User:Ilikecomputers/sandbox/How Do You Live? (anime)

How Do You Live? (Japanese 君たちはどう生きるか , Hepburn Kimi-tachi wa Dō Ikiru ka) is a 2023 film directed by Hayao Miyazaki and animated by the beloved Studio Ghibli. It is based on the 1937 novel of the same name, written by Yoshino Genzaburo.

In July 2016, animation work was commenced, with Miyazaki starting work on the storyboards before the film's production was approved. Ghibli, struggling for direction after Miyazaki's Ten-Minute Retirement in 2013, reopened its previously shut animation department, and reached out to past contributors. The film was originally scheduled for release in 2020, coinciding with the Tokyo Olympics, although production issues pushed the release date back. In 2020, producer Toshio Suzuki revealed that thirty-six minutes of animation were complete, and that production is going slow due to the increased detail, more frames a second, and Miyazaki's age. Suzuki announced that, each month, only one minute of completed footage was produced. The slow pace was not due to the COVID-19 pandemic — which had little impact on the production of the film — but rather due to the lack of a deadline. It's clear that the studio has since sped up production, as in December 2022, Studio Ghibli announced that the film will be released on the fourteenth of July, 2023 in Japan. The film is 125 minutes long.

Details about the film prior to its release are scarce. So far, we've only got a single teaser poster. That's it. Every question was met with either the vaguest response or the simple Shrug of God. With one and a half months to the film's Japanese release, Ghibli should at least be releasing some sort of trailer or even a single screenshot, but there's nothing except radio silence. The film is currently in post production, and is all completed except for the sound. There are no information on Ghibli's official site, either. This is due to producer Toshio Suzuki's promotion strategy, wishing to mimick The First Slam Dunk. In early June 2023, Suzuki confirmed no details about the film other than the teaser poster will be revealed until its theatrical release.

The film centers around the real-world novel How Do You Live?, which features significantly in the protagonist's life. The film is not an adaptation of the book.


 * Anime First: While a book titled How Do You Live? does exist, and it does appear in the film, the film tells an original story. The original book is grounded in reality, while the film is a fantasy story. The story has nothing to do with the book apart from the title, and producer Toshio Suzuki stated that Miyazaki "only borrowed the title".
 * Minimalistic Cover Art: The teaser poster gives away very little information. Although a large amount of the space is used, the images filling in that space is draw with little detail and coarse outlines.
 * Questioning Title?: So, how do you live anyway? It's difficult to answer, especially considering how director Miyazaki and producer Suzuki gave the Shrug of God in interviews before the film's release.
 * Story Within a Story: A real story within a story, as the book How Do You Live? is central in the protagonist's life. The film isn't based on the book, instead the book appears within the story.