Omoide Poroporo

Taeko Okajima is a 27-year-old, independent woman who spent her entire life in Tokyo. Looking to unwind from the rush of the big city, she decides to visit her family in the country to help out during the harvest.

On the train there, Taeko vividly recalls her memories as a schoolgirl in the initial stages of puberty, as if she is on a trip with her childhood self. A young farmer named Toshio picks her up at the station, and they quickly develop a friendship. During her stay, Taeko forms strong bonds with family and friends, learning the contrasts between urban and rural life, as well as the struggles and joys of farming.

Nostalgic and bittersweet, Omoide Poroporo takes on Taeko's journey as an adult woman coming to terms with her childhood dreams compared to the person she is today.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Okajima, Taeko Main

Honna, Youko Japanese

Toshio Main

Yanagiba, Toshirou Japanese

Hirota, Shuuji Supporting

Masuda, Yuuki Japanese

Taeko's Father Supporting

Itou, Masahiro Japanese

Toko Supporting

Komine, Megumi Japanese

Abe Supporting

Sato, Hirozumi Japanese

Taeko's Grandmother Supporting

Kitagawa, Chie Japanese

Baccha Supporting

Itou, Shin Japanese

Kiyoko Supporting

Ishikawa, Sachiko Japanese

Suzuki Supporting

Ishikawa, Masashi Japanese

Suzuki, Toshio Producer

Takahata, Isao Director, Theme Song Lyrics, Screenplay

Murata, Kazuya Episode Director

Pettini, Emmanuel Script

Reviews

Sep 27, 2007

YourMessageHere

Recommended

Now and again, I find I'm being asked why I like anime, and what's so special about it. One answer you hear given quite often to questions like this is "it's not just for kids, anime is for grownups too". I used to say this too, but in the case of much of what's out there, after much thought I realised that's not really accurate. Sure, there's anime out there that's full of sex and/or death and/or 'mature themes', and a lot of things that are more complex than children are thought to be able to deal with, but not much anime, ... if we're being honest, deals with proper complex issues. Or at least, not in any more complex a way than your average US live action TV series like 24 or Star Trek; anime might not all be for kids, but precious little isn't primarily aimed at teenagers (which is an observation, not a criticism, of course). However, there are a handful that are; the odd thing that really stands out and can be held up as an example of how mature and subtle and truly notable anime as a medium, a style or a genre (call it what you will) can be. I'm happy to now be able to add Only Yesterday to that exclusive group.

First of all, Ghibli. I don't really believe in brand names as a rule, but if there's one name that I feel like I can safely and consistently associate with the highest standards and best quality, it's Studio Ghibli. In this case, the famous Hayao Miyazaki is producer rather than in charge, and Isao Takahata (Grave of the Fireflies) is director. In this combination, they are as good as one can expect, but not quite in the way one expects.

The resulting film isn't really as child-friendly as other Ghibli films, in that it's not full of the fun characters and exciting situations that kids will love as they do My Neighbour Totoro or Nausicaa of the Valley of the Winds. A glance at the tags area will show you that "slice of life" is the most popular description of this film, and this is even more accurate than the label usually is; it's simply 27-year-old office worker Taeko's mixing of her working holiday on a farm with her reminiscence of her 10-year-old self, and the way this experience makes her question the direction her life is taking. It's also among the best implementations of such an approach I can think of; this slice of life is gripping, and pulls no punches, in its own domesticated but quietly gut-wrenching way. But it's a rare child that appreciates the drama of family relationships, and will stay glued to explorations of the niceties of urban versus rural ways of life and adult versus child ways of thinking. What I'm trying to say is, you may well bore your kids if you mistake this for typical Ghibli and stick them in front of it, but you yourself may be too wrapped up in it to notice.

For those who are striving to convince a sceptic that anime isn't just huge-eyed, twinkling Majikal Girls, spiky-haired swordsmen, giant robots, cutesy animal caricatures and the odd smattering of tentacled obscenity, this is a prime counter-example of "for grown-ups" anime. The acting is superb; Miki Imai as the adult Taeko, Toshiro Yanagiba as her friend Toshio, and Youko Honna as the young Taeko are all natural, believable and thoroughly excellent, and the rest of the cast all just about as talented. The script is possibly the best I've ever encountered in anime, one that's so good it makes scriptwriting look easy. It manages to use naturalistic dialogue to communicate a masterful grasp of the power and impact of memory, of the way tiny things stick in your mind like thorns years down the line, of the way things you learn now can change your personal history utterly at a stroke. This is very much a film that strikes a chord for me; I may be male, English and hate gardening, but as a 26-year-old, I see myself in Taeko, in that I too have memories of childhood that, for some reason, just won't go away sometimes - I think everyone with a little life experience does.

