Crunchyroll, the ultimate home for anime worldwide, has acquired the Australian and New Zealand rights to Studio Ghibli’s long-awaited fantastical epic feature film The Boy and the Heron from Academy Award-winning visionary director Hayao Miyazaki. Crunchyroll and Sony Pictures International Releasing will bring the film to ANZ cinemas on December 7th. It will be shown both in Japanese with English subtitles and dubbed in English.
Debuting in Japan on the 14th of July, The Boy and the Heron surpassed Spirited Away‘s opening four-day box office. The hand-drawn, original story animated feature – director Miyazaki’s first in 10 years – made its international premiere at the Opening Night Gala of the 48th Toronto International Film Festival on September 7th. Tickets to all five TIFF screenings sold out in record time, with the film receiving glowing reviews and placing in the top three for the TIFF People’s Choice Awards.
Produced by Studio Ghibli co-founder Toshio Suzuki, it also reunites Miyazaki with long-time collaborator Joe Hisashi who has produced the musical score for the feature. It will also feature the theme song ‘Spinning Globe’, written and performed by global J-pop superstar Kenshi Yonezu.
The Japanese cast is lead by Soma Santoki as Mahito Maki and Masaki Suda as The Gray Heron. The English language dubbed version will feature the voices of Christian Bale, Dave Bautista, Gemma Chan, Florence Pugh and more in a star-studded line-up. Of note is Bale, returning to a Studio Ghibli production since their turn as the English voice for fan favorite Howl from Howl’s Moving Castle in 2004.
The link is now live for tickets on the Event Cinemas website, with availability to be updated soon.
