ANI-MOVIES, *Napping Princess

The makers of The Wonderland anime movie bit their teeth on the isekai genre on this full-length original concept. Napping Princess shows instead of the standard tale of someone going to a fantasy world, and in its place tells of a blending of the real world and someplace like Neverland. Director Kenji Kamiyama presents his long career of developing fresh concepts like he did in the first Blood: The Last Vampire, as well as most of Ghost In The Shell: Stand Alone Complex. Signal.MD was the studio behind this blend of traditional animation and CGI.

Taking place in the near future of what would have been the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo, Kokone is a sleepyheaded student at the end of her junior year in high school. She often dreams of herself in a magical realm called Heartland based on stories her father told her when she was young. In Heartland, Kokone is a princess of an industrial kingdom where she can use magic to bring machines to life with her magical electronic tablet. While in the waking world, Kokone is reunited with her childhood friend Morio just as her auto repairman father Momotaro is abducted by shadowy men who want to gain access to his wife's old tablet. Kokone ropes Morio into helping her find her father while periodically shifting between the waking world and her dream adventures. The whole thing was a plot created by the devious Watanabe, an executive from Kokono's deceased mother's company which is developing an AI program for self-driving cars, which is trying to debut their new cars for the Olympic ceremonies. Kokono's tablet seems to be able her and Morio what they need to locate her father simply out of thin air, but exactly how much of this is merely advanced technology or from the magic of Heartland is left largely ambiguous.

Napping Princess is a breath of fresh air in the oversaturated market of fantasy anime, mostly because of the dual nature it takes with mixing in reality and dreams, but in a slightly more coherent way than similar titles like Paprika. The character designs of the people in the real world are basic, but their dreamworld counterparts appear to be out of a Studio Ghibli. The animation is slightly average for a theatrical release, but there are some stunning visuals, including a killer kaiju battle near the end. The music is especially memorable, with a Japanese take on The Monkees Daydream Believer for the closing theme. This is a family friendly feature without seeming too cheesy to more mature viewers.