The Boy and the Heron (Japanese: 君たちはどう生きるか, Hepburn: Kimitachi wa Dō Ikiru ka, lit. 'How Do You[b] Live?') is a 2023 Japanese animated fantasy film written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki. Produced by Studio Ghibli, the Japanese title references the 1937 novel of the same name by Genzaburō Yoshino, which appears in the film, but the film has an original story that is not connected to the novel. The Japanese voice cast includes Soma Santoki, Masaki Suda, Ko Shibasaki, Aimyon, Yoshino Kimura, Takuya Kimura, Kaoru Kobayashi, and Shinobu Otake. Described as a "big fantastical film", it follows a boy named Mahito Maki (Santoki) during the Pacific War who discovers an abandoned tower in his new town after his mother's death and enters a fantastical world with a talking grey heron