Ghibli’s Boy and the Heron gets October U.S. premiere, official screenshot, bird creature reveal

Zooming out a little on the Miyazaki movie’s poster makes a big difference.

Spoilers ahead for The Boy and the Heron.

Studio Ghibli has been very tight with details regarding The Boy and the Heron, the new anime from director Hayao Miyazaki. In Japan, there were no commercials or trailers for the movie, no story or cast details given, and only a single, extreme-close-up illustrated poster featuring what looks like a bird with eyes in its mouth.

But Ghibli know it can’t keep a lid on things forever. With a month now having passed since The Boy and the Heron’s debut in Japanese theaters, and an official collectible program booklet now on sale that contains a few visuals from the movie, Ghibli finally seems ready to let the curtain be peeled back just a little bit, and we’ve now got the first official screenshot from the movie being used for promotion, coming from the anime’s North American distributor, GKIDS Films.

THE BOY AND THE HERON is an Official Selection at #NYFF61! 🪽@TheNYFF marks the US Premiere of #TheBoyAndTheHeron. We are honored to present Hayao Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli's newest masterpiece to American audiences for the first time! pic.twitter.com/tjBFpuiMiG

— GKIDS Films (@GKIDSfilms) August 17, 2023

At the same time, the official Ghibli Twitter account posted a new piece of artwork that shifts the perspective of The Boy and the Heron’s poster back to give us a more complete view of what we’ve been looking at the face of.

▼ Clicking on the tweet shows even more of the illustration

pic.twitter.com/EvJyBqVRPC

— スタジオジブリ STUDIO GHIBLI (@JP_GHIBLI) August 17, 2023

And rest assured that’s far from the only example of crazy character/creature design Miyazaki has up his sleeve in this movie, which producer Toshio Suzuki thinks might be the most expensive movie ever made in Japan.

Along with the screenshot, GKIDS also announced that The Boy and the Heron will be making its U.S. premiere as part of this year’s New York Film Festival, which will be taking place from October 6 to 8, roughly one month after the anime screens in its North American premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, so it’s looking like mid-October is the earliest The Boy and the Heron is likely to make its way to general theaters in North America.

Source: Twitter/@GKIDSfilms, Twitter/@JP_GHIBLI
Top image: Stuio Ghibli
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