The visuals, too, are of a usual stellar Ghibli standard, with an interesting twist. As I watched, I was partly slightly bothered and partly wondering at the faces of the characters; there's something different, something out of the ordinary, just a bit odd about their depiction, and it wasn't until I watched the DVD's 'making of' extra that it fell into place. What Takahata and crew have done is concentrate on muscles; all the adult characters have realistically sculpted cheekbones and other facial contours that aren't usually present even in the most exactingly drawn anime. It manages to pick up tiny nuances of facial expression that give characters a much wider and finer emotional range than normal. The effect is one of hyperrealism; in this very rare instance, I found I was able to read faces as if I were watching live action, and I was forgetting this was hand-animated. Other details, such as the incredibly fine use of colour, are more like standard fare for Ghibli but none the less impressive for this. One standout scene is a sunrise over the field in which Taeko is working, which is both gorgeous and technically amazing. The slight but notable use of faded earthy colours and reds for scenes from Taeko's past and the bright, predominantly green-blue scenes of the present-day are very well executed; it's never unclear when we are seeing.

Music by Masaru Hoshi is, while not astounding, entirely pleasing, peaceful, and highly appropriate, but here to steal the scene from left field, please welcome the Hungarian folk choir! This odd, odd choice is...just right. It's haunting stuff, full of undertones implying the hidden, benign but huge power of nature (another often-encountered Studio Ghibli calling card) and even though it's not really relevant in any logical way, it simply works. The ending song by Harumi Miyako is a lovely bit of music, and for once, it really fits the film it's attached to.

You could conceivably criticise the film simply for being anime; even in 1991, making a live-action Only Yesterday would not be hard; there's no fantastic landscapes or technology, no gravity defying costumes or hair, nothing out of the ordinary in the film at all. But once again, part of the reason that this is impressive is because it's something of a risk that was taken and which paid off; because it would be easy to do as live-action doesn't necessarily make that a better stylistic choice, but that it works as animation by showcasing novel animation ideas mixed with great talent can do nothing but improve it. Also, the way anime creates its entire world gives an animation some advantages. Firstly, a story like this, all about details, draws attention to those details more effectively if you're watching with half an eye on the look out for art style, as many anime fans do - film a woman picking a flower and it's pretty, but animate one that truly compares, and it's stunning. Also, the way viewers suspend their disbelief constantly for animation allows the impossible to seamlessly integrate into the commonplace. This only happens once, at the end, but in practice it's so naturally and gracefully done, and so basically right, that instead of going "yeah, that was a nice idea", the impact of the scene and the emotional lift it gives you are much more pronounced.

If the film has any weaknesses, it would be pacing; for a film that's by it's nature leisurely and gradual, it is perhaps a touch too leisurely and gradual in places, and while almost all of Taeko's recollections are relevant, perhaps one or two are a bit spare and peripheral. While I'll admit I am sort of blown away by it, I also recognise that it's not perfect, hence a mark knocked off; and yes, you need to be in the right mood to get the most from this film. I've been waiting months since I got it for the right moment; this morning was finally it, and it delivered. Other than that, well, the only way you'll have any criticisms of the film is if, having read this, you decide it's not your sort of thing, then watch it anyway, expecting explosions, car chases or gritty hard-boiled action. That's not this film's brief. What Only Yesterday does is subtlety and maturity and real, proper grown-up drama in anime.

Reviewer’s Rating: 9

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May 6, 2019

AnimeBW

Mixed Feelings

It’s a difficult situation to be in when you come across a piece of media that just doesn’t speak that closely to you, despite how much effort was clearly put into it. Only Yesterday is a film of genuine merit and skill, far from a hack production or compromised product. It’s a warmly realized portrait of temporal dissonance, of looking back on the person you used to be and wondering how that person grew up to be the person you are now, what changed, what stayed the same, what you left behind and took with you, and what you wish you could go back and ... do over again. And it carries itself with genuine grace, courtesy of the always excellent directorial hand of Isao Takahata, who’s proven himself adept at capturing the reality of the human experience through animation time and time again. But the more I reflect back upon it, the less I feel I got out of it. It’s a film that didn’t engender much of a reaction from me while watching it, and even now writing about it, I’m struggling to come up with some sort of coherent thought it left me with that isn’t just a vague gesturing at something beside the point. It’s like a summer breeze, passing me over with barely a whisper and leaving nothing behind in its wake but the faint sensation of something having occurred at all. And considering how even the weaker Ghibli films I’ve seen have always left me with something interesting to think about, that’s definitely disappointing.

The story follows 27-year-old Taeko, a businesswoman who’s lived her whole life in the city and decides to visit the countryside for the first time, traveling to meet her relatives who work on an old-school farm for dye flowers. As she travels, though, she realizes she’s taking her fifth-grade self with her, and the film begins jumping between past and present as Taeko reflects upon her life at the end of elementary school. The two tracks of story continue side-by-side, the flashbacks rendered in a wispy, hazy fog of memory while the modern day is tactile, lush and grungy. Present day Taeko’s narrative follows a linear track as she meets her relatives and learns how life on the farm works, while the story of her past self jumps between important vignettes and moments that speak to the person she’s become. Over the course of the movie, she reconnects with her childhood dreams and aspirations, considering how they’ve passed her by and if they’re worth trying to reclaim, if it’s even possible to do so. Like much of Takahata’s work, it’s a movie about real people undergoing realistic struggles, however massive or mundane they may be. But unlike the rest of Takahata’s work I’ve seen, this is the first time where the reality of his depiction just didn’t click with me at all.

