WARNING: The following contains spoilers for The Boy and the Heron.
Summary
The Boy and the Heronis the latest blockbuster movie by theaward-winning Japanese animationstudioStudio Ghibli. The movie follows the story of a young boy named Mahito who, after losing his mother in a terrible accident, moves to the countryside with his father to live with his aunt, who has become his new step-mother. Mahito has to process his grief and adapt to his new life, but while doing so, he accidentally discovers a mysterious portal that takes him to a magical world.
There, Mahito meets a strange girl named Himi. As the events of the movie take place, it becomes increasingly clear that Mahito and Himi do not have a normal relationship, and that they are connected not only in the magical alternative world but in the real one as well. However, their connection involvestime travel and parallel worlds, which can make it a bit confusing to understand. So what exactly is Himi and Mahito’s relationship, and how are they connected to each other?
How Did Mahito and Himi Meet?
One Could Say It Was Fate
Mahito first meets Himi shortly after traveling from the real world into the magical one, the Sea World. Himi appears to be about the same age as Mahito, but she isfar from an ordinary girl. Because of the World Stone, Himi has magical powers which allow her to cast fire, which she uses to fend off both monsters and animals in the dangerous alternative world. When Mahito first sees her, she is fighting off a flock of hungry pelicans who are eating warawara, which are unborn human souls that travel from the Sea World to the human world to be born as humans.
Later, the two meet again when Mahito is attacked andnearly killed by a band of parakeets. Himi saves him, and becomes intrigued by Mahito’s story when he explains that he came to the Sea World while searching for his step-mother, whose name is Natsuko. Natsuko is also the name of Himi’s sister, so she takes Mahito back to her home. There, she feeds him bread that is identical to the bread his mother used to make him before his death - this is the first clue that their relationship is something deeper than it first appeared.
The two end up traveling together to the castle of the Parakeet King searching for Natsuko. Using her magical powers, Himi is able to help Mahito to eventually find his stepmother, Natsuko, inside the palace. However, both of them are incapacitated by the World Stone’s powers. Himi ends up captured by the Parakeet King and is taken to her Uncle, and is temporarily separated from Mahito in the process.
Separated by Time
Himi Has an Important Role to Play
By the time Himi meets her Uncle, he has already spoken to Mahito, who is his Great Nephew. While at first, he had tried to get Mahito to take his place in the Land of the Dead, he realized that both Mahito and Himi needed instead to return to the human world. Mahito and Himi are finally able to reunite, but the world around them is burning and being destroyed by the King Parakeet. It is only by escaping through a magical door that they are going to be able to return to the human world and escape death.
It is at this critical moment, when Mahito finds the door back to his world with the help of the Gray Heron, that Himi and Mahito really start tounderstand their relationship with one another. Through everything that has happened, from the bread that Himi made for Mahito up to their shared relationship with Uncle and Natsuko, Himi has realized the truth of their relationship. Her full name is not Himi, it is Hisako. And while she is also from the human world, she is not from the same time as Mahito.
Mahito and Himi’s Connection
The Truth of Himi’s Backstory
Himi is actually a younger version of Mahito’s mother, and had ended up in the Sea World from a different period in time than Mahito did. She was in the Sea World much longer than he was, seemingly throughout enough of her childhood that she had an established house and a deep understanding within that world. But as Uncle revealed, she was from the human world, and she needed to return there.
Even though Mahito wanted Himi to return to his world, thinking he was saving her from the destruction wrought by the Parakeet King, she knew that she needed to go back to her own place. It would be the same world as Mahito, but at an earlier time in history. If she did not go back and grow up there, she would not be able to give birth to Mahito in the future. And then the two of them would not be able to have this grand adventure to save Natsuko, Himi’s sister and Mahito’s step-mother.
While it is not exactly clear how Himi, a young Hisato, got to the magical world, it is likely that she traveled there the same way Mahito did through the mysterious tower when she was just a child. Whether or not she remembered this, and knew that later in her life she would have a son named Mahito who would meet her childhood self is also never explored.Time travel stories can be confusing, but there is a chance that she already knew as an adult that eventually he would go on this adventure. What was in her memories from her past would be Mahito’s future, and only by working together could they save Natsuko from being trapped in the Sea World forever.
In the end, Mahito also understood that Himi was actually his mother, which made their parting easier for him to bear. While he did have to lose his mother for a second time, he also got to spend extra time with her that he never expected to have. He also knew that if he did not let her go, he would never be born in the first place, and none of this would even matter. While it is sad that they had to separate once more, and that there is no changing Hisato’seventual tragic end, it does make the ending ofThe Boy and the Heronhappier, understanding that Mahito got extra time with his mother, and she with him, even if they didn’t realize it until the very last moment.
