The master of Japanese animation says goodbye: his adaptation of Genzaburō Yoshino’s book arrives in 2023 and this is all we know for now.
The time has come to say goodbye to one of the great masters of Japanese animation: Hayao Miyazaki says goodbye with ‘Kimitachi wa Dou Ikiru ka’ (international title ‘How Do You Live?’; in Spanish, ‘How do you live?’), his last film as director. Although it is true that the Studio Ghibli co-founder has been announcing his retirement without success for more than two decades, it seems that the 81-year-old director could be more serious than ever this time around.
Cinema icon and responsible for some of the best animated films in history, Miyazaki returns in 2023 with a free adaptation of Genzaburō Yoshino’s novel, in which he recovers traditional animation after the digital experiments of ‘Earwig and the Witch’, directed by his son Goro Miyazaki. Production began in 2017 and it has taken six years (through pandemic) to see the light. Thus, according to the first reports, Hayao Miyazaki will say goodbye with a “large-scale fantasy” that will undoubtedly honor his great animated classics, from ‘Spirited Away’ to ‘My Neighbor Totoro’.
We reviewed the release date, synopsis, poster and more details of ‘How Do You Live?’the expected return of a director allergic to retirement.
‘How Do You Live?’: release date
Studio Ghibli has marked the release date of ‘How Do You Live?’ by Hayao Miyazaki in Japan: July 14, 2023. This may mean that the film could be part of the Cannes Film Festival program, which is held in May, although this remains to be confirmed. We will also have to wait to find out the release date in Spain.
In an interview for Entertainment Weekly in 2020, three years after the start of production, Studio Ghibli producer Toshio Suzuki discussed the production process and timing, pointing (we now know, correctly) to 2023 as a possible release date.: “We’re still hand-drawing everything, but it’s going to take us longer to complete the project, because we’re drawing more blueprints. Back when we did ‘My Neighbor Totoro’ in 1988, we only had eight animators and we made the movie in eight months. On this new film, we have 60 animators working on it, and we’ve only been able to get one minute of footage in a month of work. That means, in a year, we would only have twelve minutes of footage. We’ve been working on it for three years like this. we’ve already completed 36 minutes. We hope we can finish it in the next three years.”
‘How Do You Live?’: synopsis
As we pointed out, Hayao Miyazaki’s new film is based on the book by Genzaburō Yoshino, published in 1937. His story follows a young man who, after his father’s death, must move in with his uncle’s house and deal with the profound spiritual upheaval his life has taken.
Using the previous examples, Miyazaki is likely to modify Yoshino’s story and make a very free interpretation of his story. As he has done in the past with the works of Diana Wynne Jones (‘Howl’s Moving Castle’) or Eiko Kadono (‘Nicky, the Witch’s Apprentice’), among others, the Japanese director tends to make other people’s stories his own and incorporate all those elements that characterize his cinema. In short, include his obsessions, from flying objects to environmental awareness.
‘How Do You Live?’: official poster
Studio Ghibli shared the first official Japanese poster for the film:
Source: Fotogramas
Camila Luna is a writer at Gossipify, where she covers the latest movies and television series. With a passion for all things entertainment, Camila brings her unique perspective to her writing and offers readers an inside look at the industry. Camila is a graduate from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) with a degree in English and is also a avid movie watcher.
