 Good evening and welcome everyone to a very special event co-hosted by the Isoas Japan Research Center and the Isoas Library in which we'll discuss Miyazaki Hayau's latest film, The Boy in the Heron, where in Japanese, Kimitachi wa doi kirukat. My name is Charles Telonji Obstel. I've worked here at Isoas for the last six years as executive officer in the Center's and Institute's office and more recently I've begun working as the events and outreach manager in the library. As a former BA Japanese student here at Isoas, it gives me great pleasure to host this event and introduce our panelists, Dr. Fabio Gigi, Dr. Satna Suzuki and Dr. Filippo Cervelli. Dr. Fabio Gigi is chair of the Japan Research Center and Senior Lecturer in Anthropology. His research covers the intersection of material culture and medical anthropology with a focus on how medical and social categories are formed around practices of disposal. He is the co-editor of The Work of Gender, Service Performance and Fantasy in Contemporary Japan and has written about animism, dolls, robots and Maria Kondo. Dr. Satna Suzuki is currently a lecturer in Japanese and Mon-Japanese history here at Isoas. Trained as historian in the Department of History at Isoas, her main interests are the rise of Mon-Japan with an emphasis on imperialism, militarism, ideology and the relationship between politics and religion. She also teaches advanced Japanese using current issues in Japan, including constitutional revision, security and gender. Dr. Filippo Cervelli received his PhD in Oriental Studies at the University of Oxford and is currently lecturer in Modern Japanese Literature and Popular Culture at Isoas. He has written on the literature of Takahashi Genichiro, Oe Kenzaburo, Abe Kazushige on post Fukushima fiction and on manga and animation. He recently co-edited an interdisciplinary special issue on representations of nerds and loneliness. Now, before we begin, we'd like to start by watching a video to get us all in the mood to discuss the film. Afterwards, we'll have a panel discussion and there'll be plenty of time for questions and answers at the end, so please save your questions for then. But before we begin, please be aware that the discussion today will contain heavy spoilers, so if you haven't seen the film, remain at your peril. Is everyone in the mood? All right, let me start by asking the panel, what did you think of the film? What were some of the things you liked and some of the things you disliked and how does it compare to Miyazaki's other films and what did you make of the themes of grief, the afterlife and coming of age? Fabio, shall we start with you? Thank you very much. So, for me, it was like meeting an old friend that you hadn't seen for about 10 years. That's the distance between the last film, Kaze Tachinu, and you meet them and there's lots of familiar things. There's familiar characters. There's the way that flight is so important in the world portrayed. There's the Oba Santachi, the old women who sort of scurry around that are depicted in a sort of very familiar way. They are the mysterious cute creatures that abound and that play sort of quite a secretive function in the film, but then as you start to talk with that friend that you hadn't seen for a long time, you realize, oh, actually quite a lot of things have happened in those 10 years and it's not so similar and you start realizing there's a lot of different things that are happening that sort of try to stretch both what the medium can do, especially that first scene in the fire that sort of feels very different for the normal single-cell animation and the whole structure of the film, this idea that there is a hidden world that already exists in spirit of the way but that you can see is given a very different kind of function. So there is the real world, as also depicted in the last film, The Wind Rises that is completely set in the real world where there's no fantastic element and so there's a return to this idea that, yes, so there is the real world, a world of war, of militarism, but there is this other hidden world and what that does psychologically or what its function is, we can talk about it, I think, today. What about you, Sat and I? OK, so I didn't know anything about it or I mean, I avoided to know anything about it. I mean, so it was quite good that the director didn't really publish anything beforehand, but even after that, I avoided it because I just wanted to see it for myself and sort of decide. And so I was actually mostly interested in the music because I love chipotle music. I always listen to it while I'm marking, for example, to kind of relax myself and things. But yeah, besides music, I really enjoyed it in general, especially because I didn't expect anything, but then I saw a lot of kind of references with, I thought, Disney, you know, like Alice in Wonderland and also Snow White with seven grammars and things like that. And also, it was set in 1940s, but I felt sort of nostalgic, even though I was born in 1940s. It made me feel like, oh, my God, like, oh, Japan show a period. So that sort of sense of nostalgia really hit me. And also, what else? Subtitles, because I saw it here. Obviously, we couldn't avoid subtitles. I was analysing the translation. I couldn't help myself. So it was a bit sort of destructive in a way. But yeah, I was thinking, why did they translate it like that? And I had to think for like maybe five minutes and say, yeah, yeah, that makes sense. So a little bit of distraction there, but yeah, I pretty much enjoyed it. And also, what else? Yeah, like Fabio said, mystical, magical creatures, parallel world, and also I felt, I don't want to spoil too much, but reincarnation, war, mother, motherhood, that sort of thing. So yeah, I really enjoyed it, yeah. But I think I have to watch it more, at least two more times to actually get it. Yeah. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, on that note of rewatching it, I think my experience speaks to that because I saw the film when it first came out in Japan in July. So at the time we didn't, the world didn't know absolutely anything about what it was like. Like the Japanese title is even more cryptic than the international one, Kimitachi, Wadoi Kirukai, how do you live? How do you, something like that? So, and for me, even the image of what we then know, it's a heron in the only posters that were circulated in Japan. I didn't even know what that was. So I didn't know what it was about. And also, as Fabio said, coming from the last movie directed by Miyazaki before then, Kazutachi, which is really set in the real world, I didn't, I wasn't expecting something, something that deals a lot with fantasy like that. So I was surprised the first time I saw the movie, I was also, I felt lost. Maybe also because it was a night, I had just had a very heavy fried Neapolitan pizza at Sorbillo and the home bushy, so maybe that didn't help my concentration. But I felt that somehow Miyazaki had crammed a lot of themes there, right, that many that we can see in other movies directed by him, but also something else. So then to prepare also for today, I saw it again in London with a clear mind and then I found more literary references that I had missed the first time around, which gave me some other layers of interpretation. This relationship with the fantasy world as we will also see later on, I found it to be very literary, which I found very interesting. And I think now that it's a film that stimulates a lot. There are many things to read in. There are important things that it does uniquely, but also things that emerge if you watch it in correspondence with other films by Miyazaki. So despite certain things that I think the movie does better, things that I don't think it does as well as in other movies, but there is definitely a lot to unpack and I found it a lot more interesting and let's take on time