You never know what Hayao Miyazaki has planned. The legendary director, animator, and mangaka has been the face of Studio Ghibli since the Japanese company’s inception in 1985; in the decades since, his films have become as much of an event overseas as they are at home. In an animation landscape dominated by simplistic stories, his films always challenge preconceptions. His latest, The Boy and the Heron, is his most surprising yet.

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Miyazaki delights in things that are more than what they seem: an animal that might also be a person, a building hiding the doorway to a new world. The Boy and the Heron’s titular boy is 11-year-old Mahito, who comes of age during World War II (much like Miyazaki himself did), then stumbles into a magical, menacing fantasy land. That’s not to say it lacks Miyazaki’s trademark whimsy: The “villains” are bumbling oversized birds in uniform, albeit carnivorous ones.

Given the director’s age—83 in January—and characteristically slow animation process, the persistent rumors that he’s about to retire may well be true this time. But what a note on which to end, daringly remixing all of his favorite things into one strange and wistful fable. Despite its fantastical setting, this is by far Miyazaki’s most serious film. A melancholy thread runs through it, inviting us to accept that though all things must end, endings can also be new beginnings. “Animators are getting too old,” Miyazaki told The New Yorker almost 20 years ago. He himself never has.