Danica Davidson
December 4, 2023 
Hayao Miyazaki’s new movie The Boy and the Heron will hit North American theaters this Friday, December 8. Singer-songwriter Kenshi Yonezu is behind the film’s theme song, titled “Chikyūgi” (translated as “Spinning Globe”), and he has put out a subtitled music video on YouTube. Production credit for the music video goes to Keiichi Itagaki, who has been behind making trailers for Studio Ghibli since the 80s.
The Boy and the Heron, which is known as Kimi-tachi wa Dō Ikiru ka in Japanese (which translates as How Do You Live?), just recently won the award for Best Animated Film at the New York Film Critics Award.
GKIDS is putting the movie in North American theaters with both an English dub and original Japanese audio, and gave this description for it:
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.Hayao Miyazaki’s first feature film in 10 years, The Boy and the Heron is a hand-drawn, original story written and directed by the Academy Award®-winning director. Produced by Studio Ghibli co-founder Toshio Suzuki, the film features a musical score from Miyazaki’s long-time collaborator Joe Hisaishi. The theme song for the film “Spinning Globe” was penned and performed by global J-pop superstar Kenshi Yonezu.
The dub stars Christian Bale, Dave Bautista, Gemma Chan, Willem Dafoe, Karen Fukuhara, Mark Hamill, Robert Pattinson, Florence Pugh, Luca Padovan, Mamoudou Athie, Tony Revolori and Dan Stevens. The original cast stars Soma Santoki, Masaki Suda, Ko Shibasaki, AIMYON, Yoshino Kimura, Takuya Kimura, Keiko Takeshita, Jun Fubuki, Sawako Agawa, Karen Takizawa, Shinobu Otake, Jun Kunimura, Kaoru Kobayashi and Shohei Hino.
Source: ANN
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Danica Davidson is the author of the bestselling Manga Art for Beginners with artist Melanie Westin, plus its sequel, Manga Art for Everyone, and the first-of-its-kind manga chalk book Chalk Art Manga, both illustrated by professional Japanese mangaka Rena Saiya. Check out her other comics and books at www.danicadavidson.com.