around. Sathana and Filippo, you touched on the... Well, Sathana, you mentioned the translation and Filippo, you talked about the title and the significance of it. So obviously in English, it's the boy in the heron in Japanese, it translates to how do you live? Could you tell us about why they might have chosen and translate it this way and what effect does that have on the viewer's experience? Filippo? Yeah, I mean, it was not actually based on, loosely based on the original Gensaburo's Kimi wa doi kiruka, how do you live? So the original novel translation is how do you live, right? Yeah, but because he was inspired by it and he used the novel in the movie, which kind of like awakens the Mahito. So from that purpose, he didn't have to translate it as how do you live? So for Western audience purposes, the purpose for the Western audience, it was easier to say boy and a heron because it was about the friendship between the two as well. So yeah, maybe I don't know for the Western audience, they wanted to emphasize on the friendship. That's my interpretation. No, yes, I definitely agree with that. And I mean, as Satona said, the book was written in 1937. It was translated in English in 2021. And it's a very different story from the one that we see in the film. And even the name of the protagonist of the boy is different. In one, in the book is Honda Junichi that everybody calls Kopperu in Japanese, which makes more sense because it is from Copernicus, the astronomer. So it is a very loose adaptation. So I think that in the English, of course they wanted to focus on the heron element also probably because marketing wise is the first thing that we see, right? Like this bird. In Japanese, the Kimitatsu Adoi Kiruka, it makes sense if we see the movie. Of course, also if we think about the book because the book is basically a coming of age story between a junior high schooler that discovers the world, discovers relationships in the world that are very simple because it could be something gleaned from a fight at school, something understood through seeing his schoolmate, Meketofu, and then discussing about this with his uncle. So the uncle is an important figure in both the movie and the book. But to put it briefly in the book, it is through this musings of the child that understands the different underworkings, the relations in the world, what it means to respect others. This is also posing a question of how do you live? That is why that makes sense. Thinking about all of these micro things in the world that the world is made of relations of people that help each other, people that produce, that gather the beans, that people that buy them, people that make them into tofu, people that buy the tofu, people that are happy because of the tofu. Like it's right understanding that the world is made of people working together in these different relations of productions. Then the book asks this question, like now that you know all of this, how do you think you want to behave yourself from now on? And I think if we, we also have to think that the author of the book, Yoshino Gensaburo, he was an educator. So he was trained in philosophy, he worked for a publisher. It was a person that, although coming from a good background, like a well-off background in those years in Japan, he was also participating in socialist meetings and thinking what would be better for society, for the workers. And he was also detained because of the subversive associations. After being held in prison for 18 months, he was then released and then he continued his educational activity by becoming a serious editor in ethical books. And his editor, chief publisher told him, like, why don't you put all of these lessons that you have in a book format? And then he published this, which is like kind of a compendium of his thought, right? So in this sense, we can see it, how do you live? And I think that it is this spirit of thinking of our experience and how it connects with the world that Miyazaki transposed the title of the book to his movie, right? So we mentioned earlier that the, well, the film obviously takes place during the Pacific War and the historical backdrop is referenced many times throughout the film. Could you, the panel, maybe tell us a little bit about why they might have chosen to use this point in history as the setting? Fabio, would you like to? Or Satna? I think that's what you haven't said anything. You haven't said anything. You can put something fast and I'll add something. Well, there is an interesting sense in it. I just wanted to say quickly that the name of the protagonist, Mahito, a sincere human or true human is quite interesting from Copernicus, so to speak, to the true being. And it's very different if you compare it to the other boy figures in his films that are usually innocent sort of plucky boy hero stereotypes. Mahito is quite different. He knows about his own difficulties. He knows about his own badness, as he says at the very end. And so it's very interesting to compare that with the often female figures that you have, like Shita, for example, in Castle in the Sky, or even Kiki in Macho No Takubin, The Little Witch. So the female characters often have this kind of knowing about something that is very... And the boys, they don't. They have to sort of find it and figure out what it is, what it is supposed to be about. And that gives an interesting dynamic. But here in the last film, there is a similar kind of knowing that is presented at the outside that the true mensch sort of has. So we're no longer talking about just sort of an idealized figure, but there's something else going on. And the setting is, of course, historical setting is interesting because it also refers to Miyazaki's own experience. Many events in the film are parallel to events in his own life. He lost his mother quite early on, not like in the film, due to an attack, but due to spinal tuberculosis. Yes. She didn't die like that early, but she wasn't around when he was growing up. So he missed her. And yeah, so I think she lived for quite a long time. A few more years then, yeah. But yeah, she absent mother. So you can sort of see that he's longing for having mother as a young boy or young child, as it were. And in that sense, it is a narrative of loss. And the fantasy world only comes in once the loss has happened. So it's almost, you could say, in modern parlance, a kind of trauma reaction that you create this parallel fantasy world that you can retreat to, where all the real elements of the world are still there. So the militarism is still there in the form of the parrots who are sort of a militarized species in the parallel world of the film. There's still this idea to be called upon as a successor by sort of a shadowy father figure. And each person that exists in the real world has sort of a double, like a doppelganger in the second world. And they interact in very interesting ways. So it was set in the 1944, if I'm correct, because he says something like, my mother died three years after the war started. So that must have been 1944, right? So that's like, so when you see the fire at the beginning and he says, my mother died in the fire, but I kind of thought that maybe it was the air raid by the United States. It could have been the bombing. So it was like, and then after that he was evacuated to the countryside. So that actually happened as well at the time. But the thing I thought was that it was normally like not so well of people, only kids were evacuated, not with their family, certainly not at this really fancy, well, it's not a palace, but it's really fancy house. So it's like war from a bourgeois perspective, because they had food, they also lived in a sort of Western style mansion, right? And that was supposed to be considered not so good because, you don't live in a Western style house because they're like the enemies. So that's like a