Jana J. Monji

‘The Boy and the Heron’ and How to Live ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Rewatching the film a second time, I quickly realized why this made me think of the original Toho Godzilla films and even, the new Godzilla film, “Godzilla Minus One.” As someone who didn’t grow up in Japan and was born long after World War II had ended, the sound of sirens was foreign to me and just as with the insect sounds of a Japanese summer, the first time I heard them was as a child watching Godzilla films.

“The Boy and the Heron” (Kimitachi wa Dō Ikiru ka) is indeed centered around a boy, Mahito, and the heron is his first hint of otherworldly happenings, but the heron is not really of great significance here. The film begins in 1943, the 12-year-old Mahito lives in a traditional Japanese house with tatami mat rooms, wooden floor hallways, paper shoji dividers and narrow stairs. No one wears shoes indoors and no one seems to wear socks.  Maki’s mother, Hisako,  is killed during the bombing of Tokyo when the hospital catches fire. This sequence where Mahito, dressed in a school uniform, runs toward the hospital and sees the panic and chaos as the Japanese firemen attempt to put the fire out.

Later, the streets are lined with people in both traditional Japanese clothing and Western clothing as small tanks come down the streets. Mahito says:

Three years into the war, mother died. Four years in, I left Tokyo with father.

Mahito and his father go to Saginuma Station (鷺沼駅) in Kawasaki City, Kanagawa Prefecture. Sagi (鷺) means heron and numa (沼) means swamp.  They are joined by Natsuko who  arrives in what now we might call a pedicab (自転車タクシー) and she is dressed in a kimono (short sleeved because the long-sleeved furisode denote unmarried women) and bare feet in black wooden geta. She had only met him once when Mahito was a baby.  Natsuko, the younger sister of his mother,  and his father have already married and Natsuko is pregnant. Instead of joining them, the father goes to the factory where he works and Mahito and Natsuko go on to.

On their way out to a country estate, they pass a small group of soldiers and military supporters holding up banners that say: “May your luck last long in battle” (武運 bu-un 長久chōkyū) and “Congratulations on your draft notice.”  (祝出征片一良). Natsuko asks the driver to stop and they stand to one side and bow.

The entry way is ostentatious with a red stairway to one side and gold panels of lion dogs. Spotting him an aosagi (grey heron) flies into the corridor, swooping past Mahito and then into the nearby pond. Seven elderly ladies in kimonos and tradition style pants are gathered around Shoichi’s suitcase which the taxi driver has brought in and they excitedly celebrate the treats inside, canned goods and staples that might seem commonplace now. There are two elderly men who stay apart from the fuss as Natsuko and Mahito go to a detached building that is built and furnished in a more Western style with beds, chairs and tables (although they remove their shoes to walk inside). 

Mahito has nightmares of his mother and the fire. He hears her calling him to save her. Waking from one such nightmare, he sees the heron and follows it to the tower, ignoring his stepmother who is calling for him.

The tower was built by Mahito’s great uncle who, Natsuko says, read too many books and became strange (although the English subtitles read that the great uncle went crazy). One day, he disappeared, he left the book he hadn’t finished reading open.

Mahito’s father returns late, at about 9 p.m. and Mahito watches from the top of the stairs and sees his father kiss his stepmother before he creeps back to his Western-style bedroom.

His father takes him to school in a car, something that perhaps others do not have. After school the other boys pick on him and although there’s a fight, Mahito isn’t hurt. Yet on his way home, he picks up a rock and bashes himself on the head, drawing blood. After his stepmother has tended to his wound and his father has left for his school, vowing to avenge Mahito, the heron comes again.  His father works at an air munitions factory as a manager and is able to get the school’s principal to excuse Mahito from classes. Mahito is supposed to rest and there are plenty of books to read in the old house.

Although the old women are taking turns watching him , he sneaks out. He tries to hit the bird with a stick, but the bird crushes the stick in his mouth. As the bird begins to talk about Mahito’s mother, first teeth and then a nose appears and the fish poke their heads up from the marsh like a weird Greek chorus as toads begin to surround and almost cover Mahito. Before the toads can completely engulf Mahito, the bird and his legions are driven away by an arrow shot by Natsuko.

