Remember how, ages ago, I did that list of my favourite non-Disney animated movies? Yeah, that list is probably due an update. There are so many fantastic films that I’ve discovered or re-discovered since then: Coraline, Prince of Egypt and of course Princess Mononoke. Still the highest scoring animated movie I’ve ever reviewed on this blog (or tied for first place if you count Who Framed Roger Rabbit). So when I was asked to review From Up On Poppy Hill, another Studio Ghibli film by Miyazaki that I’d never even heard of I was pumped.
Yes.
Yes.
More.
Again.
Yes.
More please.
So, dateline: Yokohoma 1963. We meet our heroine Umi, a 16 year old Japanese girl who lives in her grandmother’s boarding house which is, indeed, Up on Poppy Hill. You shoot straight with me, movie. I like that. Umi’s mother is studying in America and her father is “gone” and she says in the opening narration and so she and her sister Sora and little brother Riku…
Sora and Riku?
Really?
Okay, there’s obviously some kind of significance to those two names in Japanese culture that I’m just not getting. Something to do with ancestors and…shrines, probably. Whatever, as the movie begins Umi is going about her morning routine, raising flags in the garden which can be seen by the passing ships, and getting breakfast ready for the boarders in her grandmother’s house. As she works, Umi’s narrates and tells us that all of Japan is really psyched to be hosting the Olympics next year and almost everyone’s on a big modernity kick but that some aren’t ready to let go of the past and sometimes “the past isn’t ready to let go of us” and okay, sure, just come out there with the main theme of the movie right up front. That’s fine. Saves us some time.
So Umi dishes up breakfast and the guests come and eat it and…argue about how much soy sauce to use and…
Okay. No, no. It’s fine. This is just…it’s atmospheric. It’s just setting up Umi’s boring workaday existence before all the dragons and wonderment show up. It’s a slow-burner, that’s all. Nothing to be worried about. I’ll just watch five more minutes of this breakfast scene to see where they go with this.
I don’t find this riveting. But it’s Miyazaki. So clearly there’s something wrong with me.
Ah. They finish their breakfast and Umi and her siblings go to school. Don’t know what I was expecting really. Alright, so Sora shows Umi a poem that was published in the school newspaper that seems to be about her and the weird flag-raising thing that she does every morning and everyone’s all “ooooooooooooooohhh”. Later at lunch Sora sits down with Umi…oh. Sorry. My mistake. That isn’t Sora at all. Apparently this is Umi’s best friend Nobuko, not her sister Sora.
Sorry, I have no idea how I could have confused them. Although…is it just me or are these character designs kinda…samey?
“Hey Zeke, ya hear we got a mention on tvtropes?”
“Yessum.”
“Makes it all worthwhile, don’t it?”
“Yessum.”
I know! I know! It’s Miyazaki. Clearly I’m just mentally deranged. Okay so, the girls have a scintillating conversation about lunch and then OH MY GOD SOMETHING’S HAPPENING!
Unfurling banners! Now we’re talking!
Alright, so these dweebs are a bunch of dweebs called the Anti-Demolition League, a group of student societies who’ve banded together to save their clubhouse, a roach-infested Addams Family manor-esque place called the Latin Quarter. Yeah, I don’t know why they call it the Latin Quarter either. Surely one building isn’t enough to make a “quarter”? That’s an “eighth”, at best. So one of the boys, Shun, then leaps off the roof into the pond below to make his point that the building shouldn’t be demolished by the school.
This is probably a good time to remind you that this movie is set in the sixties and student protests were very much in. In fact, Shun throwing himself off the roof is not even close to being the craziest protest I’ve ever heard of. My parents knew this guy who climbed the broadcast tower of RTÉ to protest the lack of Irish language programming.
“Sir, please come down.”
“NEVER!”
“Every second you stay up there you are losing millions of sperm.”
“Please fetch me a ladder.”
So Shun cannonballs into the pond and Umi goes to pull him out and when he takes her hand the whole school just explodes in “ooooooooooohhhhh” and my God I do not miss secondary school at all. Not. One. Little. Bit. Embarassed, Umi heads home and has a conversation in the kitchen with one of the boarders about how she got some cheap mackerel in the marketplace. The Umi, has a conversation with her grandmother about how she’s been keeping the books for the boarding house and okay, that’s it! That is it! Stop! Stop the movie! Stop everything!