parallel to his own life because he's actually, his own father owned the fighter aircraft industries. So they're really well off. And I think Miyazaki was a little bit kind of ashamed of that because he was well off, even during the war. So yeah, he often talked about it in the interviews, I think afterwards. And also his real father, his mother was actually his father's second wife. So his first wife died and then remarried Miyazaki's father a year later. So there's that sort of similarity as well. So yeah, that's why I think it's kind of like semi autobiography as well. But yeah, and also something else I know just maybe because I'm a historian, but the How Do You Live When It Was Written was Showa 12. So that 1987, so that was when the second Sino, well, a second Sino Japanese war took place. So that was a little bit interesting for me because the themes of wars and things are there, but still not like really desperate stories like fireflies of the grave. That was really sad about really, really poor family's perspective. So yeah, I thought that was pretty interesting. Yes, if I could just add to that about the book and the historical context. So there's one part of the book where one of the experiences that copper makes is against a band of bullies at school. So they start to, there's an episode where he and his friends realize that the older classmates in the higher classes, they are becoming bullies because they think basically that the boys, especially in the school are becoming effeminate. It doesn't, this is not a word that comes here, but basically they say, they don't sing the anthem of the school. They're not concentrated in sports and masculine things. They don't properly bow to their elders and they like literature or they watch plays. They go to the theater. So I think that it is very hard not to think of a parallel with a surgeon imperialism in Japan at the time. Of course, there is nothing that is overtly about that in the book because also in 1937, it probably would not have passed censorship. But it is impossible not to see that the way in which these bullies that pick on the smaller, more gentle kids has something of an aggressive stance that we can also read in the bigger context of a preoccupation with growing militarism and aggressiveness over Japan that somehow had to stress the group culture. Like we are not the artistic individuality, but more of a let's gang up, let's be physically strong. So it's something that comes up in the book and I don't know might also have tickled Miyazaki's imagination. Let's talk a little bit about the animation in the film because there are a few really striking scenes that stand out even by Miyazaki standards. What did the panel think about this? And also how do you think the film is going to sort of stand up against other big animations during award season? Fabi, would you like to begin? Okay, I can go first, thank you. So I already mentioned the first, the fire scene that just looked very different from both Miyazaki style and also other styles of animation. We know that it took so long to make the film because it uses an enormous amount of individual images for each second. So it's a very high image to time ratio and it's all handcrafted. So this is an artisanal product, quite different from other animation studios who often use CGI methods and also now increasingly artificial intelligence. And Miyazaki Hayawa has spoken out against that and has taken a very clear stance and said it's essentially inhuman to do so. But there's something else as well. So at the very beginning when we encounter, so the double mother, so his mother passes away, there is the sister that looks very similar and that sort of welcomes him and they step into the rickshaw. And this is strange, for a moment I sat in the cinema and I thought, you're always moving your own body with that happening. It's as if the image creates a really embodied sense of this very simple action of stepping up. And this I thought, oh wow, something else is happening. So this is not just an image that you look at from afar, two dimensional. This is something that does something to your perception. And I thought, how is this going to be used later on? But it doesn't recur, at least in my experience, it didn't recur later on. It was as if it was sort of a quick nod saying, here, I can do this to you. So it's a very powerful style of animation that I thought shows that Miyazaki continued to experiment with new ways of drawing the audiences in with new ways of depicting scenes. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it may sound really strange, but I don't really look at it as anime. I look at it as a film. Film. Yeah, so from that perspective, yes, I mean, those kind of jarring feeling. I felt that too, actually, and also the fire. And also I felt like there's a distinctive difference between when he was in the real world and when he was in the world, as it were. So in the real world, everything was kind of slow, like, you know, putting on trousers and things, whereas everything was really fast in the underworld. So I thought that was quite interesting because I would have thought that real world would have been quicker, maybe nowadays. But yeah, sorry, I didn't answer the question, but that's what's wrong. No, but definitely thinking also about the opening sequences, what's one thing that has struck me both times when I saw the film is the way Machito like climbs the stairs, like when they went at the very beginning, they are fast. Yeah, they say Machito and and so he climbs the stairs to the upper floor and it feels like a frog in a way, like or like an animal that is quickly climbing. So I think that in a way, this stabilizes our perception a little bit, right? Because we start the air raid, the bombing, the fire. So it is a very strong, it is very clearly historically located in a way, right? But then we have these movements and then also when he's trying to reach the site where his mother is that like the way she is represented with the flames. Like I think we saw that in the video as well, that they blur the contours in a way, but in with a different technology. So I'm wondering whether, yeah, as you say Fabio, is it's him saying, oh, yeah, I can do this, especially because if you look at some of the other candidates for the awards, like one is Spider-Man Across the Spider Vest, so which is a very completely different kind of animation, which this stabilizes me in a way, but it's more technical. Like it feels in a way that Miyazaki and his teams, way of animation is like they're trying to make a last stand for a hand-drawn animation in a way and trying to complicate the things like as though, even though they are animating, but it's like somebody's there with a hand camera. It's like you're experiencing it as well. Yes, you're not just looking at it. Yeah, so sometimes it's uncomfortable. Sometimes it's jarring. And then it also very clearly contrasts, especially with the fantasy world where we have creatures that have a very simple design. Some creatures of the forest, some spirits, some have a very, very simple design, even the parrots. I think that the ease of flying, this is always something that struck me from the very beginning, from Naushkaf, the Valley of Winds, on the idea that when you fly, it's a completely smooth movement. It sort of gives you overview over the world. It's something completely done with ease, very much in contrast to the sort of the rather steady climb. It's cumbersome. Like it's murky, right, when he climbs the stairs. And even when the frogs climb on him, right. That reminded me of Stephen King's novel. What is it? The frog's rain on you? The swat? No, why not? Yeah, I can't remember the name. It's written so many. Yeah, yeah. But loads of references. So Miyazaki has obviously famously retired many times and claiming that he's not going to make any more