THE BOY AND THE HERON Home Release – GeekTyrant

Earlier this year, GKIDS and Studio Ghibli released the Oscar-winning film The Boy and the Heron on physical and digital formats. Since then, the film has also been added to Max for your streaming convenience.

GKIDS was kind enough to send me the 4K UHD + Blu-Ray package to try out and test, but all thoughts below are my own. I also want to make it clear that this is not a review of The Boy and the Heron. Take a look at the review that our team wrote back in November.

THE BOY AND THE HERON follows young Mahito who, after losing his mother in a hospital fire during the war, moves to his family’s property in the country. There, a series of mysterious events leads him to a remote and ancient tower where a mischievous gray heron lives.

“When Mahito’s new stepmother disappears, he follows the gray heron into the tower and enters a fantastical world shared by the living and the dead. As he embarks on an epic journey with the heron as his guide, Mahito must uncover the secrets of this world and the truth about himself.”

The first and arguably best reason you would want to purchase a physical copy of this film (and any media) is because you own that copy and no one can simply delist it and remove it from your library.

I feel like this has become a bigger deal over the last few years and I fully support and encourage physical media ownership. It’s also great to have physical media if you don’t have access to streaming for some reason, such as: E.g. if you simply move to a new location before setting up the internet.

Another main reason for purchasing a film is to access the bonus features included in the home release. There are about seven bonus features for “The Boy” and “The Heron,” although two of them are just a music video and trailer, so not particularly noteworthy.

However, the other five will appeal to a wide range of people. First, you have “feature-length storyboards.” From what I could tell (I haven’t seen the whole movie), this is literally the entire movie, albeit with storyboards instead of animations. That’s cool, but definitely not my thing.

I could definitely see people getting more into the process of animating/storyboarding/filmmaking etc. I would really be interested in that.

Another special feature is “Drawing with Takeshi Honda,” which I didn’t finish watching because it was longer than I thought. Essentially, you get to watch the lead animator on this special Takeshi Honda Draw key characters from the film and he’ll throw out little tidbits along the way.

This was a little interesting to watch, although its shortcoming is that Honda doesn’t talk much (and he even mentions that he doesn’t usually talk when he draws, so might not have been the best choice for it). and so there is a lot of silence, filled only with beautiful music.

The final three features are separate interviews with Honda, the producer Toshio Suzukiand composer Joe Hisaishi. Personally, I found the interview with Hisaishi the most interesting.

He talked a little about how he and Hayao Miyazaki have been working together for around 40 years. He also told how a small song he composed as an independent gift for Miyazaki ended up becoming the main theme of The Boy and the Heron.

The interviews with Honda and Suzuki were okay, but they didn’t convince me personally. Honda’s interview seemed to focus more on how he ended up working on the film and what it was like making art alongside Miyazaki. Meanwhile, my biggest takeaway from Suzuki’s interview was that The Gray Heron seemed to be based on him.

Ultimately I think buying a copy of The Boy and the Heron isn’t a bad move. The animation is great, the film is interesting, and at least you can own a copy that you can’t easily write off for tax purposes.

If you enjoy watching interviews with members of the production team or watching the film through storyboards, I think the special features will definitely add value to you. If you want The Boy and the HeronI would always recommend purchasing a physical copy.

You can now buy it in your favorite stores. Digital copies cost around $9.99 and physical copies start at around $27.