Alternative TitlesSynonyms: A Letter to Momo Japanese: ももへの手紙
Information
Type: Movie
Episodes: 1
Status: Finished Airing
Aired: Sep 10, 2011
Duration:
2 hr. 0 min. Rating:
G - All Ages
L represents licensing company
StatisticsScore: 7.821 (scored by 3240 users)
Ranked: #6942
Popularity: #1740
Members: 7,680
Favorites: 10 1 indicates a weighted score
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SynopsisMomo is a young girl who grew up in a big city. However, following the premature loss of her father, she has to move with her mother to the old family house on a remote island. Here, time seems to have stopped: old wooden buildings, holy shrines surrounded by trees, fields painstakingly carved out from steep hills... and no shopping mall.
Needless to say, Momo is not too overenthusiastic about this new environment. Most of all, her heart is still feeling uneasy about an unfinished letter left by her father. A letter that contained only two words: "Dear Momo..."
What was dad going to say?
One day, exploring the attic of her new big house, Momo finds a dusty and worn out book. And from that moment, something really unexpected starts happening around her...
(Source: Production I.G Official Website) |
Related AnimeAdaptation: Momo e no Tegami
Characters & Voice Actors
Staff
Reviews
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8thSin
100 of 131 people found this review helpful
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1 of 1 episodes seen
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| Overall |
10 |
| Story |
8 |
| Animation |
10 |
| Sound |
9 |
| Character |
10 |
| Enjoyment |
9 |
"A Letter to Momo" had reportedly taken the director Okiura Hiroyuki 7 years to produce. Allow me to be the first to say, the time and effort spent on perfecting this film have not gone to waste. I was fortunate enough to watch this latest masterpiece at the 2011 TIFF screening.
The art/animation in this movie is top-notch. Production I.G. with assistance from P.A. Works, Studio Pierrot, and CG by Dandelion resulted in stunning visual quality down to the tiniest details. What I especially liked, was the amount of attention paid to body language and gestures. There's so much information to be gleaned from visuals alone, and that's what I find most interesting about Japanese films. There was also this action sequence near the end that just blew me away. I don't want to spoil, but I have not seen such breathtaking hand-drawn animation since watching "Tonari no Totoro" in the late '80s.
The story begins with the protagonist, Momo, moving to a small fictional island named Shiojima with her mother. Their new house appears to be haunted, and she feels absolutely miserable about moving out of Tokyo. Being a city girl that she is, Momo struggles to adjust to the country life. Instead of playing with the local kids, she eventually befriends three Youkai in her house - Iwa, Kawa, and Mame. Momo begins to appreciate the life on the island, and come to realize the meaning of his late father's unfinished letter to her.
The character development in this movie is absolutely phenomenal. It begins with a light comedy, but through numerous adventures and mishaps on the island, we slowly learn about her past. The transition from comedy to drama is seamless, and it really makes you to care about the protagonist by the end... This film has what I call magic, something Ghibli films of late desperately lack. Although the local kids were severely underused in this movie, I think the three Youkai were the true supporting cast. Their chemistry with the protagonist was excellent, and the humor just comes naturally. Mame's character was especially funny in a quirky way. One can easily tell how much thought and planning has been put into this film just by watching the impeccable timing at which Mame's character was used as comedic relief every single time.
Every piece of music appears to be fully orchestrated, especially the violins stood out to build tension in action scenes. Momo's voice acting by child actress and seiyuu Miyama Karen was a perfect fit, as well as the three Youkai.
"A Letter to Momo" is almost like a homage to Studio Ghibli's kids movies - "My Neighbor Totoro", "Spirited Away", and "Ponyo". It sticks to the tried and tested formula of supernatural spirits that only interacts with kids, and somewhat predictable plot development. However, the producers have managed to merge various elements from all those films into an exciting original story. "A Letter to Momo" is a magical crowd- pleaser with great pacing and a heartwarming story. It's a solid movie that anime and movie fans should not miss.
Possibly the best all-ages anime movie since "Spirited Away" (2001). read more
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Flawfinder
27 of 85 people found this review helpful
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1 of 1 episodes seen
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| Overall |
6 |
| Story |
5 |
| Animation |
9 |
| Sound |
6 |
| Character |
6 |
| Enjoyment |
6 |
A Letter to Momo comes from Hiroyuki Okiura, the guy who brought us Jin Roh: The Wolf Brigade, an anime that I have yet to watch. Apparently, he spent seven years under the Production IG mold working on this anime and given how much I love looking at movies that result from that much effort, I grabbed the thing the moment it got subbed. Now of course, just because so much effort is put into a movie doesn’t mean I’m going to be nice to it. Shinkai puts more effort into his movies than most directors I know, but that never changed the fact that I’ve hated practically every single movie he’s done. I mean yes, it’s nice to see pretty images and ambition and great themes and all that, but an anime has to be entertaining first and foremost. So how did A Letter to Momo fare in that regard? Um…
Let’s start with the plot. The movie is about an eleven year old girl named Momo whose father died in an accident after she — get this — says she never wants to see him again when he has to go on a trip on the exact same day Momo prepares an anniversary surprise for him and his wife. Hey Japan, can you cut it out with that cliche? It stopped being dramatic years ago and just looks stupid now. She and her mother then move in with their family on an island and Momo has a hard time fitting in…yeah I got bored around the point when I discovered what the plot was too. Seriously, this is what Okiura spent seven years working on? Well anyways, the plot turns into Natsume when it turns out that there are three demons running around the house that only Momo can see. Afterwards, the movie is just Momo meets with guy, Momo has wacky hijinks with demons, Momo gets upset over father…
I’ll give A Letter to Momo this. The animation is pretty good. The fluidity in the way the characters move is pretty decent, but it’s the water drop scenes that hold my attention. The way it moves is beautiful. Nothing Miyazaki-like or anything, but still a visual feast. The problem is, it’s not exactly enough to make me overlook the fact that the story meanders about as much as the Iron Man movies. I understand the need for world-building and character development and all that, but a bunch of the scenes don’t have anything to do with the actual story and could have been cut out without actually affecting anything. It doesn’t help that the movie is two hours long, which means that over an hour is spent on Momo being angsty or getting into trouble with the three demons. Sometimes it leads to hilarious scenes like when the demons steal some baby boars for dinner and a chase scene occurs when the parents want their kids back. More often than not, it’s just boring to watch. I guess itt would have been fine if Momo was a more interesting character, but the fact that she’s mopey throughout most of the movie gets tiresome real quick, hence she’s not really enough to hold the entire movie on her own.