films. But will this film actually be his last, in your opinion? Is it a fitting legacy to, we're fitting into his legacy and is it really his last stand for Japanese animation as he's sort of invented it to be? I don't think so. Because apparently he's already talked to his friend slash producer Suzuki Toshio that he already sort of started talking about new ideas. And so Suzuki producer, he actually talked to the French journalist that we can't stop him. Yeah, I'm just going to let him do whatever he wants. So yeah, if that's true, then no. But then it feels like he didn't manage to create like he's somebody who inherits him. Like I was the one, so I can't remember. Successor. Successor, thank you. Yeah, so he didn't manage to create successor. So maybe, I don't know, maybe he's still trying to do whatever he can until he dies. Yeah, so I don't think it's going to be his last. I agree. I was in Japan when the last one came out, Kaze Tachinu. And there was a similar discourse around that saying, oh, maybe this is probably the last. And often the connection was made between this being a story set in reality. So no fantasy element saying, okay, this must be the legacy. Looking back at the history, sort of showing this is what happened. And there was quite a lot of interesting political reactions across Asia, because if you remember there was sort of, there was a German character there, but then the German character was sort of an anti-Nazi. And yes, the Jido was working to create a fighting plane, but sort of there was also an anti-war message in the film. So there were interesting contradictions there. Many people said this must be a legacy work. And now, 10 years later, I also, I don't think you can stop somebody that's such a creative drive, a creative talent. There will be more, hopefully. Yeah, even my perception is very much the same also because I think that the way Miyazaki has worked, the way what he represents this Showa work person, right, will not probably give so a piece to his soul until he has given everything. And also, I'm wondering like, what does he do at home? Like, but he's not doing anything. I don't know if his wife wants him around when he's coming. Goes into himself. Yeah, yeah. And then of course, I mean, he's such an important character that also we have testimonies that he's not the easiest person to work with. So to put it like that. So even with the relationship with his son that wanted to follow in the footsteps and then absolutely not. And I mean, I have heard some theories saying that some scenes in the boy in the head or I will not say which ones are a kind of symbolizing that he's passing the baton to his son, but I didn't, I don't really see that. I don't know. I mean, it's an interesting theory if you have seen the movie. And then I'm... It's the ankle trying to pass the baton to Mahito, but Mahito said no. Yeah, yeah. But is it really like the son saying no or is it actually the young Miyazaki said, no, no, yeah, I don't get your baton, but I'm not even passing nine or something. Yeah, exactly. So the ankle and Mahito are both him. Old and new. I'm not old and young. Yeah. So, yeah, I definitely concur that I don't think this is the last we have seen. And in a way, this debate around Miyazaki reminds me a little bit of what people say also of the writer Oe Kenzaburo because he passed away last year. Also, in his case, like, I think for 20 years, he was like, this is my last novel. And if you read the novels, it's like this old man that preparing for his death in these semi-autobiographical novels when even when he was 60 and he didn't stop until very recently. And he even wrote a novel years ago which is called Sayonara Watashi no Honyo. So it's like farewell to all my books. And then there was in late style, like a response to Said and many other things. So, but I think that we need these people to work, yes, and make us think as much as they can, yes. You mentioned it earlier on about the peculiar marketing strategy in Japan to not advertise the film at all. Obviously, that wasn't the case here in the West, but what do you think of that? And could you elaborate a little bit on why you think they might have done that? And is it just a luxury that Studio's prestigious as Studio Ghibli can do? Yeah, I mean, bit of that. And also it's a new sort of way of advertising, isn't it? Not to advertise. So that kind of catches the people's attention. But I read it somewhere that some people are really put off by the title. How do you live? Because it's a bit preachy. So Japanese audience, not gonna watch this, but yeah. So the boy and the parent are more sort of easier, approachable as it were. But yeah, I mean, as I said, I think this is a film that you want to watch again and again. It's like the more you watch it, or you understand it, or you discover different perspectives. I think there's a sense of enigmatic advertisement. It works really well because he's such an established name. It's been 10 years since the last film, roughly. Before that, I think Ponyak came out in 2008, so it's a five year. So this is quite a long time to wait. And so anticipation was building. And you don't really, you know, I talk to many of my friends in Japan, and they all say, well, it's a Miyazaki film. Obviously we're going to see it. It doesn't matter really what it is. It is a Miyazaki film. So in a sense, it is an advertisement in and of itself. But he works well with me because I don't want to know anything about it. It definitely worked well. And even gauging some reactions across the web when the movie came out in Japan, I also read some things that were interpreting this, again, as a form of Japanese-ness in a way, like to show without showing, or like to be filled by the nothingness. You know, I've even... Very zen. Yeah, very zen, of course. I mean, I would think that in the current panorama of animation, probably him and Shinkai can afford that, because I'm sure that if the next Shinkai movie, we don't know anything about it, people will go anyway. But it definitely, of course, you cannot be a young, new filmmaker and do this because it will not work. But it was incredibly successful in this case, right? Also because I think it's a movie that probably the first time you see it, then you get out of the cinema and people ask you what it is about. You say, I don't know, really. So I think as a feedback, it also works very well. I just wanted to mention the, what's his name? The Yonezu Kenshi, the singer. When he presented the song, so he was asked to create the song, and when he presented to the Miyazaki, he apparently cried. And so he was at the, Yonezu was really moved. And he said, it would be like my treasure for the rest of my life, because he just really respects it, Miyazaki so much. So yeah, I mean, I really liked the song. I thought that was really beautiful. And my geeky note, Yonezu is also the composer of the music to find a fantasy 16. He's very popular. Yeah, he's very popular. So there's one more question I have for the panel. It's not for a Q&A. And that is about the references in the film. So we mentioned earlier on that there were a few references to other literary pieces and films. You mentioned Snow White. Could you speak to this a little bit more? What other references did you observe? Philippa, would you like to? Yes, thank you, Charles. So one that I was very happy to find that is very dear to me is are the references to Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy. So I know I'm talking more and more about Dante recently, but when Mahito enters the first step into this fantasy world, he has to go into a tower. And we briefly have a glimpse of the entrance of the tower, which was also shown in the trailer, and Charles can pull it out. So it is not amazingly visible here, but not even in the movie, but on the arch there is a sentence in medieval Florentine, which