The latest offering from Studio Ghibli (Spirited Away, Howl’s Moving Castle) is a sweet story, but it’s missing some of the fantastical elements of the studio’s other movies. Umi is a teenager living at her grandmother’s boarding house for women, where she does the cooking and laundry and takes care of her younger brother and sister while her mother is studying abroad. From her house on the hill, she raises signal flags every morning as an homage to her dead sea-captain father.
Through a mysterious poem in the school newsletter about the flags, Umi meets a boy and gets involved in a fight to save a crazy old building that serves as the meeting hall for school clubs, which is set to be torn down to make way for more modern buildings. Should the old make way for the new Japan, or should the past be preserved?
From Up on Poppy Hill’s hand-drawn animation is inventive and shows the look and details of Japanese life in the 1960s: the Yokohama harbor, the fish market, the traditional wooden houses. It is beautifully illustrated and nicely paced, but also a bit schmaltzy. If you like Japanese animation movies, Poppy Hill is worthy. But those looking for another Howl’s Moving Castle and its invigorating weirdness may want to skip this one. 