Studio Ghibli today announced that renowned filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki will release a new film titled How Do You Live in Japanese theaters on July 14, 2023.
Toho is releasing the pic Japan, which will be Miyazaki’s first feature-length film in 10 years. His last release was the 2013 World War II film The Wind Rises, a fictionalized biographical film about Japanese aviator Jiro Horikoshi.
The studio did not announce any further details about the pic, but it did share a sketch on its social media accounts to accompany the news. The image appeared to be a bird with white and blue feathers.
In an interview with the New York Times last year, Miyazaki said the pic is based on Genzaburo Yoshino’s 1937 book of the same name. The story follows a teenage boy in Tokyo who moves in with his uncle after his father dies. The novel is said to be one of the director’s favorites.
Studio Ghibli co-founder and producer Toshio Suzuki has described the film as “fantasy on a grand scale.” When asked by the Times why he decided to return to filmmaking to direct the film, Miyazaki simply answered: “Because I wanted to.”
Miyazaki has retired several times throughout his career, the first being in the late 1990s. However, a year later, he returned to direct the 2002 Oscar-winning Studio Ghibli film Spirited Away.
Earlier this year, Studio Ghibli, which Miyazaki, Suzuki, and Isao Takahata co-founded in 1985, collaborated with LucasFilm on an animated short titled Zen. The film was released on Disney + in November and centered on Grogu, the breakout Mandalorian character known to many as Baby Yoda.
A stage adaptation of Miyazaki’s classic 1988 film My Neighbour Totoro by composer Joe Hisaishi and the Royal Shakespeare Company also officially opened at London’s Barbican Theater in October.