The Boy and The Heron 4K UHD

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.

This is Myasaki showing his grasp of colour, art , incongruity twists in the tail and that the Japanese world view can be displayed to the world in a way that has so many layers that that you stop where you want and never fail to be amazed.If you loved Laputa and Spirited Away-you will be blown away by this.It is fabulous.Enjoy-over and over again

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.

Ticks so many of the boxes that make Studio Ghibli such superb animators, beautiful graphics, a complex plot and a strong message. It is a film dealing with complex issues such as loss, remarriage and fantasy. It demands concentration and you really need to hear the dialogue. Unfortunately, the background music is too loud and often drowns out what the characters are saying - too often at crucial moments. Not sure what one can do about this except possibly go for the Japanese version with English subtitles. Great shame because this is a very good film in all other respects

A fantastic brillent anime with a great story behind it as well. If you watch these kind of anime films before you know what you in for and what to expect.

Teenagers requested it. I liked it. Very surreal and dream like in places. Like it makes total sense but your not sure how you got there. With the loss of his mother at the beginning and some of the more monstrous or gory imagery I’m not sure even with the cuter characters that it’s suitable for young viewers. Deals with death, war and the extremes of human nature.

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.

I’m a Miyazaki mega fan. My first Miyazaki film was Howls Moving Castle. I’ve since then watched all of the catalog for over 2 decades many many times. Spirited Away was peak Miyazaki. A masterpiece in filmmaking and highly regarded as one of the best films ever made. For me The Boy and The Heron captures the same magical feeling I got from watching Spirited Away. This is the key for a top tier Miyazaki film. It feels magical. It takes you away from this world for a couple of hours. An easy 10/10 for me.