Wait a minute. Enhance 15 to 23.
Alright, so the next day…Sora? Let me check my chart.
Okay, so. Hair clips and not a beloved male Italian American comic actor. So Sora. Sora shows Umi a picture of Shun leaping off the roof that she bought for thirty yen which results in an admittedly hilarious “Wow. That was a…waste of money” from Umi. Shun has become a celebrity on campus and now all the girls are crazy about him. Ladies. Please explain this to me. I don’t get it. I just don’t.
“I jumped in a lake, will you have sex with me?”
“Hell yeah I’m gonna have sex with you! You jumped in a lake!”
Sora wants to get Shun’s autograph and so she asks Umi to go with her to the Latin Quarter. Once inside they find that the Latin Quarter is a rambling wreck of a place basically being held upright by its own filth. They ask for directions to the school newspaper’s office and are told to “Listen for the sounds of smug portentousness.”
Huh. I didn’t know Shun wrote for Salon. They head upstairs and meet the various weirdoes of the philosophy club, the chemistry club and the drama club. Pffh. Drama club. What a bunch of nerds.
NERDS!
NEEEEEEEEEERDDDDDSS!
“Please. You CRIED when you had to leave Dramsoc.”
“My soul died that day.”
So Umi and Sora meet Shun and his assistant editor Mizanuma. Shun signs Sora’s photo and Umi notices that his whole hand has been bandaged. She asks him about it and he says that he didn’t hurt his hand from the fall, but cut himself shaving.
“I have to shave my hands. Because I’m so manly.”
Umi gets roped into helping out at the paper and Umi and Shun just spend a few minutes wordlessly working together. There are stencils.
Here, the action of the film builds to a thrilling climax.
Realising the time, Umi runs home to make dinner. She starts on the rice and vegetables but then discovers THAT THERE’S NO PORK! CRISIS!!!!!
AAAAAAAAARGGGHHHH!!!!!
Okay look. I know what you’re thinking. “Oh, poor Mouse. Can’t even concentrate on a movie if there’s not a transformer exploding every five seconds. It’s art, Mouse. It’s restrained film-making, Mouse. It’s speaking the language of subtlty, a language you don’t understand (and also Japanese), Mouse.” Hey, I don’t mind slow films. I don’t mind movies that take their time. But, and I’m just putting this out there, there is a difference between a movie that takes its time, and a movie that wastes yours. This is the latter. There is just so much pointless filler and conversations about food that go nowhere and so precious little about the actual characters. A fun game to play…well, a game to play with this movie: Try and see how long it takes for a character to speak a line of dialogue that’s not purely informational “I used up all the pork making lunch” and actually performs an action (comforting, teasing, threatening, seducing, cajoleing, charming etc etc).
Contrast with Waiting for Godot. In terms of plot, it’s a play where nothing happens. Twice. But it’s full of incident because the characters are constantly pushing each other in different directions and into different emotional states.
“Will we go?”
“No.”
“Why not?
“We’re waiting for plot.”
So Umi meets Shun on his bicycle on her way to buy some pork and he ends up giving her a lift to the market. I’m gonna sound like I’m contradicting myself here…but I actually really like this scene. There’s a lovely atmosphere and the score really helps set the mood. I wouldn’t mind scenes like this if there was a little more dramatic heft to the rest of the movie. Anyway, Umi’s clearly starting to develop a crush on Shun and goes home to make dinner.
So there’s two main storylines to From Up on Poppy Hill. The first is how Umi, Shun and the other students try to convince the school not to demolish the Latin Quarter, the second is the burgeoning love between Umi and Shun. At first things seem to be going great until Umi shows Shun around her house and he sees a picture of her father with two other naval officers. She says that his ship went down when it was bombed during the Korean War and nope. Not buying it. Ship goes down in the Pacific during the fifties? That was no mine. In fact, let’s ask one of the survivors.
“What did you see, old man?”
