In 1930s Japan, Mahito’s mother, Hisako, dies after a fire breaks out at the hospital where she is hospitalized. From this point on, the boy Mahito faces all kinds of absurdities. Moreover, his father is the president of a defense company that makes cockpit covers for bombers. As time passes, her father enters into a relationship with her mother’s younger sister, Natsuko, and gets her pregnant, and for her father’s remarriage, Mahito moves to the countryside where Natsuko lives. Natsuko welcomes Mahito warmly, but to her boy, that kindness is also an absurdity that cannot be easily accepted. The distortion continues at school as well. Mahito, the child of a wealthy family, cannot get along with his children at school. The world surrounding the boy seems absurd. The more Mahito does this, the more he hides his true feelings and acts politely. At the same time, the boy is visited by a fantasy world where he can escape from reality.
One day, a heron that speaks human language appears and talks to Mahito. The heron says that Mahito’s mother is still alive and she tells him to follow him. Mahito seems reluctant at first, but responds as if he were fascinated by the heron. He makes arrows from the heron’s feathers and waits for the heron to come to him. Mahito seems to have waited for the world to be guided by the heron. Eventually, Natsuko disappears, the heron heads to the old tower behind her mansion, saying she will tell him where she went. After many twists and turns, Mahito and the heron fall together through the tower into another world. This world, which operates under completely different laws than the real world that Mahito belongs to, is full of things that are difficult to understand. However, the boy, Mahito, is calm and not overly surprised, as if it were something planned. If <The Boy and The Heron> feels difficult and unfriendly, it may be in large part due to Mahito’s attitude. Mahito, a boy who does not reveal his true feelings, does not react in any way even when pelicans and parrots attack him and try to eat him.
The -type narrative about traveling to another world and returning is the result of a combination of a road movie, a coming-of-age narrative, and a fantasy imagination. Here, fantasy exerts powerful power as a metaphor and symbol. If we resist external shocks, pain, and so-called irrationality, our shell will naturally become stronger. Therefore, the world always exists in the process of being created. If there were a completed world, it would be a dead world, a stopped world. This is why is not a perfect description of a completed worldview, but an earnest question and request to the next generation. What we need is not a perfect world. Because we are imperfect, we can continue our relationship by hurting and being hurt by each other.