‘The Boy And The Heron’ Producer & Studio Ghibli Co-Founder Toshio Suzuki On Hayao Miyazaki’s Most Personal Work
deadline.comAs the co-founder of Studio Ghibli, Toshio Suzuki has worked with director Hayao Miyazaki on many films. With The Boy and the Heron, he was able to help bring Miyazaki’s semi-autobiographical fantasy story to life.
In his most personal work to date, Miyazaki’s The Boy and the Heron follows the story of a young boy named Mahito, who has recently lost his mother.
Along with a cunning and deceptive gray heron, he journeys to a mysterious world outside of time where the dead and the living coexist.
Suzuki says the core of the story had to change when Miyazaki’s mentor and friend, Isao Takahata, passed away. This led to a focus on the strange friendship between Mahito and the heron. DEADLINE: Where did the story come from? TOSHIO SUZUKI: [Miyazaki]’s never done a film where he himself is the protagonist, so he felt that he needed to do that while he’s alive.
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