The Boy and the Heron
Mahito must uncover the secrets of a mysterious tower and a magical heron to find his missing mother and stepmother before the war and ancient forces consume them all.
“Where death comes to an end, life finds a new beginning.”
Synopsis
During the Second World War, the teenage Mahito, tormented by the tragic death of his mother, is moved from Tokyo to a quiet rural house belonging to his new stepmother, Natsuko, who closely resembles his late mother. As he struggles to adapt, his new surroundings become increasingly bizarre with the arrival of a persistent gray heron that confounds and troubles Mahito, calling him the "long-awaited one."
Credits
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How many hands made this film
The scale of the collaboration
A crew of 126+ credited
Why a floor?
This is a minimum, not a total. We only count the credits we’ve captured so far, and coverage is uneven — a blockbuster might show a few hundred names while another of the same size shows a couple dozen. The real crews all ran into the thousands. The number here only grows as full credits are enriched — so we frame it as a floor, never a headcount.
Craft leads on file
Edited by Rie MatsubaraShot by Atsushi OkuiScored by Joe HisaishiSound by Michael Archacki
Box Office
2023 · Box office
💰 Box-office hit — grossed 5.9× its budget
Why 2.5×?
Cinemas keep roughly half of every ticket sold, and a wide release’s marketing often costs about as much again as the film — so a movie needs to gross around 2.5× its production budget just to break even theatrically. It’s a rule of thumb, not the studio’s ledger (home video and streaming come later).
Worldwide gross
$294.2M
US & Canada: $46.8M — 16% of worldwide · International: $247.4M (84%)
Opening weekend: $13.0M — 28% of its US run.
Opening week (7-day): $18.0M — 38% of its US & Canada run.
Peak 2,205 theaters
Full synopsis
Also known as
- Der Junge und der Reiherde
- The Boy and the Heronen
- Kimitachi wa Dō Ikiru kaes
- Kimi-tachi wa dō ikiru kafr
- Kimi-tachi wa dō ikiru kait
- (English)The Boy and the Heron
Release dates around the world4 countries · showhide
- JapanJul 14, 2023
- CanadaSep 7, 2023
- SpainSep 22, 2023
- United StatesOct 1, 2023
Production & Distribution
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Cast & Crew
126 unique people credited
Top billed cast
Supporting cast
14Kaoru Kobayashi
as Old Pelican
Shohei Hino
as Great-Uncle
Nami Uehara
as Additional Voice
Kiyoko Nishimura
as Additional Voice
Ryunosuke Watanuki
as Additional Voice
Takuya Yagyu
as Additional Voice
Gakudai
as Additional Voice
Sannosuke Iizuka
as Additional Voice
Yuto Kawasaki
as Additional Voice
Kazuki Suzuki
as Additional Voice
Masaaki Doi
as Additional Voice
Mikito Shigeta
as Additional Voice
Yoshihisa Ishita
as Additional Voice
Kenta Okimori
as Additional Voice
Directors
1Writers
1Producers
8Other crew
92Eriko Kimura
adr director
Barbara Goodson
Aiko / Maid #4
Yoji Takeshige
Art Director
Kazuyoshi Katayama
assistant director
Masayo Ando
assistant inbetween checker
Chihiro Okada
assistant unit director
Shintaro Nakazawa
assistant unit director
Eric Hoffman
atmos mixing engineer
Takuya Ono
casting office work
Akihiro Ogawa
cg
Miki Umezawa
cg
Norihiko Miyoshi
cg
Parents Guide
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