“Gojira…Gojira…Gojira…”
Umi’s ritual of raising the flags is her way of sending a message to her father to come home (and should probably raise some flags for Shun, if you catch my drift). Shun then goes home and opens a drawer to reveal that he has the exact same photograph (oh no). Shun asks his father about this because it turns out that he’s adopted (here we go) and that he’s always been told that the guy in the photograph is his father (oy vey) and yeah, Shun has to tell Umi that they’re actually brother and sister oh God in heaven…
“I can explain, Mouse.”
“Gangsta Asia?”
“No, actually. I’m regular, vanilla Asia from this universe..”
“Oh. Funny I’ve never seen you before.”
“I’ve been travelling. So, you want to know why so much of Japanese media depicts attraction between siblings, either adopted or blood related?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, there are many cultural factors stemming from Japanese folklore and the stresses arising from a society that is at once fascinated by deviations from sexual norms while still being extremely conservative but mostly it comes down to the fact that their sisters are really, really, really hot.””
“Japanese people want to bang their sisters…because they’re hot?”
“Yes. Why? Don’t you want to bang your sisters?”
“…NO!.”
“Oh. Are they unattractive?”
DANCE OFF!
Translation: “We have gone 5 DAYS without a psychic child destroying the city.”
You and me both, buddy.
83%?! ARE YOU ALL HIGH!?!?!
unshavedmouse 
I thought this movie was okay. I didn’t really care much about the school plot (although it provided some laughs), but they dealt with the possible incest romance with maturity, which impressed me. I’d put it on the lower totem of Ghibli movies. Of course, given how few actually bad Ghibli movies there are (if any at all), that’s not such a bad thing.
Also, when I watched it, it felt like Whisper of the Heart-lite, which is odd, since they have no similar plot elements except teenage romance (and Whisper of the Heart doesn’t imply that they’re siblings). Maybe it was my subconscious telling me to watch Whisper of the Heart. Like you need to do, Mouse.
I dunno if I can trust again.
Don’t trust the Tanuki; there be ravenous felines. Or at least one.
From Up On Poppy Hill is SUCH a poor man’s Whisper of the Heart. Goro Miyazaki just didn’t have his own voice as a filmmaker, so he just tried to copypasta the fantastical elements of his dad’s works or thoughtful/slice of life character pieces that Isao Takahata did w/o understanding what made those films really click. It’s pretty clear to see that his heart wasn’t in either this or Tales from Earthsea.
On the contrast, I can GUARANTEE that you as a writer will find Whisper of the Heart 1000 times more relatable this. Director Yoshifumi Kondo was basically going to be the Studio Ghibli heir apparent before his untimely death after this first effort of his was completed, and you could see why with this film. Everything you’re having problems with with Poppy Hill, that movie does right. You owe it to yourself to check it out and scrub the palette clean.
Just be warned, though…I hope you like the song Country Road. (:
Whisper of the Heart is my second favourite Ghibli film after Spirited Away and easily in my Top Ten in general. And yes, it’s a slow film, just like this one. Nothing much happens really, but you get into the characters’ heads much more easily, the romance is sweeter and the themes are fantastic. It’s one of the movies I watch whenever I’m having a writer’s block and it always helps.
… welp, this was a disappointment. But at least it’s good to know that even Miyazaki can’t bat a thousand.
I assume that Vanilla Asia died on his way back to his home planet, eh?
I very much look forward to what you’ll make of the works of Anime David Lynch… er, Satoshi Kon. I haven’t seen Tokyo Godfathers, but if it’s anything like his other stuff, be prepared for a return to Bahia.
(One of these days you really ought to review Lupin III: The Castle of Cagliostro. It’s another outlier in Miyazaki’s filmography – an action-adventure movie with no bigger ambition than to entertain – but I figure you’ll love it much more than this boring piece of crap.)
Castle of Cagliostro is FANTASTIC. Supposedly it inspired the creation of Indiana Jones (though I have only seen like one source saying this so it could be just an urban legend)
I understand that the stories about Spielberg seeing it are entirely false, but I think the fact that it inspired the crews of both The Great Mouse Detective and Batman: The Animated Series is 100% true.
I shall check it out
Poor Goro. He should have been a landscaper.
Or a kaijiu.
Umi means ocean, Sora means sky and Riku means… Oh hang on – handsome? Huh.
