Photo/Illutration A scene from “The Boy and the Heron” (Provided by Studio Ghibli Inc.)

LAS VEGAS--Hayao Miyazaki’s “The Boy and the Heron” won the Golden Globe Award for best animated motion picture on Jan. 7, the first time a Japanese film has won that category.

Miyazaki did not attend the 81st Golden Globe Awards ceremony, which was held in Las Vegas.

The films “Suzume,” directed by Makoto Shinkai, and “The Super Mario Bros. Movie,” a Japan-U.S. joint production, were also nominated in that same category this year, but lost to “The Boy and the Heron.”

The Best Motion Picture-Animated category was established in 2007.

“The Boy and the Heron” is about a boy named Mahito who loses his mother in an air raid during World War II. After evacuating to the countryside, Mahito encounters a blue heron that transforms between human and bird forms. He then becomes lost in a mysterious world.

The film also won the Best Animation award at the Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards and won the Best Animated Film award at the New York Film Critics Circle Awards.

According to Box Office Mojo, a U.S. movie information website, the film’s worldwide box office gross receipts exceeded $130 million (18.73 billion yen).

Joe Hisaishi, who composed the film’s music, was also nominated for a Golden Globe in the Best Original Score-Motion Picture category, but did not win.

“Oppenheimer,” a biopic about the physicist Robert Oppenheimer, known as the “father of the atomic bomb,” won five awards, including Best Motion Picture-Drama, Best Director-Motion Picture and Best Performance by a Male Actor in a Motion Picture-Drama.

The record-breaking box office hit “Barbie” won two awards, including Cinematic and Box Office Achievement.

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