Joe Hisaishi Interview: Studio Ghibli’s Legendary Composer on The Boy and the Heron
Photo by Omar Cruz
Joe Hisaishi has composed the soundtrack for every film Hayao Miyazaki has directed at Studio Ghibli, and his name is nearly as recognizable. Their collaboration began with the technically pre-Ghibli Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1984) and has continued throughout the director’s many coming-out-of-retirement films. Given the ubiquity of Hisaishi’s melodies across TikTok and YouTube alongside art, cosplay and memes, it’s clear his music has had as much of an impact on the generation that grew up with Ghibli films as the directors’ fantastic visions and young heroines did. As we learned from Joe Hisaishi during our interview, even after nearly 40 years, Miyazaki is still able to surprise one of his closest collaborators—and impress him too.
While The Boy and the Heron is no doubt Miyazaki’s most personal film to date, it was also the infamously stringent director’s most hands-off production at Ghibli ever. That trust in his collaborators, to bring his new and likely final fantasy to life, extended to Hisaishi, who viewed the film for the first time in July of 2022 when the animation was nearly completed. “I leave it all up to you,” the director told him.
Composed and recorded in under a year (the film released in Japan on July 14, 2023 under the title How Do You Live?), the result is a minimalist score that reflects the psychological journey of its protagonist and, Hisaishi says, its writer-director. The soundtrack blossoms from the opening chords of Hisaishi’s piano as the first of several themes are introduced. The opening song, “Ask Me Why,” develops alongside protagonist Mahito as it is revisited across his coming-of-age journey, its melody a swelling up of “mono no aware” befitting the retrospective film. Gradually filling out as string and vibraphone accompaniment finds their voice, it follows The Boy and the Heron’s two halves: Mahito’s family’s retreat to a haunting mansion in rural, wartime Japan, and his fantastical journey across a world close to death.
Upon his traversal, Hisaishi’s instrumentation expands to incorporate a wide array of melodic percussion, rhythmic vocal chants and the gasps of a full orchestra. It’s a delight to hear Hisaishi following the crescendo of The Boy and the Heron’s narrative arc from these larger but still minimal compositions into contemporary symphonic catharsis, all in step with the wonders of Miyazaki’s fantasy—a fitting cadence for their collaboration. While the composer’s minimalist past has never found its way to the forefront of his work for Miyazaki, Hisaishi has continued to write original compositions and collaborate with composers like Terry Riley and Philip Glass throughout his career, standing alongside these household names as a peer.
At 72, Hisaishi shares Miyazaki’s desire to continue creating. During our interview, he mentioned that he hasn’t really had time to think about the direction of his music as of late. In the decade since working with Miyazaki on The Wind Rises, he’s created original compositions like the five-movement The East Land Symphony and new arrangements of Ghibli music for the studio, stage and hall, like the recently released A Symphonic Celebration and the near-total reinterpretations of his most iconic soundtracks in Songs of Hope: The Essential Joe Hisaishi Vol. 2. In 2014, Hisaishi also started his Music Future series, now going on its 10th season, which promotes lesser-known Japanese composers selected by Hisaishi.
Just as it would be reductive to consider Hisaishi’s compositions only in relation to Miyazaki’s films, though, the composer makes it clear that, to him, The Boy and the Heron is still Miyazaki’s achievement. He was impressed with what Miyazaki accomplished when he first previewed the animation five years into its production. “At that age,” he felt “to be able to make such a powerful thing, was quite amazing. And my sense of respect for him was renewed because of the strength of this film.”
Despite the minimal direction and the outsized influence of artists of all sorts on The Boy and the Heron, Hisaishi maintains that this is still Miyazaki’s film—his fantasy and his philosophy.
We sat down with Hisaishi to discuss The Boy and the Heron, his musical future, and his composing philosophy:
Paste Magazine: How did you feel when you learned that Hayao Miyazaki was coming out of retirement to create The Boy and the Heron?
Joe Hisaishi: I had thought that he would make another film, so I really felt like, “Oh yes he’s done it just as I thought he would.”
What were your initial impressions of the story? How did you first see it?