Renowned Japanese anime giant Hayao Miyazaki won the genre’s best film award at the U.S. Golden Globes competition on Sunday, marking his comeback as the winner of a major international contest.
The award was given to the 124-minute fantasy “The Boy and the Heron.”
Miyazaki, an Oscar-winning animator, announced his retirement in 2013 after producing “The Wind Rises” but began making the full-length film in 2017.
Written and directed by Miyazaki, the latest film was also the first original anime in history to top the North American box office after its release in December, according to U.S. media.
The film follows a fictitious Japanese boy, Mahito, during World War II. After Mahito’s mother dies he moves to a new town where he meets a talking heron that takes him to a magical tower where he enters a fantasy world.
The Golden Globes win makes the Miyazaki film the front-runner for the best animated feature film prize at the U.S. Academy Awards in March.
The film beat out other animated features such as “Suzume,” directed by Japanese director Makoto Shinkai, “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” and “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse.”
The Golden Globe award is one of many accolades in Miyazaki’s long career in animated filmmaking. He was awarded the Golden Bear, the top prize at the Berlin International Film Festival, in 2002 and an Oscar the following year for “Spirited Away.”
In 2014, Miyazaki became the second Japanese film director to receive an Honorary Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, following Akira Kurosawa.