My Neighbours the Yamadas (Isao Takahata, 1999)

Rather than the bold and bright animation of Pom Poko, Isao Takahata’s My Neighbours the Yamadas is a collection of short stories celebrating family. Indeed, the anime style of Studio Ghibli is considered a defining element of the studio itself. The watercolour, pastel-coloured animation of My Neighbours the Yamadas combined with the flippant, YouTube-like length of each episode, separates this film from the others.

We observe the trials and tribulations of the small Yamada family. Mum, Dad, teenage son, a (roughly 5 years old?) young daughter and Grandma. Stories range from family-engagements as they return from shopping realising they’ve lost the daughter to duo-plays between Father and Son, or Mother and Grandmother. There is no narrative that runs throughout the entire film and, between the larger-scale bookends of the film (a toboggan race to represent married-life and a final flying-on-umbrellas musical number), it is merely comedic vignette’s shrewdly observing the highs and lows of this family life.

Isao Takahata, director of Grave of the Fireflies (heart-breaking wartime animation, told from the perspective of deceased children) and Pom Poko (a retelling of the magical tanuki who can morph into humans and use their testicles as parachutes) manages to reinvent his approach to storytelling – and changes the definition of what animation should be. His films couldn’t be more different and shows how he himself can morph between artistic styles for the sake of story. In comparison, Hayao Miyazaki clearly showcases a more consistent and definitive style.

But it is Takahata’s sense of detail that is so engrossing. The family dog, whose apathetic eyes seems to capture his I’ve-seen-it-all-before mood. The father, Takashi, shifting gears as he speeds back to collect his daughter. The briefest of brush strokes and minimal lines that manage to capture the humour, tone and attitude of this clearly loving family. Each character is shown to have many more sides to read too. Takashi’s laziness is offset by his keenness to bond with his Son, Noboru. The put-upon Mother Matsuko, who endlessly prepares food but has to contend with her own forgetful Mother, Shige, throughout the day.

Clearly, My Neighbours the Yamadas will never be considered a masterpiece, as Spirited Away and Grave of the Fireflies is, but it is unique. The wry jokes that capture the atmosphere and truth in every family, shows a sharp script. The animation may provide a limited visual palette for our attention, and after an hour of mini-movies, this can get tiresome. But like many Studio Ghibli films, My Neighbours the Yamadas offers a different meaning to feature-length filmmaking. Cartoons are not necessarily for children, and they can be a moment to laugh and relate to the trials and tribulations of all families. The father slowly considering his sanity when forgetting an umbrella; a son who realises family-inheritance will surely, inevitably, involve him; the family-member whose timing of a family-photo is at the most inopportune time. My Neighbours the Yamadas speaks to the heart – something many blockbuster, computer-cartoon behemoths of Hollywood often miss.

This was originally written for Flickering Myth on 19th May 2014

Pom Poko (Isao Takahata, 1994)

"Testicles play an important role in tanuki mythology” writes Colin Odell and Michelle Le Blanc when discussing Pom Poko. Directed by Isao Takahata, this is a far call from the deeply serious war story of Grave of the Fireflies. Rather than humans, Pom Poko tackles morphing racoons. These creatures, along with foxes and cats, have a long history in Japan whereby they’re playful, mischievous transformations is merely one trick, alongside their ability to expand their balls into enormous parachutes or rugs to sit upon. Studio Ghibli always manages to inform us of the fascinating stories embedded in Japanese culture – but, until a tanuki (the accurate name for these magical racoons) reveals that his entire tanuki-class is sitting on an outstretched scrotum, you never realise how culturally different it truly is.

That’s not to say that this is a problem as Pom Poko is a joyous celebration of nature and life. Introducing two tribes of racoon’s as they fight each other for territory, the tanuki realise their true enemy is man as Tokyo’s outskirts are expanding the city limits, decimating the area known as Tama Hills. The racoon’s feverishly try tactics to scare off the construction workers – from creating ghost-like apparitions and parades through to perfecting their morphing technique to become human. Despite these efforts, the expansion continues and esteemed Masters, and non-morphing tanuki, die in the attempt at holding them back. The final moments are undercut as they change their way of life – tanuki scavenge for food in waste bins while others, who transform into humans, desperately reminisce of the time that once existed whereby forest, lakes and green, green grass was all that dominated the Tama Hills.