Sounds like this one could have used a bit more SIE SIND DAS ESSEN? NA, WIR SIND DIE JÄGER!
IT GOES WITH EVERYTHING! I actually need my alarm clock to wake me with that song.
I know I should be more involved with the story and trying to figure out how the hell Titans are alive if they can’t technically digest anything (also, who cuts their hair?), but chair-dancing to that song is really the best part of every episode.
Entirely off topic but I’ve just realised that WordPress lets me edit YOUR comments! Like, I can edit your comment to make it look like you’re saying anything. That…seems like a rather dangerous amount of power for me to have.
:O You wouldn’t…
I would accept ‘metaphor’ or ‘magic’ as a reason. I will also accept ‘shut up and watch the show, ya pedant’.
I actually couldn’t wait and bought the manga.
I am an idiot and Mouse is right and also super handsome.
You shoot straight alchemist, I like that.
Damnit, Mouse!
But you just gave me the best idea for how to deal with future haters on UTDBT. Imagine:
This review can suck a LOLLIPOP because it is GREAT. You are a DELIGHTFUL, INTELLIGENT fucking REVIEWER and you should POST MORE OFTEN. Your point about the plot twist was the most INSIGHTFUL piece of CRITICISM I have come across all week. Go and REWARD yourself, you EXCELLENT bitch.
Go and reward yourself, you excellent bitch.
According to behindthename.com “Riku” means “land”
So that would make their names “Ocean”, “Sky” and “Land”. Cool.
OK, I quite liked this one. But it’s the kind of movie I really like. In contrast to Miyazaki’s very heavily fantasy oriented work, a good deal of the rest of Studio Ghibli’s output is very slice of life type stuff. Take Whisper of the Heart for example. It’s about a girl who wants to be a writer and she falls in love with a boy who wants to be a violin maker. They both inspire each other to follow their dreams and that’s pretty much it. There are a couple dream sequences in there that add some fantasy element, but it’s largely just the everyday life of two middle school aged kids. And it’s WONDERFUL, one of my all time favorite films. From Up on Poppy Hill is kind of similar to Whisper of the Heart in its style, it’s very much just “here’s two characters and here’s their lives.” I personally rather enjoyed this film, in no small part due to the score which really is very very good. It does drag at times, but I got the purpose of a lot of those kind of filler-esque scenes. As you said, the theme of the movie is change, and how people and cultures can be so resistant to it. They wanted to really show the tradition and routine of their everyday lives, to contrast it with the changes coming. So I thought it was rather nice. Not great, but quite good.
Now, Tokyo Godfathers. Oh boy. I am pumped for this one. It’s a very very unique film and its director, Satoshi Kon, was an absolute genius. He only directed 4 films before his tragic death, but all are classics in their own right. I highly highly recommend all of his films and everyone please go watch this video on his editing style right now because its amazing. And then go watch all the Every Frame a Painting episodes because this guy is great.
I mean, I wouldn’t get all hot and bothered over a dude jumping into a lake – I feel like that’s part of the rebel factor….instead of oh hey he’s hot cuz he rides a motorcycle and has a leather jacket and tattoos, in the sixties it was lake jumping that was sexy!
Hmm, this movie sounds…interesting. I do like slice of life, but this does sound like a stretch. Sounds like a lot of the issues I have with My Neighbor Totoro – too much fluff, not enough of the main plot points.
Oh my Vanilla Asia. Go get your far cooler Gangsta cousin, k? I do find that is an odd thing in media over in Japan and it’s always erked me, glad I’m not the onl one! I find that and the “You’re 19 but look like a 14 year old” cliches that really bug me in japanese media, even though I love games and anime.
Oo, I am excited for Tokyo Godfaters, too! Also one I haven’t seen…I need to just watch more Japanese movies probably haha.
You and me both.
I watched this movie just last week because my sister said that she loved it, and I found that it was ok but overall not very interesting. I don’t mind slice of life movies if done right like whisper of the heart, which you should watch sometime (Miyazaki didn’t direct that one just so you know). I did kind of like seeing how daily life was like then but you were right that it was very hard to be engaged with the characters, they just weren’t interesting. There was very little going on story wise and some of the character designs were questionable. I kinda enjoyed Goro’s first movie Tales from Earthsea better. Even though the plot was very hard to follow It had better artwork and music and overall more interesting. Overall this movie is not one of studio ghibli’s best but I won’t say it’s worst because there are still a few I haven’t seen yet.