It’s only after an hour has passed that we get real plot. What is this plot? Momo gets angsty with her mother, there’s a letter from her dad that we barely focus on, guardians…yeah, even the plot was disjointed. The actual drama wasn’t helping since I rarely care about “teenage” issues that anime seems to love pushing on me, but the fact of the matter is that the movie suffers from trying to be both My Neighbor Totoro and Natsume’s Book of Friends both at the same time and not really meshing the two very well. The plot elements regarding the demons rarely had anything to do with Momo’s issues, only to be used as a plot device rather than to go somewhere interesting. And more often than not, it’s used to create drama, and really textbook one at that. I really can’t stand it when the supernatural is the cause of human drama, because that’s the moment where it’s “supposed” to be realistic. But since the cause isn’t realistic, you can bet the effect isn’t going to be realistic either. Plus, it doesn’t help that the drama is pretty textbook. Sick mother, dead father, making friends, etc. There’s just nothing special or unique about that, plus the separate pieces of drama are only strung together by Momo herself and not much else. They mostly just come and go without much tension, purpose, or anything all that entertaining. Of course this could just be me being a heartless bastard who needs to open up more, but I’m just going to pretend that’s not true.
I’m not saying A Letter to Momo is a bad movie or anything, but there’s just nothing all that special about it aside from the fact that it’s a teenage girl’s life with some supernatural elements to it. And since the supernatural elements barely added a thing to the actual story, I was mostly just watching the life of a teenage girl struggling with internal demons due to her father’s death, only stretched out far longer than it needed to be. It’s worth a watch, but you’re not going to get anything all that interesting out of it aside from some cool scenes that unfortunately don’t contribute much to the actual story. Personally, I’d rather watch My Neighbor Totoro again. That theme song is the shit. read more
Recommendations
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The other day, I was reading an article about Miyazaki. If I'm recalling correctly, it was mentioned how a member of his staff had argued with him during the production of Spirited Away about how its heroine should've acted more hesitant and fearful when confronted with monsters. I'm mentioning this because I think this disagreement touches upon my biggest gripe with Miyazaki's 'kiddy flicks': they lack a relatable human edge that would've allowed me to become involved. For example, I was re-watching Laputa a week or so back and it struck me how, in real life, a girl would be left SOMEWHAT traumatised by falling from an airship and being pursued by a group of military nasties. But, in Miyazaki's world, everyone is all happy-happy, smiley-smiley, and while that might work when viewed through children's eyes, it doesn't cut it with me.
And this brings me to Momo. If memory serves, the person that disagreed with Miyazaki during Spirited Away also worked on Momo. Maybe that's a coincidence and is entirely irrelevant but, regardless, Momo is a lot closer to my ideal take on the 'girl meets magical creatures after moving to the middle of nowhere' premise. To be human is to be troubled and troubled is an apt way to describe Momo's titular heroine. She avoids social contact, rarely displays emotion, is uptight, unhappy to find herself relocated and deeply regrets the last words she aimed at her father before his death. Her struggles with life also went hand-in-hand with her reaction to finding herself housed with monsters; first running as far away as possible before attacking them when confronted. And, for me, her realistic behaviour both better relates to modern life than Ghibli's older, more child friendly offerings and works better as a consequence.
As for Totoro and why I'm linking it to Momo: it shares the most similar premise out of Miyazaki's films.
Both movies have children moving to a new home, one in the countryside and the other on a secluded island, with the similar scenery of quiet everyday human life alongside nature. Both movies have supernatural elements that only the children are able to see and interact with.
They use nearly the same motif, starting with a child's secret adventure with the supernatural characters in home town, and eventually focus back on family relationships. Together with the beautiful scenes and nature rich background, both movies left good memories for the audience.
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-A slice of life mixed with supernatural elements.
-Another youkai themed show full of heartwarming moments.
-Laid back atmosphere.
Although not too alike in terms of story, both anime involves a main character who is able to see beings that others cannot. In fact, they make connections with these beings and throughout the anime, both good and bad fortune comes along with it.
Both movie also follows a somewhat slice of life style type of story with a gentle touch of soft rhythm. Yes, there is also the theme of youkai involved in both anime which are present. They are the supernatural beings from the anime that other people cannot see while the main character can; supernatural addition.
Both anime have a slow pacing but are enjoyable by the way it is presented through its backgrounds.
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Opening ThemeNo opening themes found, add themes.
Ending Theme"Uruwashimahoroba ~Utsukushiki Basho~ (ウルワシマホロバ～美しき場所～)" by Yuuko Hara
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Related ClubsThe OVA/ONA/Anime Movie club, Japanese Monsters Club
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