is Fece Miladivina potestate, which is a line from the Divine Comedy. It is in the third canto of the Inferno when Dante is entering the gates of hell, and this is the inscription on the door. And the third set that precedes this is the most famous one because it is the permissiva nella città dolente, permissiva nell'eterno dolore, permissiva tra la perduta gente. Through me the way into the suffering city, through me the way to the eternal pain, through me the way that runs among the lost, which is something that Italian high schoolers used to put on the door to their classrooms when teachers come in. Then this sentence, Fece Miladivina potestate, la somma sapienza, il primo amore, it means my maker was divine authority. This is what it means. The highest wisdom and the primal law. So it is a reference to God. And I think this is interesting because it is not the most obvious reference because it is in Italian, but this is Dante 13th, 13th century Italian. So even if you're fluent in Italian, it's not the easiest thing ever. But it made me think about the references and the similarities because of course, both in Dante and here we're seeing a gate. Like we're going through a gate that leads us to the underworld, a fantasy world in the movie Miyazaki. So, and there are countless references to this, like the fact that there is an uncle, God-like figure that speaks to Mahito from above against a starry sky, which can make us think about paradise, the starry sky in Dante's voyage to the paradise. The fact that he asks the heron to lead and guide Mahito, which we can see as a Virgil-like figure that guides Dante, although the heron is much clumsier than Virgil. And also then there are river scenes, river scenes with fairy people. One is Kiriko, the fisherwoman, right? And also we have scenes that make us think about the river Styx in the river Akaron, sorry, in the Divine Comedy where the heron, the ferryman, ferries the souls of the dead into the underworld. And even then in the Divine Comedy, heron is surprised to see a living soul, Dante. And even here Mahito right is singled out. And we have many scenes of boats with spirits on them, which made me think a lot of these references. But of course, these are not just mere homages with Miyazaki showing that, oh yeah, I know about this. But it made me think about what this underworld means. The voyage that Mahito is on is a voyage into in a way like Dante into the understanding better who he is, right? Like Dante talks to a lot of dead people in the inferno, in the purgatory, and also in the paradise through their experiences, he learns also about himself, salvation. In a way, I think we can also see glimpses of that in the Miyazaki's movie because Mahito is exposed to a lot of crazy different characters in this underworld, which in this world, in this fantasy world that make him think about his own self and also like how he wants to live. Like we can also see this the other way around that in the way the divine comedy is a reflection on like how do you live? Like after having met all of these people made halfway through your life, how do you live? And I think that it is showing once more that when these authors in Japan, they tackle the ideas of knowing yourself through the voyage, through seeing, even getting in touch with people that are dead, the imagery of Dante is very strong in some of these authors, not all of them, but some of them. Any thoughts? I just noticed Snow White, seven dwarfs, seven grandmothers. Yeah, and also, but interestingly, Kiriko was one of them, but she was not, she was special, right? So I wonder why that was, but yeah, seven dwarfs and also I thought the heron was the rabbit of the ice and the wanderlump, definitely. Yeah, but it was kind of half heron, half humans. It became scary to kind of comical and then enemy to his friends. So some people say that that was his friend, the Suzuki producer. Yeah, because apparently they would sort of argue like lovers on the set. So really affectionate kind of fights. Do you see what I mean? So yeah, people thought that, yeah, it was the embodiment of the producer. I thought that was quite good. I think, yeah, it's a trickster figure that can make you do things that you may not want to do. So I think it's a very interesting relationship between director and producer. I thought there was, I mean, visually, there's a lot of visual references. Obviously, there's lots of European architecture, especially in the underworld. There's a library. There's also, if you're familiar with Arnold Bucklin's Island of the Dead, that tomb that they come across is literally exactly that. So it's a very interesting sort of visual reference. And Miyasaki has often said in interviews that he doesn't start with a story. He starts with an image like Donarino Totoro is standing Totoro standing at the bus stop next to the other characters. That was the starting point. So there was no story necessarily there to begin with. So you start from an image and you develop the image and you start thinking about what kind of story could be happening in this context. And so it's a very different way of building a narrative. The other thing that came to my mind immediately when I was watching it was the similarity to Guillermo del Toro's Pan's Labyrinth. Also said in fascist Spain during the Second World War, also the main character is a girl who escapes from the threat of being arrested by the fascist police that her family faces by escaping into a fantasy world. But the danger, of course, is also in the fantasy world and the creature design. It's not an animated feature, but the creature design is also very scary and very sort of a horror like and yet somehow poetic. So the idea that there's another world that is sort of an inverse mirror image of the real world where similar things are happening, but where you can encounter all these dangerous things in a more symbolic way that then helps you knowing more about yourself and the other and how to overcome these difficulties. I thought that was quite a powerful image. All right, I'd like to open the panel up to the floor for questions. I know we've got a couple online, but should we take one in the room first? Yeah, over there, please. Thank you so much for this question. I just wanted to ask a question related to Pan's Labyrinth. And was this thinking about this all the time the rest of the time I watched it. I thought that it was very similar. And it's very interesting, also, what Fulipa mentioned about Oei Genzaburo's kind of like interest in the writing of fascism in Oei, his book and imperialism, and to me as well in a similar way to how the Dodo makes a kind of like fantasy out of Franco's dictatorship in Pan's Labyrinth. I also felt maybe that Miyazaki was kind of trying to capture the fall of the Japanese Empire somehow through his very carnivore parakeets and asking them. And I was wondering how do you feel about that? I think Keith, sorry, he felt the sense of guilt and he had this conflicted feelings because his father was making money out of the militarism or Japanese Empire. So he actually was against the wall, but he knew that he benefited from that when he was young. So yeah, I think that was kind of packed in there, but not in a way that would criticize it, but more depicting it as it was from a perspective of wealthy family during the war. But it's also a displacement, right? So the father in the film appears as a very kindly figure to him. He's very nice and Yazashi in general. But we only get the connection to the aeroplane fabrication when they bring in the parts. So there's one scene where he suddenly says, oh, there's something else going on as well. And so that's why in the underworld, you sort of have a reflection of that, the parakeets and this mysterious uncle figure that is also a kind of father figure that tries to enjoin his son in joining him and becoming