After the ‘Gaia’ driven concepts and Earthly metaphysics seen in CHILDREN OF THE SEA/’19, Ayumu Watanabe brings a less abstract, less sophisticated, but still wildly inventive anime style to this second feature. Not too far from traditional coming-of-age pics, Kikuko, our middle-school heroine, is an outlier by choice and by circumstance. Stuck on the fence between rival girl squads, she chooses neither, but does find an outlier boy to wonder about. (He’s a hoot, his face hidden under a mop of hair except when he’s ‘pulling’ faces as if he’s got a slight case of Tourette’s.) Kikuko’s also dealing with batty mom Nikuko, Earth Mother in dimensions, childlike in enthusiasms. All this playing out in the new port town they moved to after Mom’s latest romance collapsed like all the rest. Watanabe runs a loose narrative, local events and sights grabbing attention from the modest narrative line, along with recurring abstract visual motifs. (Mom keeps turning into a whirling dervish of pure energy.) Much of this visually enchanting, but held back for Stateside viewers by Japanese custom and attitudes that don’t travel. Though an image of a firmly embedded tree stump being extracted from the ground pretty on point as a metaphor for labor pains! Then the film ends with young Kikuko learning about her complicated maternal past and finally getting her period while seated on the toilet. Thank goodness, Watanabe has puberty rather than constipation for a subject.
DOUBLE-BILL/LINK: Pixar’s TURNING RED/’22 is an obvious choice, but stick with Watanabe for his flight-of-fancy debut in CHILDREN OF THE SEA. https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2024/02/children-of-sea-kaiju-no-kodomo-2019.html
ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: The rare film to get cooking right on screen. Not only from the local chef at the restaurant where Kikuko's mom works, but also from Nikuko herself when she makes a pan of French Toast to share with her daughter.
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