-
Your next favorite book
is waiting.
by Hayao Miyazaki
From legendary animator Hayao Miyazaki comes Shuna's Journey, a new manga classic about a prince on a quest for a golden grain that would save his land, never before published in English!
Shuna, the prince of a poor land, watches in despair as his people work themselves to death harvesting the little grain that grows there. And so, when a traveler presents him with a sample of seeds from a mysterious western land, he sets out to find the source of the golden grain, dreaming of a better life for his subjects.
It is not long before he meets a proud girl named Thea. After freeing her from captivity, he is pursued by her enemies, and while Thea escapes north, Shuna continues toward the west, finally reaching the Land of the God-Folk.
Will Shuna ever see Thea again? And will he make it back home from his quest for the golden grain?
"Animator Miyazaki (Spirited Away) has released only a few comics in his career; this lush fantasy, available in English for the first time, is cause for celebration...Miyazaki's art has a timeless beauty, and the theme of small human kindnesses redeeming a cruel and dehumanizing world feels more relevant than ever. Don't miss this one." - Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"A reimagined folktale as grand as its painted visuals are sublime." - Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"Gorgeous... Shuna's Journey foreshadows much of Miyazaki's later work while still managing to be a complete standalone story in its own right." - Entertainment Weekly
This information about Shuna's Journey was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Born in 1941 in Tokyo, Japan, Hayao Miyazaki cofounded Studio Ghibli in 1985 with Isao Takahata. Among his eleven animated features, Spirited Away (2001) broke every box-office record in Japan, and won the Golden Bear at the 2002 Berlin International Film Festival and the 75th Academy Awards for Animated Feature Film. Howl's Moving Castle (2004) received the Golden Osella award at the 2004 Venice International Film Festival. Miyazaki was awarded the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at the 2005 Venice International Film Festival. The Wind Rises (2013) was nominated for the 86th Academy Award for Animated Feature Film. In 2014, the Board of Governors for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences presented him with a Governors Award for lifetime achievement. He is currently working on a new production.
Alex Dudok de Wit is the Associate Editor at Cartoon Brew. He is an animation correspondent for Sight & Sound. His writing has also appeared in Vulture, Little White Lies, The Telegraph, The i, The Independent, Time Out, Index on Censorship and elsewhere, including specialist animation publications like Skwigly and ASIFA Magazine. He also translates from Japanese as part of Art Translators Collective. He is based in London, UK.
If you liked Shuna's Journey, try these:
by Megha Majumdar
Published 2026
Megha Majumdar's electrifying new novel, following her acclaimed New York Times bestseller A Burning—longlisted for the National Book Award—is set in a near-future Kolkata, India, ravaged by climate change and food scarcity, in which two families seeking to protect their children must battle each other. A piercing and propulsive tour de...
by Salman Rushdie
Published 2024
The epic tale of a woman who breathes a fantastical empire into existence, only to be consumed by it over the centuries—from the transcendent imagination of Booker Prize–winning, internationally bestselling author Salman Rushdie.
by Juhea Kim
Published 2022
An epic story of love, war, and redemption set against the backdrop of the Korean independence movement, following the intertwined fates of a young girl sold to a courtesan school and the penniless son of a hunter.
Theo of Golden by Allen Levi
One spring morning, a stranger arrives in the small southern city of Golden. No one knows where he has come from…or why…
Your guide toexceptional books
BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.