his successor and in heritage that he refuses in the end. So I think it's one way of dealing with that without actually pointing towards it, sort of, yeah. But definitely there, yeah. But I think his father was like his real father. Oh, sorry. His father, as in Mahito's father was like a sort of spitting image of Miyazaki's dad because he also, you know, was, what, no, he co-owned the industry, the fire aircraft industry. So, yeah. And he was apparently very sort of hedonistic and kind of kind of crazy, you know, person. So yeah, I think he liked his father, I think. That's why he portrayed him like that in the film, pretty much, like new money, hedonistic and also a little bit crazy and also caring, I guess, yeah. Yeah, I think that if we also see this in relation to a broader context of other Miyazaki's movie, movies even, the wind rises, right? This relationship with, you know, somebody that is a good man fundamentally, Horikoshi Jiro, but he's also producing machines of death. It is something, of course, that is very important in Miyazaki's works, Porcoroso and others. I mean, the fascination between like mechanical things, designs, but also the potential death that they bring is also, it's never black or white, right? It's never money case-tick in this sense. It's never, oh, my father built like the father, right? I think in The Boy and the Heron, the figure of the father embodies this very well because he is embroiled in this industry but he's not a bad man. He's not assimilated in the things that he makes, right? He makes war planes or machines and then he's a bad person. And I mean, this fascination with machines is also something that we see in other anime directors who didn't live World War II like Anno Hideaki, for example, right? Yeah, who, not by chance, is also the voice of Horikoshi Jiro in the Japanese version of The Wind Rises. So I think the two have a lot in common. Let's take a question from online. So anonymous attendee says, how do you think the presentation of grief and family connection compares between this movie and when Mane was there? Which one is the second one? When Mane was there? I haven't seen it, but... Which one is the Japanese title to that one? Does anybody know? No, I haven't seen that one. I haven't seen it. I haven't seen that one. Sorry. But I felt the grief. His grief all the way through until he read How Do You Live in his bedroom and cried. And I kind of felt it. He didn't say anything and he was really quiet and he didn't even look at Natsuko, the new mother, as it were. So yeah, I felt that really. I actually felt it when I was watching it, but yeah, that's all I can say about the grief here. And I can't make it comparison. Sorry. You know, I don't mean to. There's another question from Dr. Helen McNaughton from online. She says, great panel and she says hello as well. And she says Miyazaki movies often have strong female protagonists. The main character in this film is clearly male, but are there any gender messages in this movie? This is one for Satama. Okay. Thank you. Thank you so much. I think there's a really strong female element too, like mother, Kiriko and Natsuko. So, and he was about, I think about him missing his mom. So, is it gendered? I'm not sure. But I think female was as a female, prisons was as strong as male. I think I would say that's actually stronger in a way because it's like reincarnation and also like reborn, you know, like, for example, Natsu. Was it Natsu? No, Natsu, sorry. My husband's real mother's, mother. Can't remember her name. Sorry, anyway. Natsuko is the sister, right? No, Natsuko, sorry. My husband's real mom. Yeah. Can't remember her name. But anyway, she knowing going back to the real world, she would die, but she had to go back to give birth to Mahito. So that sort of powerful message, I felt quite strongly. I mean, you can read the whole film as the kind of the whole underworld is sort of a male idea of empire. That's a parakeet. There is a kind of a godlike figure that creates the balance, the equilibrium that holds the world together. And, but that needs a successor. And for that, you need to abduct Natsuko to get a successor. So there's a kind of strong gender dynamic there, I think. And it sort of, it ends with Mahito saying, no, I'm not going to be the successor here and the world collapses as a result, right? So I think there is a strong point to be there. That's sort of the militaristic, the parakeets especially. Both sort of at the beginning, you think, ha, they're quite funny, but then you realize that they really are there. Fascist parakeets. And also, right? Even though Mahito, of course, is a boy, but in this world, in the fantasy world, he cannot make it without the women's help, right? Yeah, yeah. First Kiriko, and then the, his mother spirit that helps the the the warawara, warawara, warawara, warawara. The warawara, and then also she... But that's genderless. The warawara. Okay. So the gender that helps the genderless. So something that also I thought was very interesting in Mahito's voyage is that I think it is a reflection on grief, the fantasy world, but to me, it also meant that you cannot really make it by yourself only, right? Yeah, that's about it. In a way of like, how do you live, right? You need friendship, you need love, whether it's for your friends, whatever. And his help, even if there is farewell, like there is a detachment in the end, but he's able to make his own decision to grow up also through the encounters that he makes, right? And without the book that his mother left, he probably wouldn't have made that decision at the end. Yeah. Let's have another question from the room. Yes, please. When I watch this movie, I'm so curious about how, if I can think in like a high level, I think for him, it's really, I really like the words you mentioned, like his own story, like seek autobiography of his life with his mom under the colonial period in Japan. So I assume he has a strong message for the younger in Japan to express his lineage or his reflections about the colonial period in Japan. And I also find really interesting, you mentioned about the dentin. So he also gave us his approach about how he reflects and for this period, it's not only about the negative side. Also he wants to somehow keep us a message to bring some kind of like positive lineage from that period, like the family relationship, how he anti those, how to say group culture, the masculinity. So I was wondering, how do you feel with us which was about the house, reflection about the colonial period. Well, I think he was too young to be actually be involved in the war, fast hand. But like I said, he felt a little bit guilty about being well off. You can see the difference between him and his classmates. Cause I think he had loads of hair, but his classmates were like a wold. So the way they dressed as well. And his classmates had to work after work whereas he didn't have to, he had to, he could just go home. So, and that sort of added to his loneliness because he couldn't make friends easily. So I don't know whether it's positive or negative. He's like sort of reminiscing his childhood cause he actually did evacuate as well with his dad. And one really funny thing about his dad was that he didn't really mind selling like dodgy airplanes to the authority. So, yeah. So he was like, he's maybe way of saying, I'm not gonna just contribute to the war. I'm just gonna make money. That's all it matters. So it's really kind of practical sort of side of Mahito's dad. And he's seen him, he's seen his dad like this that must have impacted Miyazaki's, you know, perceptions. And also his dad was a little bit anti-authority, you know? Because he had money. He could just kind of go to his school with his, what is it, Datsun, the... Mopets. Was it Mopet? No, it's a car, Datsun. Datsun Datsun. Is that Mopet? It's a car. It's a car. Yeah, but