I agree that literally nothing happens in this movie, but I can’t help liking it. There’s a charm to its simplicity. It’s basically just watching somebody’s everyday life with very simple plot twist in it. It doesn’t bore me at all unlike films like Arietty for instance. In short, I like this movie.
Great review, Mouse! 😀 I’m kind of an ignorant in the subject of anime, but you still make it entertaining to read. 😉 Still looking forward to learn more of Japan and its weirdness about sexual themes. :3
I actually really like this movie… I dunno, maybe I just love schmaltz. On another note, YOU WERE A DRAMA NERD TOO!?!?!?!?!?!??!? XD
Buddy, I was THE drama nerd. That’s where I started writing for theatre.
Dude you’re like my favorite human being (er, mouse being?) all over again. ❤
I'm a HUGE drama nerd. It's my minor in college, and in high school I was VP of the Theatre Troupe as well as starring in every show we ever did. I haven't been in a show in over a year though… Gawd I miss it so much… I've always wanted to try my hand at writing for theatre, but never gotten the nerve to put pen to paper. How do you get yourself to not quite and start hating every word you spell?
Having a massive ego helps. 🙂 I did a bit of acting after leaving college but I had to give it up after Iola was born. I miss it a lot. Last play I did I got to play Hamlet which was a nice part to go out on. If you have a story in mind, write it. If you don’t like it, ask yourself why and fix it. If you can’t fix it, start again.
Thanks for the advice! 🙂 The last role I played was Seymour Krelbourn in Little Shop of Horrors. 😀
Feed me Seymour!
Oh, there are quite a few non-Disney movies which are worth the watch. and more are coming every year. Did I ever mention how much I loved Song of the Sea?
I know, I have to see it.
Do…it’s worth it. It is everything Secret of Kells was but way better.
See Mouse, EVERYONE needs to see this movie!
My god this movie sounds so boring! Its a shame to because they could have made the brother/-sister conflict so much more challenging for the characters and brought out some development. I think other Studio Ghibli movies like Whispers of the Heart and the tale of Princess Kaguya work so much better as eventhough they don’t have much plot, they have focus and good characters, which leads to interesting situations and conflicts. Plus Princess Kaguya has a gorgeous animation style!
In other news, Disney just released a teaser for the next film in the canon, Zootopia.
Why is “be-fur” giving me Home on the Range flashbacks?
Very nice fur animation on the characters.
Starring Foxguy McDreamworksface.
Best thing I’ve heard all week Paper Alchemist
I actually like this film more than Whisper of the Heart lol.
and DID YOU NOT HEAR THAT SONG: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1HrnaVzqRfs
LIKE THAT IS A MASTERPIECE OF A MUSIC. EVERYTIME I LISTEN TO IT I FEEL 10000 DIFFERENT EMOTIONS AND JUST UGH LIKE ANYONE HERE HAVE THE SAME FEELING OR JUST ME BEING CRAZY?? coz to me, Poppy’s theme song is one of the greatest Ghibli songs I’ve ever heard, right next to Laputa, Mononoke, and Spirited Away…..
Ghibli always has amazing music. Because Joe Hisaishi is an absolute master who does NOT get enough credit for his work.
Meh.
Ha ha. All the excitement at the beginning kind of feels like a set-up for disastrous disappointment. I’ve never seen this one either, so I don’t know what to expect either. This is all starting to sound a bit like how I found Whisper of the Heart, really. Kind of too… real to be the kind of Miyazaki movie I can get into. Maybe I’m just as crazy as you are (maybe, hah), but I remember waiting for the thrill and enchantment and wonder to show up in that one too and ending up with a response of “Nope, now here’s a bunch of talk about how labour intensive any goal is in life, and come on, were you expecting following a random animal to take you somewhere special, silly you, that’ll just get you lost in some different part of town.” I guess both of us just don’t watch anime for domestic gazes into a civilian’s life.