Mahito then, with the help of one of the elderly male servants, crafts his own bow and arrow. During this time, he finds the book Kimitachi wa Dō Ikiru ka?” or “How Do You Live?” that has been inscribed to him by his mother. She had apparently. hoped to give it to him when he was older.

He uses one of the feathers of the grey heron on the bow and this gives it true aim. When he pierces the beak of the heron, the teeth and nose appear. The heron can no longer fly and is trapped in its partial human form. Claiming that humans often pretend to die and noting that Mahito never saw the body of his mother, the heron takes Mahito and one of the servants, Kiriko, to the tower where their fantastical adventure begins. Entering the tower rooms which are of European design, the head of the heron finally fully emerges. The heron takes Mahito to a room where on a fainting sofa, Mahito sees the sleeping form of his mother.

The world Mahito has left, Natsuko, already feeling guilty that Mahito’s classmate’s injured him, now comes to look for Mahito and is also lost in the fantastical world of the tower.

While Mahito originally comes to the tower searching for this mother, he eventually is searching for Natsuko, unwilling to return to his world without her. To find her, he sails on a sea, meets strange bubble creatures (the Warawara), a younger Kiriko and a pyrokinetic woman Himi, battles pelicans and must  face man-eating parakeets. In the end, he will meet his great uncle who asks Mahito to take his place as a builder of blocks that keep the world in balance.

I wish the English title had been a direct translation of the original Japanese title: “Kimitachi wa Dō Ikiru ka?” or “How Do You Live?” It would make more sense and give less emphasis to the grey heron and the grey heron man.

There were a few things that struck me although I have yet to read the book that inspired this film and from which the film gets its name. The book was published in 1937 and it about a 15-year-old boy named Junichi Honda. The boy is also the eldest son; we know this from his name.

The year 1937 was the beginning of the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945). The war began in Europe and Asia before the US joined the war in 1941. Japan had begun its expansion into China in 1931. The First Sino-Japanese War (1894-1895) was a conflict between two countries led by its monarchy. In the case of China, it was the Qing dynasty. Japan had just ended its seclusion from Europe (except for the Netherlands) and the Americas in 1854 and the Meiji Restoration began in 1868 with the fall of the Tokugawa Shogunate.

The Qing dynasty had already lost two Opium Wars (1839-1842; 1856-1860) which was the Qing dynasty against the UK and France. A few decades later, the Qing dynast would lose Boxer Rebellion (1900-1901) in which Japan would be an ally of the UK, the US, Russia, France, German, Italy and Austria-Hungary.

Throughout “The Boy and the Heron,” there seems to be a juxtaposition between Westernization and cultural traditions. There was no tradition of imperialism in Japan prior to the opening of Japan by the US forces under Commodore Matthew Perry. During the Meiji Restoration and after, modernization was often intertwined with Westernization.

I have to wonder what kind of new ideas was the Great Uncle (大伯父, ōoji) being exposed to? The photos we see of him show a man who was married in a traditional wedding clothing for Japan, but there’s also the photo of a Western ship and his portrait is of a man embracing the new styles of the West. Japan was emerging from the feudalism and class structure of the Tokugawa Shogunate to the renewed focus on the emperor in the Meiji Restoration. The technological changes were astounding. In the UK, the Industrial Revolution had started in 1760 (ending in 1840).  In the early 1800s, a young French chef, Nicolas Appert, began experimenting with canning goods. According to History.com:

The availability of canned food played a crucial role in 19th century, feeding the enormous armies of the Crimean War, the U.S. Civil War and the Franco-Prussian War, and offering explorers and colonialists a taste of home in unfamiliar lands. Following the global depression of 1873, U.S. exports of canned foods boomed, led by the Campbell, Heinz and Borden companies.

The first canned foods made in Japan was in Nagasaki in 1871 (Meiji 4) and in 1877, Japan’s first canning factory opened in Hokkaido.

