A still shot from Hayao Miyazaki's “My Neighbor Totoro”

Japan witnessed the release on Friday of the first feature in 10 years and probably the last of Oscar-winning animator Hayao Miyazaki, the co-founder of the celebrated anime house Ghibli.

"How Do You Live?" was years in production and details surrounding the film were unusually kept under wraps - the only hint given to the public was a poster featuring a hand-sketched, bird-like creature with an eye below its beak.

After watching the morning screening in Shibuya, university student Eisaku Kimura told AFP: "It was a very Ghibli-esque movie," adding: "It's not like I felt anything special about it just because it was his last work, but I saw a lot of (Miyazaki) in the movie for sure, and it was exciting."

The film was derived from an inspiration from Genzaburo Yoshino’s 1937 book of the same title, but the studio stated that the film is entirely different. Every shot of the film is hand-drawn as Miyazaki has always opposed computer-generated animation and CGI.

The film surrounds a boy who moves to the countryside with his father after the death of his mother and he meets a heron. That heron takes him to an alternate universe the boy begins to find out the mystery behind his mother's death.

Valeriia Matveeva, an English teacher from Russia told AFP: "It's such a crazy mixture of all the Ghibli movies I've seen before," explaining that she thinks "it takes the best of it, and I think it's kind of scary at times but it's also magical. Because there was no promotion, I had no idea what to think about it, but it was good."

82-year-old Miyazaki has built a whole new world in anime and transformed film lovers into anime lovers with his beloved characters, like the big cuddly forest spirit creature Totoro in the film "My Neighbor Totoro".

His renowned film "Spirited Away" is about a girl who gets lost in a mysterious world and attempts to save her parents, who turned into pigs. That film won an Oscar for best-animated Feature in 2003 and the prestigious Golden Bear Award at the Berlin International Film Festival in 2002.

He has other renowned films such as "Princess Mononoke" released in 1997 which is a film depicting humans' clash with nature in the eyes of a girl raised by wolves.

However, in 2013, Miyazaki announced he would no longer make feature-length films as a result of the hectic weight of his perfectionist approach to work.

Four years later, his production company announced the filmmaker was coming out of retirement with "his final film, considering his age."

Studio Ghibli’s Hotly Anticipated Theme Park Is Opening On November 1 https://t.co/JF2ZZrJat5 pic.twitter.com/4NS6Q5zeP1
— Forbes (@Forbes) January 27, 2022