Hayao Miyazaki is finally breaking his media blackout around his latest anime film masterpiece: The Boy and the Heron (formerly How Do You Live?). What else do you call it when Miyazaki (and by extension Studio Ghibli) just released a brand new first look teaser trailer for it? Don’t believe me? Then why not see that new teaser trailer for yourself below, and be just as freaked out as I was?

The Boy and the Heron: Official Teaser Trailer Details

Is it just me, or is this one of Hayao Miyazaki’s freakier anime films?

GKIDS Films is proud to unveil this new official teaser trailer for The Boy and the Heron on YouTube. As for what the teaser itself showed? I would say that the TLDR version is: freakiness.

This teaser trailer for The Boy and the Heron introduces us to the boy in question: Mahito. Mahito is just a boy who apparently lived through the firebombing of Tokyo during WWII, if that dramatic opening scene was any indication. Mahito also apparently loses his mother during the bombing, but not all is lost. It seems that Mahito might have a chance to get his mother back in a fantastical house he ends up in. How? We don’t know. But judging by how freaky the scenes get later in the teaser, it seems we’ll be getting the closest Hayao Miyazaki has gotten to horror in a while.

As for when we’ll get to see Hayao Miyazaki’s latest and final anime film masterpiece? Well, at the very end of that teaser trailer (right after a freaky heron scene), it reveals that The Boy and the Heron will hit theaters nationwide in the US on December 8, 2023. Unfortunately, tickets are not on sale yet as of this writing. Tune back in to THS later to find out when you can get those tickets when we do.