Hmm, it’s a wonder you called drama club attenders nerds, being a playwright. Without actors, what exactly is a script writer? Sounds as if you’re gnawing the hand here, hmm, hmmm? Also, I’m not sure whether you skimmed the, erm, auto-erotica joke at that hand-shaving line because you’re too classy for such juvinility, or somehow didn’t think of it (or maybe that’s not a rumour in Ireland, I dunno, really). In any case, I love your use of the flag double entendre there. That cracked me up.
…Non-Gangsta Asia? Now this is a surprise. I can only hope that this doesn’t cause Bluthworld’s Asia to have a chandelier dropped on him (or I guess a bajillion of them, one wouldn’t even tickle a continent that large), I was starting to like the jive-spoutin’ landmass, myself. Though I have to wonder what normal Asia is doing in this apparently upside-down world in which Miyazaki Sr. wrote a script this bland. Actually, was Whisper of the Heart Miyazaki’s? I wonder if that one can ever get through Celebrity Movie Deathmatch (doubtful, seeing as only spectacular or spectacularly bad movies are likely to win) so I can see if it’s just me in that one’s case.
…Wow, this movie was so “meh” its review only prompted 3 paragraphs from me. I had almost nothing to say, this *is* opposite day. Hopefully two weeks later will give a more interesting review of… Japanese mice becoming horses and getting decapitated? I haven’t seen Tokyo Godfathers, if you haven’t guessed.
Haven’t watched this and judging by the review, don’t have to.
Okay, Mouse?
I found a link which may or may not explain this movie. Basically, it’s been a part of Chinese & Japanese tradition for centuries to tell stories without conflict – at least, not conflict as we Westerners understand it.
http://stilleatingoranges.tumblr.com/post/25153960313/the-significance-of-plot-without-conflict
Oh Tumblr. If the mountain of bullshit on which you sit were any higher the moon would scrape the back of your head as it goes past.
I dunno…
Tumblr is usually really, really fail-y about social issues, but this thing *would* explain why so many of Japan’s four-panel joke comics get by without punchlines.
No, no, the explanation is fine as far as it goes (even though it doesn’t apply to Up on Poppy Hill which does have conflict and a conventional three act structure just badly executed). But the only Western-centrism the author is exposing is their own. The centrality of conflict to narrative is ancient and universal (degree in folklore right here). Plus the idea that it’s an invention of the brutal violent West which could stand to learn so much from the peaceful enlightened Japanese (what 20th century were you watching?!) and the overall smugness and just…bravo. You have scored a perfect Tumblr.
I thought the movie was ok, especially when compared to Goro’s first film. The whole romance subplot was a big disappointment and needlessly convoluted near the end, but I actually really liked the Latin Quarter plot line. The students as a group were really sympathetic, all the various club members were a ton of fun and the Latin Quarter segments had the nicest looking pieces of animation, especially the indoor scenes. I wish they had scrubbed the whole “siblings or not” thing and focused fully on the efforts to save the Quarter.
Okay, I guess I’m really going against the flow on this one. But I think if I had to choose between “Princess Mononoke” and “From up on Poppy Hill”, I would go for FUOPH. Okay, please keep yourselves from sending the angry mob with the pitchforks at me! But I have to say that “Princess Mononoke” just looks to gory and creepy for my taste, while I could dig the more gentle slice of life story in “From up on Poppy Hill”. Then again, my experience with manga and anime is minimal. I did watch parts of “Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind” though, because a co-worker of mine is a big fan of Japanese culture (and a really good amateur manga artist). And it seems like that one was made my Hasao Miyazaki as well.
I remember learning that according to folk Buddhist beliefs in Japan, people who committed lovers’ suicides would be reincarnated as siblings (not sure if this was meant to alleviate their situation, since traditionally filial piety is rated much more highly than romantic love; or to punish them for abandoning their duty to their arranged spouses and families, since as brother and sister in the next life they could never marry). So that might be the source of the incest-not-incest trope that crops up in Japanese lit nowadays. 🙂
Ahhh
That is very interesting.
I was trying to think of a Western version of this. I imagined a Japanese person reading American comics and saying “Again with the hero coming back from the dead?! Again?!”
