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Only Yesterday - 3 1/2 stars

“Only Yesterday” is not a bad film by any stretch of the imagination, in fact it’s actually quite good. However, “Only Yesterday” is a Studio Ghibli film and after seeing “Princess Mononoke”, “Spirited Away” and “Howl’s Moving Castle”, you go into “Only Yesterday” with very high expectations. It is also a movie that is fairly grounded in reality, containing no fantastic worlds or creatures, so I’m not sure that even needed to be an animated movie, I’m sure live-action would have worked just as well.

In “Only Yesterday”, a Tokyo officer worker by the name Taeko decides to have her holiday in the beautiful Japanese countryside. She begins to reminisce about a specific period of her childhood and this leads her to wonder what significance her memories have.

We get to see Taeko as a woman in her late twenties and as a ten-year-old. A few particularly touching moments have her actually visualise her younger self hanging around nearby. They do not interact with one another but somehow that makes it more powerful. The Taeko character is a little bland at times, this is contrast to other Studio Ghibli leads such as Chihiro in “Spirited Away” and Kiki in “Kiki’s Delivery Service”. The other characters are a little weak. The animation on the characters looks impressive.

“Only Yesterday” is a nice little film and I did enjoy it, it’s just that the name Studio Ghibli implies that you are in for something really special. A lot of people love this movie but I do not see many pointing to it as one of the best anime films in the way that people do with regards to “Spirited Away” or “Howl’s Moving Castle”. The animation is great but the colours seem to have been faded at times and again I question why this was not just a live-action film because the animation adds very little to the experience. Fans of anime movies and those looking for a charming little film about life should be entertained by “Only Yesterday”.

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