The Boy and The Heron - SteelBook [Blu-ray] [Region A & B & C]

First off, the movie is excellent 5/5, 10/10. It offers normal English subs and SDH subs separately. Which is good to see, not many physical movies offer that these days. The quality and sharpness is great in 4k which is something I've always wanted with a Ghibli movie!Second, I didn't really want to give the product a lower rating because of the case, because the movie quality itself is excellent. But it does bother me a bit to write about it. It comes with a little bit of paper on the front that's behind the plastic cover that you can at least remove, cause it's very ugly looking. If you remove that the case looks alright. However, it doesn't look great on the shelf with all my other Ghibli movies which all have paper sleeves and this does not. For the current release price of this movie, I would have expected a little more effort on making it look like previous releases, even though this is a different publisher.So in short, simply adding a paper sleeve to match previous Blu-ray releases would have made this release perfect.Also, the extra content like interviews is always nice to have. However they're only on the blu-ray disk, and not the 4k disk. I believe this is fairly common but I would have liked to have those in higher quality, but I'm not hugely bothered by it.In terms of the movie (story) itself though. A lot of things might go over your head, if you don't really know Miyazaki a bit as a person and what his previous works/styles are. I had a lot of questions about this movie myself after watching it. And had to investigate online, about what a lot of it meant. It really helped me understand this movie more, but I understand if someone would not want to make the effort to do this. However it does help you to understand and appreciate it more for what it is. A lot of big and small things went over my head as well and I've seen the entire Ghibli/Miyazaki library. So I'd recommend doing it.While not as great as his previous works, it is still a wonderful addition to the Ghibli library, and my shelf.

I think you may have to watch it a couple of times to appreciate what a masterpiece it is. Its very subtle and it is beautiful. It might help to know that the heron is the messenger between worlds and that marrying your wife' sister if your wife dies and leaves young children was a normal part of Japanese culture. Also that giving birth was not the spectacle that it seems to have become would help. If you liked Marnie you enjoy this.

A perfect return for the previously-retired Hayao Myazaki. Not a children's cartoon but a dense and thoughtful adult animation, stunning to look at and exercising the brain cells with many concepts. 21 out of 10.

Nice. Would have preferred a more on the steel book.

Beautiful Animation for Older Children & Adults Equally.If you love Studio Ghibli then you will not be disappointed.Even if you do not know much about Studio Ghibli this is still a wonderful movie with some serious undertones.

The film itself is great - beautiful, imaginative, though-provoking... but the physical blu-ray release is disappointing - the aesthetic doesn't match all other previous Ghibli releases, there's no corresponding slip case, and as a result it's very jarring

What a great film with a beautiful soundtrack.Fast delivery, no hassle

Unfortunately NOT one of Hayao Miyazaki's greatest creations. Spirited Away, Howls Moving Castle, Tortoro, Kiki's Delivery Service and Princess of Mononoke ALL are superior.This release of The Boy and the Herron, is a 5 out of 10 at the most. The film it's self is very mediocre at best, but the main flaw is the sound transfare is appalling! With you TV or sound system set to your usual listening volumes, you will hear faint audio at best. I personally had to turn my television volume up fully and even then the sound was just passable.They obviously had some issues with sound transfare to disc. Rather disappointing overall.