Hayao Miyazaki’s first film since 2013 will open in Japan in July

Anime master Hayao Miyazaki’s latest work, “Kimitachi wa Dou Ikiruka” (How Do You Live?), will be released nationwide on July 14, Toho Co. announced. It will be the 82-year-old’s first feature film since 2013 , when “The Wind Rises” came out.

The Oscar-winning director announced his intention to retire from making feature films that year. But he came out of retirement in 2017 to dedicate himself to this project.

The film’s title comes from a book of the same name by author Genzaburo Yoshino published in 1937. “It’s a story in which the book means a lot to the protagonist,” Miyazaki has said. According to Toho, the director was impressed with the book and came up with an original story.

“We think it will be a fantasy film with a youth perspective,” Minami Ichikawa, Toho’s senior executive director, said during a press conference on December 13 to announce the project. “We look forward to watching the full movie with a really pure mind.”