Ocean Waves

Year of Release: 1993
Director:  Tomomi Mochizuki
Screenplay:  Kaori Nakamura, based on the novel I Can Hear the Sea by Saeko Himuro
Starring:  Nobuo Tobita, Toshihiko Seki, Yoko Sakamoto
Running Time:  72 minutes
Genre:  Anime, drama, slice-of-life, romance

This film was produced by the legendary animation company Studio Ghibli and premiered on Japanese television on May 5 1993.

It opens with a young man, Taku Morisaki (voiced by Tobita) waiting at a train station in Tokyo, where he glimpses a familiar woman.  This takes him back two years to when he was a high school student in the small town of Kochi, and a love triangle that springs up between him, his best friend, Yutaka Matsuno (voiced by Seki) and a transfer student from Tokyo, Rikako Muto (voiced by Sakamoto).  Yutaka is immediately infatuated with the beautiful Rikako, while Taku, despite being very attracted to her, is put off by her difficult personality.  However, Taku grows increasingly close to Rikako during a class trip to Hawaii, and an impromptu trip to Tokyo.  However, as we all know very well, these things are rarely simple.

This was originally intended as a way for Studio Ghibli to allow their younger staff members to make a quick, low budget film, even though it ran over schedule and over budget.  It's a lesser Ghibli work, and the animation is not as impressive as usual, however it is still a good movie, with some beautiful visuals.   This is a straightforward contemporary romantic drama with no fantasy elements whatsoever, in fact it is interesting that it was done as an animation and not live action.  However the animation does work well for the material.  It's a quiet, graceful film that should appeal to fans of more "realistic" slice-of-life anime. 

Taku and Rikako in Ocean Waves        

Pom Poko

Year of Release:  1994
Director:  Isao Takahata
Screenplay:  Isao Takahata
Starring:  Konkontei Schinchou, Makoto Nonomura, Yuriko Ishida
Running Time:  114 minutes
Genre: Animation, fantasy, comedy  

In the Tama Hills, in the outskirts of Tokyo, a group of tanuki (Japanese raccoon dogs) find their homes threatened by human developers.  The lazy and capricious tanuki take a break from their favorite pastimes of partying, eating and fighting to use their considerable shape-shifting powers to fight against the developers.

This is one of the lesser known entries in the back catalogue of Japan's great Studio Ghibli .  The storyline suggests a fairly conventional plot of cute animals fighting to save their homes from greedy developers, but the film is far weirder and darker than that suggests.  Writer and director Iasao Takahata (who also made Grave of the Fireflies (1988), Only Yesterday (1991), My Neighbors the Yamadas (1999) and the Tale of the Princess Kaguya (2013)) specialised in films inspired by and based around Japanese history and folklore and this is the case here.  The film uses a variety of animation styles, from realistic depictions of landscapes and animals, to more traditional cute animation, to images based on traditional Japanese art, one sequence even animates the action as video game graphics.  The film uses a documentary-style voice over and moves from goofy, slapstick comedy (true to the folklore the tanuki have massive testicles which they use in their shape-shifting), to surprisingly dark and violent.  It's funny and entertaining, but it's very inconsistent in tone and certainly too long.  Some of the sequences used when the tanuki terrify people with grotesque monsters and demons are genuinely nightmarish, and they are far from averse to straight up killing people, so it might be worth checking it out yourself before showing it to young children.  The films' tonal inconsistencies and the donwbeat ending really threw me when I first saw it, but I enjoyed it much more on a second viewing        

Tanuki in Pom Poko

Akira

Year of Release:  1988
Director:  Katsuhiro Otomo
Screenplay:  Katsuhiro Otomo and Izo Hashimoto, based on the manga Akira by Katsuhiro Otomo
Starring:  Mitsuo Iwata, Nozomu Sasaki, Mami Koyama, Taro Ishida, Mizuho Suzuki, Tetshusho Genda
Running Time:  125 minutes
Genre:  animation, anime, science-fiction, action, cyberpunk

In 2019, the metropolis of Neo-Tokyo has been built over the ashes of Tokyo, which was destroyed in World War III.  Neo-Tokyo is under martial law riddled with violent anti-government terrorists, and religious cults, while the streets are owned by vicious teenage biker gangs.  After an encounter with a strange, wizened child, biker gang member Tetsuo Shima (Sasaki) finds his own psychic ability awakened.  With his devastating powers increasing exponentially, Tetsuo's ability awakens dormant superbeing Akira.  Meanwhile Tetsuo's best friend Kaneda (Iwata) and resistance-fighter Kei (Koyama) fight to stop him before it's too late.