And look, realism has never been my favorite genre, I accept that. But Takahata’s been able to make this grounded style of storytelling work for me before. Grave of the Fireflies and My Neighbors the Yamadas might not be my favorite films in existence, but the snapshots they capture of life at its most horrific and most mundane respectively carried incredibly powerful intentions with them, ideas and musings that felt like they demanded to be told. I still remember the images of Seita and Shesuko’s struggle to stay alive in the inferno of WW2′s end, of the Yamada’s remarkably familiar family life. Those films made reality feel important by focusing on the parts of reality that tend to carry importance. But I barely remember a single moment in Only Yesterday that feels elevated in the same way. It doesn’t seek to capture the importance of reality, it just wants to be a story about real people. And I can respect that desire, but the end result is a story that feels so stripped down and un-activated that I can barely wrestle a single noteworthy emotion out of it. I absolutely get the point it’s trying to make in showing the conflict between our past and present selves, but the way it makes that point feels so un-dramatized that I find myself wondering what the point was in the first place. It shows you what it’s trying to get across, but it doesn’t make you feel what it’s trying to get across.

Perhaps the problem lies in the structure; something about the jumps between past and present never quite gelled for me into a cohesive whole. The picture we gather of past Taeko comes in fits and bursts through the scattered vignettes of boy trouble, class drama, The Talk, family squabbles and so on, but the individual pieces all have so little to do with each other that I struggle to capture a single cohesive whole that present Taeko is supposedly reflecting back upon. The film frontloads with these flashbacks in such a way that we barely start to get a handle on present Taeko until she finally arrives at the farm about a third of the way in, and even then the jumps between are so common that it takes a while for any feeling of progress to start kicking in. It feels like the story’s jogging in place for the majority of its runtime, killing time with flashbacks to drag out a short film into feature length. It’s only right up against the climax that it feels like Taeko’s emotional progression actually begins, and by then it has to resolve far too quickly to feel like there’s been any significant development that justified the two-hour runtime. I hesitate to use the word “pointless”, because that feels like an insulting degradation of the intention behind Takahata’s choices here, but my reaction to so many of the individual scenes throughout the movie was along the lines of, “So, what was I supposed to get out of that, exactly?” That’s the thing about real life; real life, as it exists, is a boring clusterfuck without much point. Unless you only focus on the parts that matter for the story you’re telling, as Takahata has shown himself capable of doing in the past, the end result just isn’t going to be that fulfilling.

It’s a shame, because there’s a lot to like about Only Yesterday that might speak to people more forgiving of slow-paced naturalism than I am. The animation is nice and paired down without being lazy, the distance between the past and present worlds is very well established, and the characters are all likable enough to justify spending time with them. But considering the heights Ghibli has been able to reach before with this exact kind of material, it's a shame how this one just doesn’t manage the same level of purpose. Only Yesterday isn’t a bad film, but it’s easily the weakest of the Ghibli oeuvre I’ve seen thus far, and I doubt I’ll ever return to it again.

Reviewer’s Rating: 5

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Aug 17, 2017

Objectivity_jk

Not Recommended

Only Yesterday is a very uncomfortable sit, and I'm not just talking about the twenty minutes dedicated to young girl's periods. The film's world is fairly well animated, but it looks and feels very empty, giving the story a depressing mood as if someone died. I want to mostly talk about the plot generally so I'll get everything else out of the way quickly.

Art: Looks pretty good, but the simple style can sometime exasperate the feeling of emptiness

Sounds: I like the soundtrack, but a few moments during the film the music is unnecessarily kitschy.

Character: Most characters are ether mean spirited, self-centred, kooky, or boring. I ... can't even imagine how most of these characters were supposed to be endearing since they were defined by negative traits (besides the dad because he has the best delivery).

Ok the story is absolute garbage. I assume that they were going for some sort of coming-of-age drama, that was supposed to have a nostalgic feel for the audience. Did it achieve that.........no. The flashbacks to Taeko Okajima grade five self seem to have little to no baring on the present day's story other than the fact that she has changed a lot since she was in grade five, so immediately the majority of the film can be disregarded plot wise. The present day is also flooded with thinking about the past or just sitting around feeling good about life with the occasional "decisions are hard" conflict. I have praised a movie like Ocean Waves for having a loose plot and lack of important events, but in Only Yesterday's case it presents everything from Taeko grade five life as being important to the present. Sitting through the movie you feel like you're watching two different unfinished films that were jammed together in the hopes of making it to 118 minutes.

To be fair the grade five parts of the movie if expanded could have been made into something good, same thing kind of goes for the present day. As it stands currently both parts lack a real ending to there plot lines and never create a world you want to stay in.

Reviewer’s Rating: 4

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