nobody had it. So, yeah. So it's like, sure, bit of sure. And you could just say, this is it. Yeah. But anyway, yeah. So I don't know whether I answered the question, but yes, yeah. Let's have another question from the room. Yes, please. Well, there's transition, a lot of things that you've said together. So, Satsuma, earlier you were saying that the older uncle and much though were representative of Miyazaki himself, passing between onto himself. And then you were talking about at the beginning, there was a lot of a sense of grief. For me, once he entered this magical, fantastical world, I interpreted it as the story being dominated by fear, actually. And it was, I don't know if it was a fear of death, but a fear of this creativity ending. At the end of the story, everything literally falls apart. And so we're talking about how there's no way this is going to be his last movie. But it almost feels like throughout this movie, he is acknowledging that despite his ideas continuing, he no longer had the ability to hold his world together. And he has no one to pass it on. And this nostalgia, but when he did have, all these people around him to support him, all this inspiration, all this energy to create and bring his ideas to life. So if we're talking about there not being any more movies in the future, or even if there are movies in the future, do you think that they will hold the same quality where it comes from his ego and his inspiration or whether it comes from a place of fear or rushing or wanting to produce more with force, he feels that his time comes to an end? How old is he? He's like 82 or something. Yeah, okay, sorry. Can I link in another question from online, which is slightly similar? So the anonymous tendee says, if I remember correctly, the uncle told me he told to pal three blocks a day to build a newly balanced world and continue that for 13 days. Do you feel that, do you find any reasons for these specific numbers? Is there any reference? 3 and 13. Yeah. Sorry. Numbers? I'm not sure about numbers. Yeah, sorry. Yeah. Okay. Sorry. Do you want to go home? I'm going to comment about the number. It could be a three, like, magical number for the witches, but also if we connect with the Dantes, the door to the real world, but that was one three something too. Right. Yeah, a couple. There's loads of things to decipher. Yeah, like I said, I have to watch five more times. But I'm not sure about the fear because he is still really enthusiastic about creating new things. So you might say, so this is like semi autobiography and he packed a lot of things, but maybe next one would be completely different. Who knows? Because, yeah, but I'm not sure whether he's, I didn't actually feel the fear. But that's just me, it's interpretation. But I think he says, okay, I don't have like a successor, but I have friends. I have Suzuki Toshio. I have what is it, the other guy, Takahata Isao, who was the co-founder of the Ghibli. So they still, he still has all these sort of friends to work with. And also like, you know, Mahito, he's okay because he's got friends, you know, Kiriko and others. So I think that was a quite nice message. But I think the fear element is definitely there. And I was wondering, because we were thinking when we were talking about how to frame this, I was thinking about On Late Style by Edward Said, which is all about trying to think about whether there is such a thing as late style. So late in life, what do you do when you actually are facing death? How does that change your art and Said writes about Beethoven and Tolstoy and so on and so forth? But I thought there was an aspect to that, that the sense that the contradictions are there, they're so strong, there's no attempt anymore to sort of transcend them, to create like if you look at like, you know, Naushka of the Valley of Winds, it's a fully realized world. It's everything fits together. It's a wonderful story. It's quite a harmonious whole. While here in the Boy in the Heron, there are jarring forces that go against each other. There is a sense of, yes, an urgency, I think. And that, yes, an urgency that perhaps the year brings, right? Or maybe he's sort of aware of his own sort of mortality, and also like, yeah, definitely like how long am I going to be around, but yeah, how are we going to deal with this? Yeah. At this point, then I would add a third player again, Oe, sorry, because I mean, he did write in late style again in response to his very good friend, Said, but I feel that what you both said about Miyazaki here being aware of his own mortality, not in a way in which he like made a testament, but like understanding that for him, but also for Said, and also for Oe, to approach death, it meant to somehow not trying to streamline and rationalize all of their aspects, but to understand that to be immortal, to be a man, a human being means to have all of these contradictions, acknowledge them and make them coexist. So I think in this way, we can see the Boy in the Heron also as a reflection on creativity. So the fantasy world is lethal, it is a refuge, is a refuge from the fear of grief, the fear of confronting, you know, a stepmother that you don't like, the fear of feeling what you really feel inside, like even when there is a moment where the Natsuko, yeah, exactly, bad intentions, even she says like, I don't like you, you know, in this and that's fine, but we work through those. And in the movie's fantasy world that I felt as a creativity, as representing also creativity, because it can be both a respite, but it's also something that can kill you. It's something that is dangerous where we don't understand everything, we just have to understand that these different different natures coexist. And this is also something that you can see in always later works because he was more and more concerned of his own mortality. But in these works that reflect also on Japanese history, for example in Death by Water from 2009, he was writing that while he was being trial for defamation when he wrote his Okinawa Noto about this mass suicide that was, we don't really know what happened, but during the war in Okinawa, an entire village almost was committed mass suicide by drowning. And we don't really have any documents that say that a certain officer made that order. Some some versions say that it was because the US Army was coming so better die on our own term. So we don't know what really happened. But it did take a stand in his Okinawa Noto in the 70s. And he said that to give this order to people to commit mass suicide, it was inhuman. So he was he was trial. He was he was caught a call to trial for for slander for defamation. And at that time, he also wrote Death by Water, which does not mention Okinawa, but is also something that acknowledge acknowledges in a way that, you know, we all have our own histories and and to be to be somehow alive, to be modern, to be a man means to to somehow understand that there are difficult difficult and diverse, like contrasting aspects in yourself. And I think that in a way, this this sentiment seems to be pervading intellectuals such as Miyazaki, Edward Said and a few others. There's a question from Olivia online, who says, thank you so much for a fascinating discussion. What struck me was how I felt I had to work through the narrative of this film and the world that Miyazaki created felt more fluid and loose. I felt this might reflect or encourage the audience to explore the very process of dealing with grief. But do you have any reflections on why this movie felt more open than other films? I think it's more open to interpretation in that sense. Yeah, in that late style sense. Yeah, you don't you don't feel the necessity to prefab all the meanings that you want the audience to take from it. It's a much more sort of saying, here, this is me as the artist. This is what I do. I don't necessarily understand it