Akira is possibly one of the most important anime films ever made, and one of the films most responsible for introducing anime to western audiences.  In fact, it is probably one of the most important science-fiction films of the 1980s, with it's influence being felt in numerous films and TV shows since then.  Co-written and directed by Katsuhiro Otomo, based on his own epic-length manga series which ran in Young Magazine from 1982 until 1990, this is an eye-popping visual spectacle, with practically every frame bursting with colour, detail and incident.  If you ever get the chance to see it in a theatre, then do so, because the film loses so much when the image is shrunk down to TV-size.  The film races along at a breakneck pace, and it has aged surprisingly well.  It maintains a real apocalyptic vibe.  It does suffer from incoherence at times (Otomo once commented that it had not occurred to him that people would see the film who had not already read the manga), and the pacing is sometimes clunky,  however, this remains an overwhelming experience, and a must-see.

 

    

 

When Marnie Was There

Year of Release:  2014
Director:  Hiromasa Yonebayashi
Screenplay:  Masashi Ando, Keiko Niwa and Hiromasa Yonebashi, based on the novel When Marnie Was There by Joan G. Robinson
Starring:  Sara Takatsuki. Kasumi Arimura
Running Time:  103 minutes
Genre:  drama, fantasy, animation

This animated film is an adaptation of the popular children's novel When Marnie Was There by Joan G. Robinson, transposing the setting from 1960s Norfolk, England to modern day Japan.  Anna Sasaki (Takatsuki) is an introverted 12 year old, who suffers an asthma attack at school.  Her worried foster mother sends Anna to spend the summer with relatives of hers in the country, believing that the air will do Anna some good.  Anna becomes fascinated by a dilapidated old mansion across the marshes, known as The Marsh House.  One night Anna meets a mysterious girl called Marnie, who lives at the Marsh House.  The two form a firm friendship, and Anna learns some secrets about Marnie and about herself.

This was made by Japan's legendary Studio Ghibli, and was their last film before the studio went on a hiatus following the retirement of studio head Hayao Miyazaki and may be their final film.  If it does prove to be their last film, this is a wonderful farewell.  It doesn't reach the heights of their best work, but it is visually stunning, and has enough emotion and sense of wonder to provide a more than worthwhile addition to the studio's peerless roster.  It is a surprisingly dark film that touches on very bleak subject matter, such as bullying and parental neglect, and considering it's aimed at children, it may be disturbing for some.  The story spins an intriguing mystery, and deals with the connections among family and friends, and past and present.  

       When Marnie Was There

From Up on Poppy Hill

Year of Release:  2011
Director:  Goro Miyazaki
Screenplay: Hayao Miyazaki and Keiko Niwa, based on the manga From Up on Coquelicot Hill by Tetsuro Sayama and Chizuru Takahashi
Starring:  Masami Nagasawa, Junichi Okada, Keiko Takeshita, Yuriko Ishida, Jun Fubiki, Takashi Naiko, Shunsuke Kazama, Nao Omori, Teruyuki Kagawa
Running Time: 91 minutes
Genre:  animation, comics, drama, coming of age, romance

This animated film from Japan's legendary Studio Ghibli, is set in Yokohama, in 1963.  Sixteen year old Umi Matsuzaki (Nagasawa) balances schoolwork with helping to run the boarding house where she lives with her younger sisters and her grandmother.  At school, she meets Shun Kazama (Okada) who writes for the school newspaper and is heavily involved in a student campaign to save a large ramshackle building which houses the school's various clubs, from demolition.  While at first she dislikes Shun, Umi becomes drawn into the campaign to save the building, and she and Shun draw increasingly close.

This is a gentle, nostalgic, romantic, coming-of-age drama.  In contrast to better known Studio Ghibli films, such as My Neighbor Totoro (1988), Kiki's Delivery Service (1989) and Spirited Away (2001) this features no supernatural or fantasy elements whatsoever.  Co-scripted by acclaimed writer/director Hayao Miyazaki, from a 1980s manga, it was directed by Hayao Miyazaki's son, Goro, whose previous directorial credit was Tales From Earthsea (2006).  This is not one of the best Studio Ghibli films, but it is still a more than respectable addition to their hallowed filmography.  It's a gentle, sweet film, devoid of conflict, depicting a kinder world in lush vibrant colours, however it doesn't ignore some of the darker aspects of 1950s and 60s Japan.  While some of the animation isn't as polished as some of the other Ghibli films, and towards the end there is maybe one plot contrivance too many, this is still a great film for children and adults.

