(L) Mirai no Mirai (Mamoru Hosoda film)

[Stark700]

Entertainment news magazine Variety reported on Tuesday that Mamoru Hosoda's next film is titled Mirai. It is "expected to be completed" in May 2018.

Plot/Premise:

“Mirai” follows a 4-year old boy who is struggling to cope with the arrival of a little sister in the family, until things turn magical. A mysterious garden in the backyard of the boy's home becomes a gateway allowing the child to travel back in time and encounter his mother as a little girl and his great-grandfather as a young man. These fantasy-filled adventures allow the child to change his perspective and help him become the big brother he was meant to be.

Source:
http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news...-debut/.116208

[MeoTwister5]

I see Mamoru Hosoda, I get on board.

[blakstealth]

Variety with that scoop.

[Flower]

Looks like it could have possibilities! Color me interested as well ...

[Dawnstorm]

I can't think of many anime with a four year old protagonist. Very interested.

[Guardian Enzo]

In Hosoda we trust.

[Stark700]

Full title is Mirai no Mirai (Mirai From the Future).

Trailer:

Film distributor TOHO opened a website to unveil director Mamoru Hosoda's latest film, which is now titled Mirai no Mirai (Mirai From the Future). (The film was previously titled simply as Mirai, although Studio Chizu filed a Mirai no Mirai trademark on October 24.) The film will open in Japan on July 20, after previously being announced with a May release date.

The tagline on the poster reads, "I met the future."

The film's story centers around a family living in a small house in an obscure corner of a certain city — in particular, the family's spoiled four-year-old boy Kun-chan. When Kun-chan gets a little sister named Mirai, he feels that his new sister stole his parents' love from him, and is overwhelmed by many experiences he undergoes for the first time in his life. In the midst of it all, he meets an older version of Mirai, who has come from the future.

https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/new...teaser/.125213

[AnimeFangirl]

Sounds like it will be very cute. Sappy, but cute. I'm always on the lookout for anime I can watch with the younger members of my family.

[Guardian Enzo]

Shinkai has eclipsed him in notoriety, but Hosoda takes a backseat to new theatrical anime director of his generation. If he's behind a film, my expectations are very high.

[Kanon]

Reading the first post's summary, I thought it'd be weird for a 4 year old to travel through time on his own. The new summary cleared thing up, he'll be helped by his little sister from the future.

[Haak]

Originally Posted by Guardian Enzo

In Hosoda we trust.

Damn right.

Actually, to be honest I was a little disappointed in The Boy and The Beast but it's only the most minor of minor blips.

Side note: I wonder if the sister is related to The Girl Who Leapt Through Time.

[Mad Pierrot]

Hosoda is the one who made the first two Digimon movies right?

[Stark700]

[Marina2]

Saw it in theater today.

Trailer and summary are a bit misleading. One will thought that this is the story about the adventure of Kun-chan and Mirai. In fact, it is mainly about Kun-chan's adventure and meet with many different people.

Spoiler for Story and characters:

Story of this film is divided into many sections. Each, has it own 'problem' and 'ending'. You will feel like you marathon through many episodes of one anime rather than watching a film. Usually, it will start with.. Kun-chan has problem with something >> goes into the garden in the backyard of his house >> "something happen" >>go on adventure, learn a good life lesson >> return back to his present time. Then, the story proceed into next section.

Characters are probably the greatest strength of this film. Though out the film, we see Kun-chan's parent works hard to raise Kun-chan and his sister while dealing with all sort of family problems. I can say that adult characters are the best part of this film. Kun-chan himself is quite annoying kid. He usually cause problems when he doesn't get what he wants ,but that is also a charm of his character. Mirai is shown in her infant form for most of the movie and HOLY COW she is so adorable. As for future Mirai, the film doesn't give us a good reason why does she come to the past. Sometime, she feel like a plot device to move the story forward. All of her screen time are funny and great BTW.

Overall, it is good and relaxing film to see with your family and/or friend.

[Guardian Enzo]

While still very good, Mirai and Bakemono no Ko are still the two weakest Hosoda original films for me. I don't think it's a coincidence that those are the two films he directed after deciding to part ways with his writer Okudera Satoko and handle the screenplays himself. That's where the last two films have seemed a bit lost at times.

Another problem for me was Kamishiraishi Moka as Kun-chan. Japanese female seiyuu are generally much better than their Western dub counterparts at playing boys, but I really thought her performance was wholly unconvincing. A big handicap for the film as a whole.

[Vegard Aune]

So I'm in Japan now, and one thing that I had decided on in advance was that for the week I was here I would try to catch as many anime movies that interested me as possible. So far I've seen the new Pokémon movie and this, with the My Hero Academia movie still being on my to-do list...

