Chris Hemsworth, Anya Taylor-Joy accept Oscars 2024 award for 'The Boy and the Heron'

TOKYO, Japan — Celebrated Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki won his second Oscar on Sunday with "The Boy and the Heron" -- the Studio Ghibli co-founder's first film in a decade, and potentially his last.

It bested top rival "Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse", Disney's "Elemental", Netflix's "Nimona" and the dialogue-free "Robot Dreams". Miyazaki was not present in Los Angeles to accept the award.

The film, about a boy who moves to the countryside during World War II, won best animated feature, the same award scooped in 2003 by Miyazaki's "Spirited Away".

Like other Ghibli titles, "The Boy and the Heron" is a visual feast in which mysterious creatures and strange characters cavort through a fantastical world.

After his mother dies in the haunting fire-bombing of Tokyo during World War II, the boy, Mahito, struggles to accept his new life with his father and pregnant stepmother, who goes missing.

Everything changes when Mahito meets a talking heron and embarks on a journey to an alternate universe shared by the living and the dead.

The film's rural setting was "created mostly from my memory," Miyazaki said in a Japanese pamphlet for "The Boy and the Heron", whose original title translates as "How Do You Live?"

Miyazaki, 83, also lived in a big country house during the war.

And while he did not set out to make an autobiography, the film's father character "is very much like my own father", he said.

The animator co-founded production house Studio Ghibli in 1985, building a cult following with his highly imaginative depictions of nature and machines.

Ghibli characters, like cuddly forest spirit Totoro and princess warrior Nausicaa, are now beloved by children and adults worldwide.

"Spirited Away" is about a girl who gets lost in a mystical world where her parents, who she tries to save, are turned into pigs.

In 2013, Miyazaki said he would no longer make feature-length films, because he could not maintain the hectic intensity of his perfectionist work ethic.

However, in an about-turn four years later, his production company said he was coming out of retirement to make what would be "his final film, considering his age".

That was "The Boy and The Heron", which was