"There's no future for people who worship the future, and forget the past." - Shun Kazama (Junichi Okada)

     
From Up on Poppy Hill
      

Only Yesterday

Year of Release:  1991
Director:  Isao Takahata
Screenplay:  Isao Takahata, based on the manga Omoide Poro Poro by Hotaru Okamoto and Yuko Tone 
Starring: Miki Imai. Toshiro Yanagiba, Yoko Honna
Running Time:  118 minutes
Genre:  drama, animation, slice of life

This lyrical, animated drama is one of the lesser known classics in the catalogue of Japan's legendary Studio Ghibli.  It tells the story of Taeko, a 27 year old, unmarried, office worker living in Tokyo.  Taking a ten day holiday from work she travels to a remote farm owned by the elder brother of her brother-in-law, to help with the safflower harvest.  Along the way she drifts back to memories of her ten year old self in 1966.  Increasingly nostalgic and wistful, Taeko's memories and dreams make her realise what she really wants from life.

This is a genuinely powerful film, which, in it's quiet way, is a masterpiece.  It deals with themes of memory, city versus country, and the relationship between adults and the children they once were.  The "present day" (or 1980s) sequences have a particularly realistic look to them, unusually for Japanese animation, the dialogue for these scenes was recorded before the animation was produced.  For the 1966 sequences, a more typical anime style is used for the characters, with the backgrounds done in  a sketchy watercolour style, which shows how memory can be.  If you look back to your own childhood memories, some elements may stand out vividly, but a lot of them are fainter and more unreal.  It also takes us into Taeko's dreams and fantasies, which are vividly depicted.

The film takes it's time and beautifully evokes the rhythms of rural life, as well as the triumphs and heartbreaks of childhood.  The film suggests that we are at our purest, most honest selves as children, and that as adults, we have to reconnect with the children that we once were.  Sometimes sweet, sometimes heartbreaking, often funny, this is a gentle dream of a film.

      The past meets the present in Only Yesterday

Perfect Blue

Year:  1997
Director:  Satoshi Kon
Screenplay:  Sadayuki Murai, based on the novel Perfect Blue:  Complete Metamorphosis by Yoshikazu Takeuchi
Starring:  Junko Iwao, Rica Matsumoto, Shinpachi Tsuji, Masaaki Okura
Running Time:  81 minutes
Genre:  Psychological thriller, horror, drama

This dark, animated Japanese thriller tells the story of Mima Kirigoe (Iwao), squeaky clean singer in all-girl pop trio CHAM!  Deciding to branch out, Mima quits the band to become an actress.  Her first role is in a gritty, explicit murder mystery drama on TV.  After quitting, Mima finds herself harassed by anonymous telephone calls and notes, she also discovers a website containing a blog, purportedly written by her, describing her daily life in disturbingly accurate detail.  Soon, people connected with the show turn up brutally murdered and Mima begins to suffer bizarre hallucinations where her pop singer persona and the plot of the show, bleed into her real life.

This film was originally intended as a live action drama series, but, after the production facilities were damaged in the 1995 Kobe earthquake, it was decided to make it as a direct to video animated film, with Akira creator Katsuhiro Otomo credited as "Special Supervisor" to help sell the film internationally.  The film is a genuinely disturbing horror thriller, which in a way is even more disturbing because of the fact that it is animated, giving it a dreamlike quality.  It deals with perception, reality, identity and image.  Even before she becomes an actress, Mima is still playing a part as a pop "idol" (in Japan idols are manufactured pop stars who are there to be cute, have a squeaky clean public image and be good role models).  Mima is constantly hounded by press and fans, there is a huge pressure on her as she tries to reinvent herself and her image.  People are forever projecting their own ideas and desires onto her, she is constantly being discussed and told what she should be doing.  The idea of "looking" is important as well.  Mima is often seen through screens, camera lenses, mirrors, windows.  The animation is dated, and there are some things that show it's age (Mima is unaware of the internet and has to have it explained to her), however it has mostly aged well, and some elements, such as on-line harassment, are sadly even more relevant.

It's a powerful film with an intriguing central mystery, although I would warn you that it is violent and disturbing.