We did it, everyone!
Summary:
- The Boy and the Heron has received an Oscar for Best Animated Feature.
- It was highly expected by the fans.
- This victory is a big deal for the anime community.
The 96th Academy Awards ceremony, aka Oscars 2024, has just finished, and the anime community is victorious: Hayao Miyazaki’s The Boy and the Heron (Kimitachi wa Dou Ikiru ka) has won Best Animated Feature.
This is the second time in history of the category that an anime movie becomes a victor. The last time it happened was back in 2002 when Spirited Away received an Oscar. This means it’s not just the second victory for the community, but for Hayao Miyazaki as well.
Fans expected it to happen
Not to be overly confident, but such an outcome was highly expected. Anime fans felt like 2024 would finally be their year. There were some doubts, though, since Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is a very beloved universe, but turns out we had no reason to be worried: The Boy and the Heron did it!
Hayao Miyazaki has been thinking of retiring for ages, and fans feel like this time he’ll finally do it for good. That’s why there were hopes that the Academy Awards would take this final chance to honor this magnificent filmmaker.
Meaning for the community
Anime has suffered all sorts of things throughout the years: it was considered a niche interest for nerdy teenagers, it was treated as “stupid cartoons for kids,” it was underrated and unappreciated. But the tide is changing, and anime permeates popular modern media more and more with each year.
That’s why it’s such a big deal to learn about an anime movie winning an Oscar. It makes it clear: anime can be internationally acclaimed, and it’s no longer a thing for a specific group of people.
Even though fans agree that The Boy and the Heron is not the strongest work by Miyazaki, they still consider it a great project, and are very content that it’s received such a popular award.
Fans think that there’s still a long way ahead of us, though, since people tend to love Studio Ghibli’s projects, but still ignore the rest of the anime. This studio’s movies are really unlike the most mainstream anime, though, so such a treatment is not really surprising.
However, fans hope that Studio Ghibli’s movie will prove that anime is also an incredible type of media, worth a lot of attention. And maybe The Boy and the Heron’s victory will be another push for thousands of people to give anime a try.