Tobacco had been introduced to Japan by the Portuguese in the late 16th Century. According to Japan-Experience.com, a Franciscan monk gave tobacco seeds to Ieyasu Tokugawa and from there, tobacco became a cash crop in Japan. Originally kiseru pipes were used, but after the Meiji Restoration of 1868, cigarettes were introduced.

The Wright Brothers’ first flight took place in 1903 (December 17). By World War II (1914-1918), airplanes would be used as part of the military machinery and Japan was a member of the Allied Powers along with France, the UK (and its territories), Russia, Italy and the US.

While Japan did find coal reserves,  you can’t have airplanes or automobiles without petroleum oil.

Oil of another kind was one of the reasons Japan was opened up by the US.  Whaling was an important part of the Industrial Revolution.

Before the exploitation of crude oil and the advent of the petroleum industry, the primary source of usable oil was obtained from whales. Whaling was (and still is) a brutal industry that exploded during the Industrial Revolution. The need for illumination and lubricants spearheaded the industry into a competitive task.

While the Japanese market was open to the Dutch and the Chinese traders, it was closed to others.  But what the US needed was to be able to kill whales in the Pacific.

The United States hoped Japan would agree to open certain ports so American vessels could begin to trade with the mysterious island kingdom. In addition to interest in the Japanese market, America needed Japanese ports to replenish coal and supplies for the commercial whaling fleet.

At the time of Perry, coal was the fuel of the Industrial Revolution.

There were several reasons why the United States became interested in revitalizing contact between Japan and the West in the mid-19th century. First, the combination of the opening of Chinese ports to regular trade and the annexation of California, creating an American port on the Pacific, ensured that there would be a steady stream of maritime traffic between North America and Asia. Then, as American traders in the Pacific replaced sailing ships with steam ships, they needed to secure coaling stations, where they could stop to take on provisions and fuel while making the long trip from the United States to China. The combination of its advantageous geographic position and rumors that Japan held vast deposits of coal increased the appeal of establishing commercial and diplomatic contacts with the Japanese. Additionally, the American whaling industry had pushed into the North Pacific by the mid-18th century, and sought safe harbors, assistance in case of shipwrecks, and reliable supply stations. In the years leading up to the Perry mission, a number of American sailors found themselves shipwrecked and stranded on Japanese shores, and tales of their mistreatment at the hands of the unwelcoming Japanese spread through the merchant community and across the United States.

Japan did find coal.

The shift from coal to oil began before World War I. According to Defense.info:

Oil became a key factor in military might in the decade before World War 1 when the UK Royal Navy and US Navy shifted from coal to oil as a source of power which was soon emulated by other major navies. By 1939, all naval vessels in the world and 85% of the merchant ships were burning oil for propulsion.

Yet according to the Imperial War Museum, “whale oil was an extremely important material in the First World War.” If you want numbers, IWM.org notes: “Around 58,000 whales were killed during the war to provide Britain and its allies with the oil they needed to continue fighting.”

Why this is important was not only was Japan an ally during World War I, but the Japanese left Versailles disappointed in the US and UK failure to uphold democracy. Japan proposed a clause in the Treaty of Versailles “that would have affirmed the equality of all nations, regardless of race.”  Eleven of the 17 delegates voted in favor of the clause. The British Empire, the UK, Portugal and Romania did not register a vote. Belgium was absent. Woodrow Wilson required a unanimous vote, but the French delegate Ferdinand Larnaude noted that the majority had voted for this amendment.

Larnaude intervint aussi pour soutenir la demande japonaise de proclamation de l’égalité des nations dans le préambule du pacte même si celle-ci fut repoussée par les Anglo-Saxons. À cet égard, il indiquera à Wilson qu’un vote majoritaire avait sanctionné cet amendement. Contrairement à des choix antérieurs, Wilson refusa celui-ci au titre de l’absence d’unanimité.

The Japanese delegate Nobuaki Makino felt the honor of Japan had been injured.

