"From up on Poppy Hill" (Kokuriko-zaka kara) - Review

Studio Ghibli is, in my opinion, the Japanese equivalent of Pixar, in that any film it releases comes with a virtually guaranteed seal of quality. The latest feature-length animation from the studio,  "From up on Poppy Hill," came out here in Japan this July, and I'm pleased to report that it maintains the high Ghibli standard.

This is the studio that recently brought us such family-friendly viewing delights as "Ponyo" (a kind of Japanese "Little Mermaid") and "Arietty" (a retelling of the classic children's story "The Borrowers"). However, I wouldn't recommended bringing your kids along to "From up on Poppy Hill," as it's squarely aimed at a more mature audience. Now, this doesn't mean it's the kind of Anime that features scenes of blood-splattered violence or pneumatically-endowed naked bimbos (heaven forbid Ghibli ever goes down that route!). Rather, it's a deeply nostalgic coming-of-age tale that, while brimming with heart-warming charm, lacks the fantastical or cutesy element to keep the average kid entertained.

This is the second effort from director Goro Miyazaki, son of Hayao, the beloved founder of Ghibli. His directorial debut, "Tales from Earthsea" received a mixed critical reception, but so far "...Poppy Hill" has fared much better with Japanese critics and audiences, and deservedly so in my opinion, as overall it's a superior film.

Set in 1963, the Poppy Hill of the title is a picturesque part of Yokohama which overlooks the city's harbour. It's here that the 16 year-old heroine of the story, Umi, lives, in the grand family home Kokuriko Manor, from whose garden she diligently raises a flag each morning, bearing a message of "safe voyage" for passing ships. Umi feels a particular affinity with the sailors, as her own father died at sea in the Korean War.

The bulk of the story takes place in Umi's high school, which, even considering the 1960s setting, struck me as being a quaintly old-fashioned institution. The embodiment of this is the school's Culture Society, rather pretentiously named the "Quartier Latin," which is housed in a rickety old building that has certainly seen better days. With the Olympic Games set to be held in Tokyo the following year, the school authorities are keen to embrace the ideals of a new, modern Japan, and this apparently entails knocking down the Quartier Latin headquarters and replacing it with a shiny new structure. Many of the students are firmly against this drive for change, however, and chief among them is the earnest and eloquent Shun, a boy in the year above Umi. While campaigning together to try and save the old building, Umi and Shun feel themselves growing closer together, but, as they soon realize, young love rarely runs a smooth course...

There may not be many thrills and spills during the 90-minutes running time, but that didn't matter one bit to me. I came out of the cinema feeling all warm and fuzzy inside, which is not something that's happened to me for quite a while. The main cause of this was not so much the story, which was pleasant enough, but the whole look and feel of the film. This is almost entirely due to the sumptuous quality of the hand-drawn animation, with the settings of 1960s Yokohama and Tokyo recreated in such loving detail that I felt I was really back there myself. Even though I'm not Japanese, and have relatively little knowledge of the Japan of that era, I was left with a palpable sense of nostalgia, wishing that I could have grown up in Yokohama 50 years ago. The wonderfully atmospheric soundtrack also deserves a mention, a mixture of original instrumentals and  Japanese '60s pop numbers contributing to the nostalgic feel.

So while, unlike many other Ghibli productions, "From up on Poppy Hill" doesn't feature any magic as such, it is nevertheless a magical film in itself, full of spellbinding images in the true Ghibli tradition that should stay with the viewer long after the credits have rolled.