Director: Kaku Arakawa
Cameras follow an aging animation master back into his studio for one more film in Hayao Miyazaki and the Heron (2024), a documentary that watches creative obsession up close over the course of years, not months.
What is Hayao Miyazaki and the Heron about?
For six years, a film crew was given rare access to the daily working life of Hayao Miyazaki as he built his latest project, The Boy and the Heron, frame by frame. Rather than a highlight reel of career achievements, the documentary settles into the slow, repetitive, often frustrating rhythm of hand-drawn animation: sketches redrawn dozens of times, ideas abandoned and revisited, and long stretches of silence at the drawing table. Producer Toshio Suzuki and members of the Studio Ghibli team appear throughout, offering perspective on a working relationship built over decades, while archival glimpses of the late Isao Takahata add another layer to the story of Japanese animation's most influential studio. The film does not try to explain Miyazaki so much as sit beside him, letting his doubts, his stubbornness, and his rare moments of satisfaction speak for themselves.
Cast & crew
The documentary centers on Hayao Miyazaki himself, alongside longtime producer Toshio Suzuki, animator Takeshi Honda, and appearances from Isao Takahata, Masaki Suda, Kenshi Yonezu, and Takuya Kimura, all connected to the making of The Boy and the Heron. Director Kaku Arakawa, known for his long-running NHK profiles of Miyazaki, shapes the footage into a patient character study.
Context & significance
Released in 2024 to coincide with international attention on The Boy and the Heron, this documentary extends a body of behind-the-scenes work Arakawa has built with Miyazaki over more than a decade for Japanese public broadcaster NHK. It offers a rare, unpolished view into Studio Ghibli's process at a moment when the studio's founder was widely expected to have already retired.
Where & how to watch
Hayao Miyazaki and the Heron is available on K-Time with Farsi subtitles, giving Persian-speaking audiences a direct window into the making of one of modern animation's most anticipated films. The page can be browsed freely, and streaming the documentary only requires logging into a K-Time account, with the full site experience available in Farsi.