takahata’s yesterday

Watched Only Yes­ter­day (1991) to com­mem­o­rate the pass­ing of Isao Taka­ha­ta (1935–2018).

As with many oth­er of his films, it is very sub­tle and Japan­ese; so awk­ward for the in­ter­na­tion­al mar­ket, it wasn’t dubbed un­til 2016, 25 years af­ter the ini­tial re­lease. While it is nice to see that it en­joys high ac­claim out­side of Japan, it is still a very sub­tle and slow film. It’s not rec­om­mend­ed for an ani­me beginner.

To be hon­est, I found the sto­ry most­ly in­con­se­quen­tial from a writ­ing stand­point. The flash­back scenes do not con­nect to the mod­ern part save for a few in the be­gin­ning and the end. Each past scene is so nos­tal­gic that they evoke my own mem­o­ries, but ul­ti­mate­ly they are un­re­lat­ed scenes that do not go anywhere. 

It is a sto­ry well told though. The back­ground art by Kazuo Oga makes a beau­ti­ful dis­tinc­tion be­tween the past and present. Need­less to say, the an­i­ma­tion is so delightful. 

I have lis­tened to both Japan­ese and Eng­lish ver­sions, the lat­ter of which were dubbed by Daisy Ri­d­ley and Dave Pa­tel. The Eng­lish team did a fan­tas­tic job, es­pe­cial­ly the script writ­ers and Ri­d­ley. Patel’s char­ac­ter is in rur­al Japan, but he speaks in British ac­cent, while the rest of the vil­lage speaks more like Americans.

Only Yes­ter­day is rat­ed very high on re­view sites al­most among the best of Ghi­b­li, but I think it comes from the 25 years of hype of see­ing a hid­den Ghi­b­li film; and it is over­rat­ed. It is a sub­tle and emo­tion­al film whose ap­peal is not im­me­di­ate and I will need time to let it sink, but as of now I give it around ⁷⁄₁₀.

I think my in­ter­nal Ghi­b­li rank­ing is very dif­fer­ent from most peo­ple (e.g. I rate Spir­it­ed Away (2001) pret­ty low but The Wind Ris­es (2013) as ab­solute best), please keep that in mind.
 
 

—toshi oma­gari

Flom­mist Toshi Oma­gari fights many things, most re­cent of which is the auto-cor­rec­tion of his ti­tle to florist. Copy­right © 2018 Toshi Omagari.

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