Why Studio Ghibli changed The Boy and the Heron\u2019s title TohoHayao Miyazaki\u2019s The Boy and the Heron is the new title requested by the Studio Ghibli producer \u2013 here\u2019s why he decided on this title. Originally titled \u2018How Do You Live?\u2019 for its Japanese release, the movie\u2019s title was changed to The Boy and the Heron. It was supposed to be Hayao Miyazaki\u2019s last film, but the director decided to continue his career after its success. The Japanese title references Genzaburo Yoshino\u2019s 1937 novel of the same name, which appears in the film, but the film contains an original tale that is unrelated to the novel. The film was critically acclaimed and made over $97 million worldwide. It received numerous nominations, including Golden Globe Awards for Best Animated Film and Best Original Score. Even months after the film\u2019s success, the reason behind the title change remained unknown until recently. Delve deeper to find out why Studio Ghibli co-founder and producer Toshio Suzuki requested a title change for the worldwide release. Why was the title of The Boy and the Heron changed? In an interview with IndieWire, GKIDS President Dave Jesteadt explained: \u201cThere was a total press blackout on the film in line with the release in Japan, but because of our long relationship with Ghibli, we asked if we would be able to announce that we had the rights, as we needed to be able to set up a big fall release. \u201cIt was at that time that Suzuki asked for a title change. The call came from inside the house. I can\u2019t speak to the exact reasons for the title change, but I think there was a desire to move away from the name of the book, as people were constantly mistaking the movie for an adaptation.\u201d The film has the same title as the 1937 novel that inspired Miyazaki. However, since the story is different, Studio Ghibli decided to change the title. In the same interview, Jesteadt also spoke about how they went through several potential titles. \u201cWe talked about \u2018The Tower Master\u2019 or \u2018The Grand Uncle\u2019, and our feeling was that they felt a little too much like hard fantasy. \u201cWe tried a lot of different permutations of \u2018How Do You Live?\u2019 but ended up choosing the option closest to Suzuki\u2019s original suggestion.\u201d He also revealed there\u2019s a hidden meaning behind the new title: \u201cMiyazaki based the characters in this movie on people in his life\u2026and the heron is based on Suzuki. To me, there\u2019s something very meta and very funny about this heron \u2014 this trickster \u2014 inserting himself into the situation and suggesting we give the movie an international title [with his name in it].\u201d The Boy and the Heron is in cinemas now. You can check out our review here. Please note that if you click on a product link on this page we may earn a small affiliate commission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Why Studio Ghibli changed The Boy and the Heron\u2019s title TohoHayao Miyazaki\u2019s The Boy and the Heron is the new title requested by the Studio Ghibli producer \u2013 here\u2019s why he decided on this title. Originally titled \u2018How Do You Live?\u2019 for its Japanese release, the movie\u2019s title was changed to The Boy and the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13833","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13833","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13833"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13833\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13833"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13833"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13833"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}