19 Oct – Christian Bale is back to voicing another Studio Ghibli character, this time for the new animated feature, "The Boy and the Heron". The British actor, who will be voicing the character of Shoichi Maki (voiced by Takuya Kimura in the Japanese version), will be joined by the likes of Robert Pattinson, Gemma Chan, Mark Hamill, Florence Pugh, Willem Dafoe, Dave Bautista and Karen Fukuhara among others. Meanwhile, the protagonist Mahito Maki, which is voiced by Soma Santoki in the original Japanese version, will be played by Luca Padovan.
The casting and production of the movie in English is handled by GKIDS in close consultation with Miyazaki's Studio Ghibli. The animated feature, which draws heavily from Hayao Miyazaki's childhood, marks the animator's comeback after ten years. Meanwhile, Bale had previously voiced the character of Howl in Miyazaki's 2004 animated feature, "Howl's Moving Castle", which coincidentally, was also voiced by Takuya Kimura in the Japanese version.