new trailer, which is actually a teaser for a teaser, simply shows text on an otherwise entirely black background. We hear some music from legendary composer and frequent Miyazaki collaborator Joe Hisaishi, and then end with a tease: first look teaser September 6. That’s just a few days away!

We very much recommend you watch and hear the trailer yourself, but if you’re simply unable to for whatever reason, we’ve written the text featured in it below:

A young boy named Mahito yearning for his mother ventures into a world shared by the living and the dead. There, death comes to an end, and life finds a new beginning.

A semi-autobiographical fantasy about life, death, and creation, in tribute to friendship, From the mind of Hayao Miyazaki. The Boy and the Heron.

The Boy and the Heron had little to no promotion in Japan, with absolutely no images of the film being released prior to its availability in cinemas. Despite that, the new Ghibli film opened to strong ticket sales, earning about $15 million USD in its opening weekend, one of the strongest openings for a Ghibli film in history.

We’ll actually have a little more information about it going into it though. Four images for the film were released online last month, finally showing us what Miyazaki’s last film looks like. As you’d expect, there’s gorgeous, hand-painted backdrops, wonderfully designed characters, and more color than a year’s worth of Hollywood blockbusters put together.

There’s no release date yet for The Boy and the Heron, but we could get more details in the coming days. Watch this space.