Le baron Makino, représentant du Japon, ­déclara dans une intervention d’une sèche brièveté que l’honneur du Japon avait été blessé. Le rejet de sa proposition « fut ressenti comme une désillusion générale à l’égard de l’Occident », résume l’historienne Naoko ­Shimazu dans Japan, Race and Equality. The Racial Equality Proposal of 1919 (Routledge, 1998). Nouveau venu dans le concert des ­nations, ce pays prenait conscience que le « club » des puissants lui restait fermé. Ce ­camouflet ravivait le souvenir des traités ­inégaux imposés lorsque le Japon avait été contraint de s’ouvrir, au milieu du siècle précédent, et dont il n’avait obtenu la révision qu’une vingtaine d’années auparavant.

In “The Boy and the Heron,” Saipan is mentioned. During World War I, Japan took control of the island known as Saipan from the Germans 1914 and in 1919, the League of Nations gave formal control to Japan as part of its mandated territory of the South Seas Mandate.  The Britannica entry for Saipan doesn’t mention the Japanese taking control during World War I when it was an ally with the UK and the US against Germany.   Saipan is one of the Mariana Islands  and became a US Territory after World War II (The islanders became US citizens as of 4 November 1986.)

Under this mandate, the UK was given Iraq and Palestine (which includes modern Jordan and Israel), while France gained Syria and Lebanon.

If the UK and the US needed to find oil fields outside their borders, Japan also needed oil. Writing for The Washington Post in 1991, Daniel Yergin noted that at the time just prior to World War II, the US had supplied about 80 percent of Japan’s import oil. The rest came from what was then the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia).

With Japan at war against China, the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration placed embargo on a variety of things including the aviation oil  and then in July 1941 when Japan invaded what was then part of French Indochina (now southern Vietnam), “Washington froze Japan’s financial assets in the United States. This effectively cut off Tokyo’s ability to buy oil — a de facto petroleum embargo. The British and Dutch did the same, shutting off supplies from the East Indies.”

What is the reaction of a nation when its oil supply is cut off? Think of the oil fields of Iran during World War I, or the war in Kuwait.

Watching “The Boy and the Heron,” the contrast between the old Japan and the new Japan is shown in small and large ways. Mahito begins the story living in a tatami roomed two-story traditional style Japanese home and then moves to a place in Saginuma that has a grand traditional quarters and then a separate European-style home where he sleeps in a bed. The master bedroom where his stepmother sleeps has Western furniture and walls with Western style wallpaper.

Even the servants living in the older quarters fuss over canned goods, something that has only begun in Japan 66 years before. Cigarettes are a precious commodity amongst the adults. The Hikari brand were first sold in 1936, less than a decade before.

While Mahito’s father works to provide the military with modern means of warfare, Mahito goes back to the bow and arrow. The bow and arrow are traditional symbols of the new year seen not only in the food, but in the tradition of visiting a temple to get a symbolic arrow.

The grey heron is a native bird and doesn’t have the same symbolism at the crane, but it does hold a place in Japanese folklore. There is something known as grey heron fire (literally 青鷺火 “blue heron fire”）and as these herons grow old, they are believed to turn into yokai or supernatural entities or spirits. Pelicans are native to Japan (e.g. Pelecanus crisps and Pelicans philippensis). Parakeets are not native to Japan, but Japan does have a parrot problem.

If parakeets are an invasive species in Japan, native to Southern Asia and central Africa. The knotweed that the man smokes in a pipe in place of tobacco is native to Japan, China, Korea and Taiwan, but it is considered an invasive species in the US.

Once Mahito entered the fantastical land of the tower, we’ve entered a land that is decidedly influenced by Western architecture and aesthetics. Still what struck me particularly was the golden gate that Mahito encounters. Instead of the warning being written in Japanese hiragana and kanji (Chinese characters), it is written in katakana:

  • 我を学ぶ者は死す(kanji and hiragana)
  • ワレヲ学ブ者ハ死ス (katakana and kanji)

Furthermore, it is written in the reverse: ス死ハ者ブ学ヲレワ.

