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Miyazaki's new movie "The boy and the heron" was released just last week in Japan. Not sure when it's coming to the west but it's the first movie by Miyazaki since 2013.
It's also quite unique in the sense that there was no trailer or marketing for this movie. Even in Japan.
> it's the first movie by Miyazaki since 2013.
I was going to say "what about The Wind also Rises?"... and then looked it up and it was released in 2013. Hard to believe it's been 10 years.
Ok so I'm not the only person who accidentally calls it The Wind *Also* Rises!
Probably confusion with Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises
They do share a theme slightly. Surrender to the state of the world, stoic acceptance and such.
It's "The Wind Rises" - from Paul Valery's famous closing stanza of "Le cimetiere marin" (The Cemetery by the Sea)
"Le vent se lève !… Il faut tenter de vivre !"
"The wind rises... we must try to live"
To me it denotes a sad, stoic acceptance that things are about to go down badly, but we must somehow survive.
(https://www.babelmatrix.org/works/fr/Val%C3%A9ry,_Paul-1871/...)
....I've watched the movie like four times and I think this is the first time I've noticed there's not 'also' in the title.
Same here! I thought The Wind Rises was recent. Is this what old age feels like?
"The boy and the heron" is quite removed from the original title, 君たちはどう生きるか, which would be "How do you live?" (plural you)
how do y'all live
Y'all is a great translation for kimi-tachi.
Nuance-wise I think it's better read as "How will you live your life?"
How do yous live?
or
How do we live?
"you" (plural) as in "you all," since "you" can also refer to just one person now that "thou" is no longer used [1].
Do you have any (linguistic) insight into why they changed the name for release outside of Japan?
One certainty is that it references a Japanese book also entitled "How Do You Live?" that would likely be unknown outside of Japan.
However, I was wondering if it was also an issue of connotation. The question, "How do you live?" can have a rather negative connotation in US English. It carries an accusatory connotation, as if the asker has a negative view of the subject's life or conduct and wants to know how the subject can bear to live or act in such a way.
But I suspect that in Japanese, it may be a more literal and connotation-free question?
Not the grandparent poster, but... I don't have any linguistic insight (there were some, with the sister posts about "How do you live" sounding condescending in English?), but a practical one.
I just saw the film last Sunday. The title "How do you live" has hardly any strong connection to the contents of the film. The film doesn't pose that question to the audience. The film doesn't much seem to explore the theme. (A little? Maybe, but not to the extent one would expect from the title.) The titular book by Yoshino Genzaburo (whose plot has no overt resemblance to the movie's plot) appears on the screen briefly, and one could guess that it'll prove a "Chekhov's gun" kind of an item, but this trope is entirely averted.
I think that it is only through a "meta" lense that sees the film as an autobiographical work, with a Miyazaki self-insert as two different characters (Mahito and the great uncle), that the title starts to make sense. It is Miyazaki's attempt to _answer_ the question – in the scope and perspective of his own life and work.
I doubt that this perspective would be readily available for an American viewer. They are unlikely to know the book and they are unlikely to be aware what kind of a person Miyazaki is, what is his connection to Ghibli, his movies and to his son Goro, something a Japanese viewer is much more likely to be aware through various interviews, documentaries and news coverage. Miyazaki has called this movie his "testament" to his grandson, and this certainly makes you consider these things.
If anything, the title "How do you live" would be misleading and disappointing to an American viewer. It makes the film sound more philosophical than what they are going to walk away with.
Titles are very frequently changed, this is because titles are supposed to sound catchy and what sounds catchy in one language often does not in another. Spirited Away in Japanese was also literally more so “Sen and Tihiro's mysterious disappearance. The Vanishing*'s original Dutch title was “trail-less” literally, which sounds good in Dutch, but very poor in English though I suppose “without a trail” would work.
I had a Japanese teacher who liked to talk about how surprised she was about the title in English.
She also gave me a little insight into the word 神隠し which, apparently comes from a saying. When children used to go missing, people used to say that "God snatched them away", which is why the first kanji 神 is 'god'.
Her translation of the title was "God snatched sen & chihiro away" which of course isn't a literal translation, but I thought it was interesting
I'm going to guess that for an English speaking market, there is a certain expectation for Miyazaki movies that has to do with whimsicality, children and some sort of anthropomorphized animal. and so that's the title format that they believe will sell better.
