Hayao Miyazaki now has two Oscars, as his latest animated feature, “The Boy and the Heron” won Best Animated Feature Film at the Oscars.
The animation auteur, who was not present at the Academy Awards, had the accolade accepted on his behalf by presenters Chris Hemsworth and Anya Taylor-Joy.
This is Miyazaki’s second win following 2002’s victory for “Spirited Away”. It might also be his last, if he is true to his words that the movie will be his final film (seeing that Miyazaki has announced his retirement multiple times and failed to actually retire).
“The Boy and the Heron”, which is a story of a young boy in search of his mother in a mysterious fantasy world during the second world war, was inspired by Genzaburo Yoshino’s novel “How Do You Live?”, released in 1937.
The film bested contenders like Pixar’s “Elemental”, Netflix’s “Nimona”, and Sony’s “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse”.