I’ve never seen this movie, but I convinced myself read the review anyway~ Yeah, I heard that it’s pretty slow; basically an average slice of life anime made movie length. It’s still on my list to see since it IS Studio Ghibli… It’d be weird if I DIDN’T see it sometime. Although, I’m still in no rush.
I am also skeeved out by the COPIOUS amount of incestuous sexual tension that seems to be appearing in anime so much lately (has it always been like this and I’m only now noticing it? The sheer amount is making me question this…). Also, I’m getting tired of the weird cop-out of “Oh! They’re not REALLY related! So, it’s totally okay!” Then… why have that drama if the story was just gonna fake us out about it? It just makes it creepy AND feel cheap. It’s a weird trend to stick with… This movie seems to skirt that plot point a bit better since 1) they were raised apart, and 2) I would have questioned how sure they were that the same guy was their father since there were two other people in the photo. Maybe they noticed their similar character designs and didn’t question it? I do have to say, these are probably the blandest Ghibli character designs I’ve seen so far. I would have to hear their voices to see if I can differentiate between them better (if I remember their names). Ehh, I’ll just have to see for myself; probably just rent it. Very good review, though~ I feel that you haven’t been this bored by a movie since Aristocats where that was just cutesy where this was mostly uneventful.
Oooh, I can’t wait for Tokyo Godfathers (I was the requester; I don’t know if my name was different)~ It’s definitely a fave of mine. In hindsight, it does have a few… issues when it comes to the handling of a character (if she counts as a character…), particularly in a few EXCITING scenes that scratches at my suspension of disbelief and worrying about the character’s well-being… But aside from that, I still love it~ Still hunting for an affordable DVD I can buy so I can finally own the damn movie! And Netflix doesn’t have it as an instant stream anymore… And I wanted to watch it around Christmas, too… Ugh. Anyways, I look forward to it and pop back into my lurking-mode~
Thanks so much for introducing me to that movie!
No problem, dude~ 😀
Also, speaking of lake-jumping: Isn’t that what you tell a person to do when you DON’T want to sleep with them? To go jump in a lake? …Does that mean that that saying is actually advice on how to make a person more attractive? I mean, I get the appeal of a person in wet clothes that sticks to them and makes it transparent, but I wouldn’t want them touching me because THEY’RE DRENCHED. Ehhh…. Weird rebel logic…
Actually, Hayao Miyazaki didn’t come up with the story, he just adapted it. The story comes from an obscure manga by the same name. The suckiness is not due to Miyazaki Sr., it is because of the manga itself. Why did they pick this manga, I’m honestly not sure, but just throwing this out there to show that it wasn’t Miyazaki’s original idea.
As for RT’s rating, 83% is actually low for a Ghibli movie. Sure it is good, but it is a rating that shows this movie is not up to par with the rest of Ghibli’s catalogue.
This is actually my favorite Ghibli movie… because it’s so relaxing to watch and it’s a lot of decent human beings interacting in that relaxing environment instead of a horrible manipulative power dynamic like The Borrower Arrietty (I HATE Sho, a lot). The music is nice. I like how flowing the animation quality feels. There’s a lot of Bechdel-test-passing natural discussions about things like food preparation, running a boarding house, careers, and painting.
I also like that it’s central moral is not so much that there’s a big bad villain to take down, but rather that the villain in most real life situations is APATHY in group dynamics. I like how responsible Umi is, that she’s naturally sort of charismatic in the way Tiffany Aching is, and slightly set apart because of it.
Yeah, it’s slow and maybe there’s not much plot, but that’s ok. I like slow in specific circumstances, and this movie feels like a palette cleanser if I’m in a horrible mood. My girlfriend feels the same way about Mind Game, which also has very little plot but life affirming moments and gorgeous, inventive visuals.
(I’m also willing to admit there’s probably ‘better’ Ghibli films, like Princess Kaguya or Only Yesterday- my second favorite Ghibli film!- but this is the one I’m most fond of.)
I liked this film, in part because I’d seen Akira Kurosawa’s High and Low which also takes place in the same location at the same time as From Up On Poppy Hill (Yokohama in 1963), as it was interesting to see the city from that film depicted in animated form (and in a completely different tone).