Americans in particular are likely to be put off by something that sounds like it's questioning their life decisions.
As an American I didn't read the title "How do you live?" as being somehow accusatory. I read it more in the sense of "what are the best known practices for living?". I didn't get any negative connotations from the title/question.
> But I suspect that in Japanese, it may be a more literal and connotation-free question?
I think you're right. In English there's already the phrase "How can you live with yourself?!".
The name for the Western release is from the original book the movie is based on, so it's not inappropriate.
How do yinz live?
y’all
"The Boy and the Heron" couldn't be considered inflammatory to Western audiences plagued by guilt as opposed to presenting them with a question loosely meaning, "how do you live with yourself?".
Stop generalizing "The West" as if the West was just the USA.
I remember then internet users said that the West didn't get DBZ until 200s
where in Europe by ~1995 we already finished DBZ for months both in the manga and the anime.
Europe is in the middle, ok? /s
Recent and related:
Hayao Miyazaki’s How Do You Live is a beautiful relic – and the end of an era - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36760469 - July 2023 (74 comments)
Studio Ghibli to release Miyazaki’s final film with no trailers or promotion - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36314647 - June 2023 (12 comments)
>Not sure when it’s coming to the west
Hacker news being an international community, I would say the relevant question is when it’s coming outside Japan. Let’s remember the average person lives neither in Japan / China nor in the west :-D
Average location doesn’t really make sense but the typical hacker news reader probably does live in the West or Japan.
Not entirely accurate as it counts only users with accounts that saw this post on a particular day and time and decided to participate:
The use of average was just a joke.
My point is that most people in the world live outside Japan and the West (however you want to use that term). Even if most people in hacker news belong to the West (not sure that is true) I do appreciate if the comments don’t take for granted that things are said from a western perspective.
I think the average person lives in Almaty, Kazakhstan
Hacker News feels very dead outside of US/EU timezones so I agree with this.
It was a pleasant surprise during our Japan trip and we went to watch 'How do you live' in the Toho Cinema Shinjuku on the second day. Very beautiful and touching movie, even with very limited Japanese skills.
If I had significant wealth, one of the things I'd do would be to try and commission Miyazaki to make another film in the same veins as Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind or Princess Mononoke. Maybe adapting his earlier Shuna no Tabi manga, which was also great. I'd even settle for something more kid-friendly like Castle in the Sky or Spirited Away.
I know money probably wouldn't sway him, but a donation to something he cared about... maybe. It's just an unrealistic hope, anyway.
I can't stand that there's nothing else like Princess Mononoke or Nausicaa. The world needs more Miyazaki, and especially his adult-themed sci-fi and fantasy.
Miyazaki is a treasure. I'm going to miss having him.
If it's any consolation, I don't think Miyazaki could force Miyazaki to make another Miyazaki movie; having the right reasons seems to be intrinsic to his work.
I don't think Miyazaki is available for commission.
Well, he has a son who has made three movies so far, with mixed success (although I did like Tales from Earthsea).
Tales From Earthsea was a passable Le Guin adaptation with some wonderful visual moments... but From Up on Poppy Hill is just drop-dead gorgeous. It's not a spectacle, but it's just amazingly visually rich, and tugs at every heart-string you have, to boot. I love it.
Have you tried asking him nicely?
Part-way through I thought, oh no, this is another overwritten thinkpiece that will ultimately conclude with "you see, the secret message of this art is ... capitalism is bad".
But no, the story here is more interesting. I don't want to do it a disservice by saying there's a discrete "point", but it hadn't occurred to me that the spirit of Miyazaki's films could only be arrived at by somebody who both retained enough of a child's sensibility to spend all of his life on animation and accumulated enough of an adult's sensibility to do so, apparently, to the effective exclusion of much of those extra-vocational things that are usually said to make life enjoyable. Except for making ramen, at least [1].
>retained enough of a child's sensibility to spend all of his life on animation
I think most passion projects come from the inner child to some extent.
I just saw Miyazaki's latest "The Boy and the Heron." I'll refrain from commenting on it as I intend to respect Studio Ghibli's intention of giving audiences a fresh viewing without any prior notions.
Like with most Miyazaki films, the entirety of Japan is rushing into theaters. Tickets are difficult to get. I wish there were many more filmmakers that captured the public's attention like this.
Yes, the Miyazaki films are very rich and thoughtful, found new meaning across multiple viewings
I thought this was about Dark Souls.