For me, the cartoon movie has a heron who enables the boy to enter other realms and with the heron he travels to the place of a god- like leader where he has a little insight into the leader’s ulterior motives and I think avoids being trapped in a negative leadership system. The heron represents positive and negative influences and assists upon a journey of choices to comment as needed on how it appears from a more worldly perspective.
Apart from having 2x Japanese Exchange students stay at our place in my youth, I worked briefly for a sushi bar. This gave my a little chink of light into a Japanese side of life, as the cartoon does too.