Trying to Make Sense out of The Boy and the Heron

When I first saw The Boy and the Heron, I was totally bewildered. 

The movie has kind of become an acquired taste though. Cinema Therapy did an episode about it, and they said something that made me see it from a different angle. It's basically a movie about a boy who lost his mother, and is living through a terrible war. 

Still, I can't help but look for meaning in some of the Ghibli strangeness. Not that there's any way to prove any of these points. And yeah, people say that a story is however you interpret it. But that's garbage. I've seen people give total garbage readings to movies and books. I like to know what was intended. Even if Miyazaki doesn't always do things that make sense to begin with. 

Anyway, here are a few ideas I had. 

In the world Mahito falls into, there are many spirits of the dead. Some places belong to the dead, and we see the ones that come to get fish. Are they meant to represent those that died during the war? 

And then there are the warawara. They're supposed to fly up to our world to be born as humans. But along the way, many of them are eaten. Others are burned by accident as Himi tries to drive the predators away. Are they meant to represent the children that died during the war? 

Mahito's uncle (great, great, great uncle?) Wants Mahito to inherit the world he built. Mahito refuses. It's a broken world, and war-torn Japan must have felt very similar. Sometimes we don't want to continue the work of our ancestors. It's not always right. Sometimes something new and better has to be built, instead of trying to repair something old and broken. 

And then there's the beautiful way Ghibli has of making peace with enemies. All the pelicans and parakeets that had been so dangerous manage to escape the wreckage of the old world. They fly to freedom, finding a new, better home. Mahito and his companions are happy for them.