Photo/Illutration Japanese film director and animator Hayao Miyazaki poses during the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Governors Awards in Los Angeles, California November 8, 2014. (REUTERS)

TORONTO--Studio Ghibli’s legendary director, Hayao Miyazaki, 82, still has not put his pencil down, an executive at the Japanese animation studio said after its long awaited feature, “The Boy and the Heron,” opened the Toronto International Film Festival.

Miyazaki, who was not present at the film festival, is the internationally renowned director behind hand-drawn animated favorites like “Spirited Away,” “My Neighbor Totoro,” “Howl’s Moving Castle,” and many other beloved films created under the Studio Ghibli banner, which he co-founded.

“For the last 20 years, after finishing a movie, he would say I’m done, But this time, he didn’t mention anything about retirement,” said Junichi Nishioka, the studio’s vice president for international distribution.

“There is nothing concrete on the table yet, but he is showing his willingness to create something new,” Nishioka said, adding that Miyazaki is at the studio every day.

The film’s surprisingly low-key Japanese release in July came with conspicuously little promotional material as a part of the studio’s attempt to build mystery around the enigmatic film.

Nishioka said the decision not to promote the movie was producer Toshio Suzuki’s idea as he wanted to bring an element of his movie-going experience as a child. He said the movie had notched up over 5 million viewers in Japan so far.

In Toronto, film buffs and movie fans lined up for the movie, the first time an animated Japanese film opened the festival.

“It was an amazing film. I really had high expectations but it blew past them,” said Gabriel Mas who attended the film’s premiere on Sept. 7.

MIYAZAKI’S MESSAGE

The film, adapted from a 1937 novel by Genzaburo Yoshino titled “How Do You Live,” which Miyazaki read as a child, chronicles the journey of 11-year-old Mahito Maki, who loses his mother during World War II and enters a magical world.

The movie draws on how Miyazaki himself felt after the war and coped with the loss of his mother.

Delighting anime fans with his return a decade after the release of “The Wind Rises” in 2013, Miyazaki seeks to convey a message to younger generations about how he lived and how young people should think about how they want to live.

“This is a personal film, showing how he (Miyazaki) lived, how he should have lived and throwing out the question to the audience, ‘So how do you live?’,” Nishioka said. 

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