The new Studio Ghibli movie no one outside of Japan has seen gets its first trailer

The Boy and the Heron, the latest animated film from Hayao Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli, is officially set to release in the US and Canada on December 8, and we've now got the very first trailer for the film.

While The Boy and the Heron was originally released in Japan back in July, it received effectively no marketing beyond a single poster, instead drawing audiences largely on the reputation of Miyazaki and Ghibli. The strategy worked, too, as the film instantly became the studio's biggest opening ever.

That means that the trailer below is the very first look anybody outside of Japan has had at Miyazaki's latest directorial effort. Yet this is still a teaser trailer, so don't expect to get too much of an idea of the plot of the film. Instead, prepare to enjoy a lot of abstract imagery dealing with the collision between humans and nature in classic Miyazaki style. 

The official plot description keeps things similarly vague. "A young boy named Mahito yearning for his mother ventures into a world shared by the living and the dead," it reads. "There, death comes to an end, and life finds a new beginning. A semi-autobiographical fantasy about life, death, and creation, in tribute to friendship, from the mind of Hayao Miyazaki."

The Boy and the Heron officially opens in theaters across the US and Canada on December 8 courtesy of distributor GKIDS, and will be released in both dubbed and subtitled formats. Expect to hear some more English-language buzz before that, though, as the film will make the festival circuit in the months leading up to release, starting with a screening at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 7.

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