Mirai

I saw this movie last night and having never seen any anime films before I was a little skeptical, but in the end was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed it.

The opening of this film was beautiful and a treat for the eyes. The birds eye view of the city we receive was so realistic that on first thought, I was sure that it was real and not animated. Other highlights for me were a sequence with trains running along the train line that I thought was done well and I liked the use of colours that helped define different times of the day.

The characters in this film are very well crafted. I cannot begin to say which is my favourite as each was so good. Kun definitely stands out as being I think the main character, although this film is named after his sister, the story did revolve more around Kun and how he felt about his new baby sister and his feelings towards his parents after her birth. I believe the director has well captured the typical behaviour and emotions of children and adults throughout this film.

I laughed a lot during the movie. The comedy in "Mirai" was well written and played out often quite naturally but also with bit of the melodramatic.

I would recommend this movie for anyone who is an anime fan, who likes to laugh and who enjoys a heartwarming, thought-provoking movie

My compliments to all who worked on the making of "Mirai". It is a job well done. I give it 4 and a half stars (or 9/10).

Mirai tells the story of Kun, the first child of a young married couple who lives in Japan. Kun gets all the love from his parents until one day, they return home with their newborn daughter. Not getting the same attention as he used to, Kun becomes jealous with her sister and starts doing naughty things just to get his parents to notice him. However, they are so busy with work and the new baby that Kun feels like he was abandoned. Until one day, he finds his dog turned into a grown-up man and is greeted by none other than his sister, Mirai, who comes from the future and is now a teenage girl. From that day on, Kun experiences different events that happen both in the future and the past and are some how related to his family from generation to generation. Kun is the main character of the movie and director Mamoru Hosoda has shown that he understands children really well through the emotions and the mind, specifically the imagination of Kun. The movie is simply the story of a family's daily life that is told through the eyes of a 4 years old child and the process of how that child can become a loving son and a loving brother. The narrative of the movie is just like the way Mirai Mirai (Mirai is the name of his sister which means future in Japanese) told his brother about how their family came to be through those little things that happen every day in our lives. Mirai is a film that shows you how wonderful a child can be, and although Kun is very jealous with his newborn sister, deep down inside he loves her very much.

After the mediocre mistep of The Boy and the Beast, the brilliant Mamoru Hosoda returns reasonably to form with Mirai.

While Hosoda's previous movies all fell solidly in the fantasy genre, this one is somewhat different. The fantastical elements are all in a young boy's mind, and the movie charts the way he processes the real world through wildly imaginative interludes.

Episodic and slight, Hosoda hasn't quite reached the heights of Wolf Children or Summer Wars, but he has made an absolutely lovely, beautifully animated, funny and touching movie.

A few short days after watching Ambiguous Places and feeling that I don't get Japanese humor, I got a chance to mend things between me and the Japanese sense of humor. This is a very Japanese family story, that manages to be universal at the same time.

Charming witty and fun, all the way through. Superb animation of nature, nature's phenomanons (think of the falling snow) and city surroundings. The people as always with Japanese anima, are secondery. but it doesn't hurt the overall result. One of the best real life fantasies I've seen from Japan or anywhere else in a very long while. Kids will love it and will identify with the four years old hero and his lovely family. Adults will love its wit and wisdom.

This film tells the story of a young child who experiences sibling rivalry, after the arrival of his little baby sister.

The emotions of all family members, especially the child's, are conveyed effectively. The Oriental concept of family is presented without being too preachy or suffocating. I enjoyed it.