Katakana can be used for various reasons such as to indicate in manga that the people speaking are actually speaking a foreign language. In a discussion of the usage of ヲ (wo), one comment notes that in pre-World War II documents, katakana was often used in government documents instead of hiragana.

As we are told in the film, the protagonist’s name Mahito (眞人) means “sincere person.”　When Mahito goes to school, he’s dressed differently than the other students and we learn that Mahito’s surname is “Maki” ( 牧眞人), meaning “pasture” (牧).

I didn’t see that the characters for Mahito’s mother revealed. Hisako could be 久子or 寿子. The latter is means “long life” and the former “long.” The younger sister’s name, Natsuko,  means “summer” (natsu) and the father’s name、Shōichi, tells us that he is the eldest son　勝一（しょういち). The first character of the name means “win” and the second means “one.”

The eldest sons are often seen as having responsibilities to their families and ancestors. As I pointed out before, the protagonist of the book that Hisako left her son was also about an eldest son and his uncle. This film is about a boy and his great uncle, too, a man who began to act strangely after reading too many books.

When Japan was opened by force by the United States, it was introduced to many things, including modern warfare. I imagine the vast quantity of knowledge that had come gradually to Europe and the Americas, was like a tsunami, crashing and crushing traditional parts of a peaceful Japanese culture, changing the intellectual landscape and making those who took it on through personal experience or even too many books must have seemed strange to the rest of their community. Yet to take on the political policies of the US, the UK, Germany, France and even the Netherlands, required the acquisition of lands and the subjugation and exploitation of peoples for resources like cheap labor or oil. In that I think of the white pelicans who attack the Warawara and later complain that they were brought to this fantastical land, but given nothing else to eat but the Warawara. The old are dying and the younger generation no longer knows how to fly.

In the end, the Great Uncle tells Mahito: “Look. These stones are not stained with malice. You’ll return to a foolish world of rampant murder and thievery? Soon it shall be consumed by flames.”

Yet Mahito replies, “I’ll make friends, like Hime, Kiriko and the Aosagio (the heron man).”

To which the Great Uncle replies, “Make friends. Return to your world, but first, stack the stones.”

When I think of the world I knew as a 12-year-old it is very different from the world my mother knew and the world her mother knew. I continue to take courses, many that I’m repeating from my original times as an undergrad because the history of the world has changed. In high school, the history we learned was from a US point of view with an East Coast Anglocentric bias. When my mother took colleges courses, there were few women professors and the histories of her parents’ world was looked down upon. When I first took courses in art history, there were no female artists mentioned. When I took courses in sociology or history, it was a White male point of view.  I often felt offended as a woman, as someone who is not Christian and as someone who is not of European descent.

In today’s world, a world where the US voted in a man who seem like a step backwards in time for women and race relations, I think there are many people who have stayed firm in their knowledge of the world, petrified from their high school days. But the world has changed. What we consider history has changed, veering off from the path set by White male domination in both the board rooms and the halls of academia.

Like the Warawara and pelicans, the many minorities who have come up to the table are wondering now they are here, what will they eat and will their young forget the beauty of their cultural past.

Like “Godzilla Minus One,” “The Boy and the Heron” examines World War II on a personal level, from the viewpoint of people who were not the leaders or commanders. And 2023 is time to look at that war and history in general beyond the dominant White male point of view and re-align our understanding of history and of modernization versus Westernization.

Hayao Miyazaki’s last film also touched on World War II, “The Wind Rises,” which looked at a designer of airplanes.

“The Boy and the Heron”  gently reminds us how World War II looked like from a young boy’s viewpoint and how the modernization and Westernization affected Japan. When faced with so many new things ultimately we must ask: How do you live? The answers may prevent the world from being consumed by fire.

“The Boy and the Heron” was released in Japan on 14 Jul 2023 by Toho and screened at the Animation If Film Festival in Los Angeles on 18 October 2023. The film was given a limited US release on 22 November 2023.

 

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