I can't believe I'm saying this, but I liked the new Pokémon movie so much more than this one. Like, I've genuinely enjoyed all of Hosoda's previous movies (though The Boy and the Beast felt like a bit of a step down) but this movie just did nothing for me. Maybe I was just in the wrong mindset at the time, as I was just kinda stressed out and hungry by the time the movie started, but I just really can't say I enjoyed it at all.

[TinyRedLeaf]

I just watched the movie and, for my part, I loved it. Hosoda has matured tremendously as a movie-maker and a storyteller, and he spun a compelling tale here about connection, to a place, to emotions and to family. This movie relies heavily on tone and mood to join various disparate dots together, and the story, on the face of it, isn't linear, so it's easy to miss its point. Hosoda has gone either further this time with expert use of tracking shots and astute editing, and his key animation has improved too. There's a naturalism to the animation that makes "Mirai" feel almost like live-action, and I think that's remarkable.

I'll probably take a while to let the various impressions bubble into something more cohesive before attempting a more thorough analysis. For now, though, I have to say, I absolutely loved the house, and I wonder if it's based a real home. It's truly something you'd image an architect to design, to create such such interesting spaces within a long and narrow plot.

[Guardian Enzo]

I loved the house, too - a modernist marvel. The rest of the movie, I had some issues with.

[TinyRedLeaf]

No harm in differing opinions.

I, for one, agree with this reviewer's impression: "But While Mirai may be Hosoda’s most compact film yet, it's also, in some ways, his most daring."

I left the theatre struck by how deeply nuanced this movie is, compared to Hosoda's previous feature films (with the exception of "The Boy and the Beast", which I'm yet to watch). Mirai is, on the surface, about the future and Kun's relationship with his baby sister, but it's perhaps more apt to think of it as a story of hindsight and reflection.

One scene and one line, in particular, resonated deeply with me:

Spoiler for one of the last few scenes:

Shortly after future-Mirai picked up Kun from the future-Tokyo Station, and as they dived into the family oak tree (more on this, later), and visited that moment when their great-grandfather wooed their great-grandmother, future-Mirai observed that it was little moments like these that gradually added up to make them — Kun and Mirai — possible. Had their great-grandfather not survived the sinking of his warship, had their great-grandmother not deliberately allowed him to win the race, none of the future would have happened.

Perhaps it's age. As I enter middle age, I increasingly find myself remembering little snippets from the past. Each piece of memory, on its own, has little significance. But it's when I remember more and more, and think about the ways in which I was affected and changed by those little moments, that I come to a better understanding of why I am who I am and where I find myself today.

So, that one scene from the movie struck me very hard, because I could immediately relate with what Hosoda was trying to convey.

His cinematic skills have taken him into a very interesting direction in Mirai, where he skillfully piled on layers of emotions and themes. Each layer doesn't seem at first related, but towards the end, they begin to dovetail into the story's central theme — a rootedness in place, time and family.

The oak tree in the yard plays a critical symbolic role, and I love how Hosoda used various scenes to build up its significance, until in the end...

Spoiler for the oak tree:

...we realise the tree was there from the beginning. It was the tree that witnessed Kun and Mirai's great-grandparent's "race". It was there in the front lawn when Kun and Mirai's parents built their first home. And it was preserved when they re-modelled their home to accommodate their growing family.

The tree was, indeed, the "index" that rooted everything together, the silent witness. In that regard, it's no wonder that each of Kun's fantasies happened in the yard, because that was where the tree was. It was also fitting that it was in the yard that future-Mirai bade Kun goodbye, while also confirming that it wasn't the end.

Anyways, these are my first impressions, hastily jotted down before I forget them. They're still somewhat jumbled, but the marvel is that there is an internal coherence to the ideas. But I'll need more reflection and a few further viewings before I put them together into something more meaningful.

[TinyRedLeaf]

Mirai opened in Hollywood at the weekend (Oct 19 to 21, 2018), and it seems that Mamoru Hosoda was at one of the screenings where he fielded some questions from the audience. In particular, he was asked about the house featured in the movie. From r/anime:

Originally Posted by fecalrecon

Hosoda was asked about this at the Q&A last night, actually. He said he he approached a real architect to design it based on his notes, as the design and layout of the home were meant to mirror some of the themes of the film.

According to Hosoda, the home had no interior walls and big windows because a 4 year old doesn't really get out of the house much, so it's their whole world, and he wanted this world to feel as big as possible, plus the open floor plan meant the the whole family was always together in the same space at the same time.

The tiered "rooms" on different, ascending levels of the home were meant to symbolize Kun's emotional development through the film.

Incidentally, Hosoda will be appearing on an AskMeAnything session on r/anime on Oct 22, 10pm PST. It's as good a chance as any for his English-speaking fans to get to know him and his work process.