Tonari no Yamada-kun

I hate the visual style but if you're a fan of greeting card illustrations, maybe you'll dig it. There's some traditional family value messages in there but not to the point where it's a big problem. Just a little boring and cheesy.

I think this movie is for the more family-oriented crowd; those of you who like curling up with a big mug of tea and vibing with the very grounded but nostalgia-drenched fuzzy love memories of your own family.

It's got a gentle sort of charm but, like, it's not overly charming. Not a bad film, but, in the end, just kind of... whatever.

This is a very different show then what Studio Ghibli has done before, talking more about a regular family and not having a continuing plot. In my mind, this could have been a couple of 15 minute shorts more then a actual movie and it probably would of done a bit better since as I watched, I became very confused. They time skip a lot making it sometimes hard to figure out where we are in the story but then there are things that really don’t need a time too.

The characters really don’t have anything that actually makes them stand out. They are just ... a generalization of a mother, a father, and family. There really isn’t much that goes in the sense of there own personality and that did really bother me. I wanted some substance in them, not grasping at straws to feel closer to the characters. To me, that really felt boring and it became like me trying to force myself to watch the whole thing. Normally I could actually grasp at someone in the story and relate to them like the older sibling but this one just seemed off.

The art style is very different then Ghibli’s work as well, going for pastel colors and artwork that doesn’t really fill up the whole screen most of the time. In fact, most of the border areas feel like the artwork blends off into white. It feels much like a comic strip art piece like in the paper rather then a full film. It stays mostly in the real world instead of going into any crazy ideas yet in the beginning and end has a sort of surreal look about being a family as they talk about a poem that deals with life. That was the most interesting part to me actually and it was pretty cool that they started out that strong and ended in the same manner although it made me feeling like I wanted more of that then the other real life stuff.

The English voices are really well done, adding to the whole feeling of family but I wouldn’t expect less from Disney when they get their hands on a cute little show like this. Nonoko is a very believable 5 year old and sounds so cute. The show itself takes things rather literal and I believe that is because we are in the mind of this little girl and how she sees her life. The English dub really does add to this idea that we are seeing everything from the 5 year olds aspects. Plus the fact that Nanoko does not show up all that often. There are times that it deals with her but then there are many times that it is only the parents, son, and Grandmother.

The show might have been alright but it really isn’t the best Ghibli film in my opinion. It was slow and very slice of life-ish that it was hard to watch.

This review contains *SPOILERS*.
Watched in Sub/Dub: Dub

Story: 5/10
My Neighbors the Yamadas follows the Yamada family through short stories and skits. The stories themselves are all fine in concept but they don’t make for a great film.

Art: 5/10
This art style is okay but it’s not the Ghibli standard at all. Some of the scenes are very beautiful, like when the parents are traveling through the sea. But many of the scenes carry an empty quality to them because there’s just so much white space.

Sound/Soundtrack: 5/10
The background music in this film is pleasant and enjoyable but I wouldn’t personally consider it a true soundtrack. The English dub ... voice actors were great.

Character: 5/10
The characters are just standard caricatures. It’s like if the Simpson family were only contained in one movie of short stories. The structure doesn’t allow for any character development or empathy for the characters from the viewer.

Enjoyment: 4/10
I think My Neighbors the Yamadas would work better as a short film, children’s book, or comic strip. It’s definitely an interesting way to tackle a film but it’s not something I enjoy watching or even want to see.

Overall: 5/10
I could see someone enjoy My Neighbors the Yamadas and think it's cute. However, as a full length film from Studio Ghibli, it’s a bit of a letdown.

My Neighbours the Yamadas is not what I expected when I watched a family movie. Instead of having content appropriate for a family, it's about a family living their life, getting into trouble and doing regular family things. I don't understand who this movie is targeted towards. I don't find it enjoyable watching a family do what families do. If I wanted that, I would look back on everything I've done with my family. The art style is very unique for this project and looks like it belongs in a children's picture book. Perhaps that would be a better format for it than this. It ... is not a bad movie because it tells its story well, but the story is boring and there's not many reasons to check this out.
My Neighbours the Yamadas is an overlooked movie which you should keep tradition and also overlook.

My review will be a little bit biased, as I don't typically enjoy this type of slice-of-life. I did not particularly enjoy this film, but I recognize that a lot of that is because I just don't like the genre in general.

Tonari no Yamada-kun was a mish-mash of random small storylines presenting a family environment some might enjoy, but that I found rather annoying. The humor may have worked better in the context of the time it was made, but nowadays it just feels like "Boomer Humor", the same tired types of jokes that you often see in Facebook posts your parents like.

Story: ... 6/10. There is no real story to speak of, as this is a 4-koma-style Slice of Life. The individual small stories that are presented are mildly amusing at best and downright frustrating to watch the rest of the time. Several stories presented take far longer than they deserve and feel like a waste of time, and other stories are mildly interesting but not developed at all.

Art: 7/10. The art was very simplistic, which is the style they decided to go with. That's not a negative - it suits the format and was a very informed choice. There are small moments where the art style changes to be more fluid and dramatic, and those small moments absolutely shine. At one point a small portion of a baseball game is shown, and I commented aloud to my partner that the animation looked really good there. The art does not drag this movie down, simple though it is most of the time.

Sound: 5/10. The sound was mediocre, nothing really stood out to me. There was a song at the end that I didn't really enjoy, and the background music was unintrusive. Other than that, I can't really say much. It was just competent.

Characters: 2/10. This is where the movie falls completely flat for me. The entire movie is meant to focus on this family, and yet most of the time I just thought the family was full of awful people. The husband and wife constantly fight and find each other irritating and incompetent, but the movie ends with some "It's worth it for the kids!" type of message that just doesn't hit. The grandmother has some good moments and some bad moments, but mostly just feels antagonistic for the sake of being antagonistic. The son is rude and a bit of a loser, and the daughter is barely in the film, so her moments were few and far between. At one moment the parents lose their daughter in a mall and don't even realize she's not with them until they're well on their way down the highway away from the building. They have enough time to get completely stuck in traffic on their way back, so they were very far away and never noticed their daughter wasn't with them. To me, this just makes them bad parents. The women in the family were incredibly nosy and bothersome to the son, not believing that he could have a girlfriend, which was very mean-spirited. The father was angry and grumpy most of the time, and it just seemed like he was only there because that's what he was supposed to do and didn't enjoy being around the family members at all. None of the people in the family were enjoyable and there were very few characters besides.

Overall: 5/10. I just did not enjoy this movie at all. I'm giving it a five because it has some saving graces and because I know that someone who is more into this genre may enjoy it, but family dynamic slice of life stories just do not do it for me and I was miserable most of the time watching this, just waiting for it to be over.