ANI-MOVIES, *My Neighbors The Yamadas

Yonkoma manga are the Japanese equivalent of American comic strips, although instead of a left-to-right strip it's a vertical top-to-bottom narrative traditionally in four panels. One of these had a good run in the 90s titled Nono-chan by Hisaichi Ishii, although it was originally titled My Neighbors The Yamadas as it was a slice-of-life comedy about a dyscfunctional family which later geared its focus more on the family's daughter and her school life. Nono-chan went on to get its own TV anime in the early 2000s, but the primary manga managed to get a feature-length animated movie by Studio Ghibli in 1999. This was directed by Isao Takahata instead of Hayao Miyazaki as this Ghibli founder also directed Only Yesterday and Pom Poko, plus would eventually direct the Oscar nominated The Tale Of The Princess Kaguya. This anime movie wasn't a complete story as it was a series of short episodes featuring the daily lives of the Yamada family. The animation can fluctuate between very basic to cinematic with detailed fluid motion mostly in the beginning and the climax with the inner vignettes simple deadpan humor.

The movie opens up with the Yamada parents Takashi and Matsuka at their wedding with Takashi's mother Shige giving the newlyweds words of inspiration on how to navigate their lives together. After this, the majority of it shows the couple living with Shige in a house in the suburbs and their two children, elder son Noboru and younger daughter Nonoko. Despite the yonkoma eventually redirecting to Nonoko, most of the film is centered on her brother and elders. We see how consuming ginger can make you forget, how a simple meal can make you feel better, and why it's important to not involve your nosy parents in your love life. The film bookends with Takashi giving a speech at a friend's wedding similar to that his mother gave at his which ends up getting entirely improved since Matsuka accidently gave him her grocery list instead of his own prepared notes.

My Neighbors The Yamadas is dripping with melancholy and doesn't really instill any huge rewatch value, even if you're a fan of old Japanese superhero shows like Gekko Kamen which gets an entire five-minute segment with Takashi pretending he's the masked motorcycle raider. There's sometimes when the animation breaks its standard simplicity to show the badass grandma trying to coax some rowdy hooligans into doing good instead of just being loud, but the lucid point of view that is prevalent throughout the movie might actually bore some younger viewers with a total lack of story structure or coherence. The dub cast is relatively good with James Belushi playing the stout father, Molly Shannon as the doting mother, and Simpsons regular Tress MacNeille as the grandmother, plus David Ogden Stiers providing the narration as it would be nearly impossible to piece together all the non sequitur gags into a 104-minute-long anime movie. You can skip spending the extra money for watching this in your next annual Ghibli film fest as there isn't any dynamic animation in it. and just catch it on streaming.