myself. And Miyazaki in many interviews has said similar things like, you know, I start from here, there's the image, there's the movement. And then let's see where we go from here. There is an openness to the process. But this is really much stronger, I think in this last film where it is essentially it's an offer to the audience saying, here, you do the work of figuring out what it means. At least that's that's what I felt. I also thought, yes, it is quite hard work. It's not something you see, you know, an older narrative, the narrative is clearly presented. Oh, this means that, oh, yes, it is the mother. Oh, okay, wonderful. Yeah, it is like a puzzle. Yes. Yeah. So you have to work it out as you watch it, maybe once, twice, three times. So you might get a new discovery. But but I agree it is more open. Can I? The shape of the mouth of here quite strange. That teeth. Yeah. Yeah. What do you think? It's a cow couture, or maybe the producer. I haven't seen that. I haven't seen the producer's pictures, but yeah, maybe not. But like a cow couture version. So because he really likes the producer like a friend, old friend. So it's like a affection. The teeth are all there in you see them when they smile, but you also see them when it's a more threatening action. So there's a there's sort of ambiguity about this image of the tooth, I think. Yeah, it's not as if, like, you know, things are more complicated. Like very to put it super bluntly, which I think does relate to what we were saying earlier on, right? That you don't have to understand everything. Like at some point, you see, you make your own meaning, and then you move on. It sounds good to interpret as well. Shall we have another? Yes, please. I would see it in my wife. And she's Japanese. And she's born about a year after me, exactly. And she was taken out of Tokyo for doing near the end of the war because something's emerging. And I could go and make it out. And I asked her what did it mean? And she's always very straightforward is telling us how to behave after the war. And I suppose thinking about it. Actually, I began to get that. So I think a lot of the is obviously framed in the morning. And I think some I think it's historical. And I don't think that's her Japanese status. And it was by the reporting of downpets who went out into the industry. And, you know, the parakeets, it seemed to me parakeets in that leader, this was the army of the emperor. You know, very obviously. And I think it's very much focused on the second one. Sometimes what we as old people do is actually not worry about mortality. We start thinking about our very young age. So to that to me was, was how it was going. And I think it was sort of, to me, it was crazy, the confusion of war. And then what, what exactly should we do as a result of what comes next? So I thought, I think the analysis was actually important. Any other questions in the room? So if I may something. So, but he decided to actually destroy this world of fascism. By not inheriting this role as the, what is it, the emperor? Was it the emperor? Yeah, but then he decided to make it collapse because by not inheriting it, the world collapsed, right? Because he could have succeeded it and he could have let the world go on. But he decided not to. So I thought that was like saying, I'm not going to contribute to that. As the equilibrium that we see in the, in the final moment of the film. So if the main parakeet is the emperor, and there's still this godlike figure of the uncle that sort of is even more mysterious than that. And the equilibrium then doesn't hold the world collapses and everybody is relieved. So well, maybe that's where then you have to ask the question. So what, where do we go from there? I mean, that's, I think that's, that's, that's a good interpretation, right? Okay, so now everything has collapsed. But that's the end of the film, right? So it doesn't, it sort of ends on a slightly upbeat note, perhaps? Yeah, because then he decided to, okay, I'm not going to be part of this. It's going to be, maybe the real world is going to be really messy because what's going on. But I, I choose to live in this messy world rather than in this kind of fantasy world where he could be the bought. So, yeah. And of course, he is a young, he's a child and he makes, takes the decision to live in a world where his mother doesn't exist. Yeah, she has died. So that is a very important step to take. Yes, please. Yeah. That's interesting. I think it's a creativity, right? So this is a builder of universes, you have the power to do that. It's very tricky. You need to find the right equilibrium to do so. But he takes the stone, I thought that as well, right? And the stone comes with him in the other world. And he then literally, if you think of Miyazaki himself, he then creates his own universes out of that. I think it's actually a very nice. And the stone, there's lots of stones, like if you think about the the Hikoseki, the flying stone in in a castle in the sky, there's lots of, you know, magical stones that embody a particular kind of power. And also, I know, I thought about not forgetting, right? So you, you don't inherit the world, you make a choice, but like a legacy. Yeah, but at the same time, you should we should not completely forget what we chose not to have because, you know, it can be memory of not making the same mistakes, but also the creativity, because for I am, I would think that for for somebody such as Miyazaki, even art and creativity, they're not some, they are also passed on. This is why you have references to other authors, right? You make your own, but it is passed on. So yeah, I thought it was a symbol of legacy. Didn't Harron say something like you're gonna forget about this soon? Yeah, yes. Yeah, but he took that when he left the house. So that was quite symbolic as well. Yes, yes, yes, exactly. Think we've got time for maybe one or two more questions. There any in the room? Got one online. This question from Mina that says you mentioned that the other world was an afterlife, but it struck me as more of a similar life, since it sat outside of time and ran alongside ours. Do you have any ideas or thoughts about how the movie plays with time or timelessness? Thank you for the talk. I think it's and the underworld and I maybe not say after a while, but it's the time is a little bit different because you if you remember, my mother disappeared when she was young, right? So that was when my tool was in the underworld too. So the time is yeah, it's I don't know, it's like a parallel or it is yeah, it's warped. Yeah, I don't think it's clear. But it is when was my mother's mother disappeared when she was like Mahito's age, something like that. She was younger. She was young. So for a year. But then Mahito was there when she was there. So that must have been what 50 years, 40 years difference. Yeah, so that yeah, it's a sort of different universe, maybe I would say different universe multiverse. That's it. That's it. I mean, it's a parallel universe in the sense that it mirrors what happens in the real world. But the time if you look at the the lived experience of the film time is that the first part of the film is quite slow. There's lots of walking and unpacking and doing very mundane things. And then once we enter the other world, there's something happens is the time is speed up and things happen very quickly. So there is a sense that that these two universes they they move at a different speed. It's pretty like a Marvel movie. Yeah, Doctor Strange, presumably. I don't know. All right, I think that's about all we have time for. So please join me in giving a round of applause for our one. Thank you. Thank you all very much for coming tonight. And please keep an eye on the SAS Japan Research Center website and the SAS Library website for future events. And we hope to see you again soon. Have a good evening.