From Up on Poppy Hill

I wish this were the cover art of my Blu-ray

Another Ghibli movie down the hatch. I liked it a lot. I'm a big fan of these small town stories about a small group of people. It's like Roddenberry's utopia in present times, everyone knows your name, they all work hard, no one is malicious, and the problems are either external or come from people being misguided. Maybe that's why we find Ghilbi works so appealing.

There's nothing I like better than to be sucked into a world and this movie does it. I loved the feeling of being in 60s Japan, hearing Sukiyaki in the background, seeing all the sights of Tokyo, the old town architecture, the encroaching industrialization and smog. The Quartier Latin (for some reason the Japanese switch it around) is wonderful in its early stage. It looks lived in, used, the clutter full of memory and signs of humanity. I almost prefer it to the cleaned up version. And like I said above, there's nothing like a small town setting. I also got stupidly excited when they got out the wooden rice bowl and opened up the floor panels to reveal hidden vegetables.

For a review of the plot and nitpicks on translations, read the thread