Pom Poko manages to tell its ecological tale in no uncertain terms. Humans are destroying the landscape irreversibly. Released in 1994, it seems to tell a similar tale to BBC’s Animals of Farthing Wood, a TV-series running briefly between 1993 and 1995. The dangers of busy roads, in both animations, is a tale often told. As I recall, the Farthing Wood creatures were escaping the industrial deconstruction of their natural habitat – and this is the same conflict that forces tanuki to fight humans. But Pom Poko has a mysterious, yet plucky tone that seems to make light of the earnest tale it tells. The multiple characterisations of the tanuki is deftly edited and effortlessly realised. Considering the characters change between five different forms, each tanuki has specific characteristics that are clearly realised. When we meet a sneaky, money-driven human it becomes apparent that he too is kitsune (a transforming fox) and this is clear from his animated human features from the outset.

This charming tale has only heightened my appreciation of Studio Ghibli. In the final moments of Pom Poko we see what the tanuki want to create – and it’s not a world without humans. It is furosato (meaning ‘homeland’) whereby humans live alongside the tanuki. Small, but comfortable houses and clearly marked water pockets surrounded by lush, overgrown forest and plants. It is beautiful, and it’s not the first time that Studio Ghibli has made me wonder what a world would be like with more time aside for wildlife. The two girls running free to find a spirit in My Neighbour Totoro. The two children on the beach, even for a moment, in Grave of the Fireflies to take their mind of the horrors of war.

Spinning his tail, *poof*, Mario would transform into tanuki in Super Mario Bros 3 – and this was my first introduction to the term. Now, Pom Poko has told me how tanuki represent so much more.

This post was originally written for Flickering Myth on 14th May 2014

Grave of the Fireflies (Isao Takahata, 1988)

A Studio Ghibli season at the BFI has highlighted the very best of Japanese animation. We can define the cuddly Totoro or fantastical world of Princess Mononoke as what Studio Ghibli stands for – but Grave of the Fireflies proves otherwise. In fact, Isao Takahata’s 1988 film(released alongside My Neighbour Totoro) is a sobering, heart-breaking tale of those final years in Japan at the end of World War II, told through the eyes of two children, Seita and Setsuko. Grave of the Fireflies may be one of the most impressive, and surely ground-breaking, animations from the studio and challenges Disney – and western animators - to make such mature, intelligent and brutal films for a young audience.

Based on a novel by Akiyuki Nosaka, it is semi-autobiographical as he himself survived the fire-bombings of Japan while his sister died of malnutrition. This truth is loud and clear as the story is open and frank about the horrors of war. Indeed, aimed at children, this will surely establish a sense of pacifism in the youngest of minds. “September 21, 1945... that was the night I died.” is the first line. Seita is dead. We hear this narration from beyond the grave, and merely seeing his starved corpse in the centre of Sannomiya Station is a shock unto itself. Does author Nosaka believe this should’ve been his fate? But his soul is reawakened and we flashback to the countless moments of injustice that he, and his sister Setsuko, are forced to bear to stay alive. Something, known from the outset, they fail to do.

The spectacular backdrop of nature and blue skies, and the neon glow of the fireflies, contrasts against the war time horrors. Bandaged bodies and ashen corpses litter the streets. Setsuko herself – a baby-faced four-year-old - has red-rash skin, diseased by malnutrition, whereby her rib-cage, even in animated form, evokes such sadness. We know Setsuko was not the only young child affected.

But Grave of the Fireflies rests on the shoulders of 14-year-old Seita. His downward spiral of sorrow begins as he desperately runs from the fire-bombs hitting his home-town, as Setsuko clings to his back. His only goal is to find his Father and look after his sister. Irrespective of the burnt towns and desperation on their faces, Seita and Setsuko try and laugh. They play on the beach and carry gem-like fruit-sweets in a tin. Setsuko’s laugh highlights her happiness and her innocence, but we know it won’t end well. Seita steals to stay alive and a cruel aunt abuses the limited rice they gain (accumulated by selling their deceased mothers kimono). These are desperate times and, too young (and rightfully scared) to support the nation, but too old to be pitied and helped by others. Seita is trapped in the grey area whereby adults can’t comfortably ignore his troubles.

Compared with films that tackle the destruction and decimation of war in the context of childhood, such as War Horse, it doesn’t do the film justice. Grave of the Fireflies stands tall alongside Schindler’s List considering the emotional honesty revealed in the death of two children; the lead roles. Roger Ebert notes the influence of Hiroshige and Hergé in the animation, detailing how it the narrative “mediates on the consequences” of action rather than exploiting it. Indeed, the patience and calmness is overpowering as we see the humanity in the story. Ebert goes so far as to state that Grave of the Fireflies “belongs on any list of the greatest war films ever made”, and I’d be inclined to agree. As part of the Studio Ghibli season, it is amongst the very best.

This post was written for Flickering Myth on April 16th 2014