#Mahito is great the weird heron guy is great Kiriko and Himi are great the visuals are *astounding*

[awkwardtuatara]

The more I think about it the more I like how unstructured The Boy and the Heron feels. It encapsulates the experiences of dealing with grief and being a child growing up so well.

Something happened that you don't really understand, and now everything's changing, and the world is so much bigger than you thought it was. Sometimes you're forced into engaging with how much more there is to life. Sometimes you choose to step forward, even if you don't know what it means yet. Sometimes you are alone, sometimes you will be by people who annoy you but whom you help anyway, oftentimes there will be people to help you through it. You are much more clever than people would expect, and yet you feel impotent when you can't do anything about the things you care for. What do you even care about? The memory of what you've lost hits you at random moments, making you cry just when you managed to distract yourself; you look back even as you walk forward. You don't understand why you do the things you do. It just felt like the right thing to do. It just felt like it would help, even when it hurt you. Maybe you'll find their meaning eventually. There are so many things that are new and beautiful, and yet the things that matter are familiar, even painfully so. There are people who want you to take on their legacies, shoulder new burdens even when they seem ridiculous to you - and yet you cannot turn the possibility of change away. There is a history that calls to you, but you don't know how to express it. There are chances for you to turn back, but you're never quite done yet. You have to carve your own path. You have to see things for yourself. You remember in your own time and learn, even when some say forgetting would be kinder. One fleeting beauty is exchanged for the contentment you have built. How do you live? You stumble, and discover, and embrace the memories, and bring them with you as you keep moving. You don't know how you live, but somehow you do. There is time. And maybe, someday, leaving and going home will feel the same. Maybe you'll build home again.

#I think this is spoiler-free? at any rate it's kinda long-winded so you couldn't tell anyway. I'm rambling but I really like this movie #to be honest when I first watched it I felt a bit ... unfinished??? #like "wait that's it? you jump from place to place and then you leave again? but I think it has a lot more unity that I just overlooked #idk I just. it has the right vibes. #it's not describable by plot but only by theme. the themes are the plot and the plot constructs the themes #Mahito is great the weird heron guy is great Kiriko and Himi are great the visuals are *astounding* #and of course the music is super effective #the boy and the heron #studio ghibli #posts with a target audience of one person and that is me