The ticket kiosk at my local theater ran out of paper, so an employee from the concessions counter printed off a previous customer’s receipt and drew me a ticket on the backside of it. Thank you, Sophia. I know if anyone’s got me, it’s you.
I had no idea until the opening credits rolled that this was directed by Yōko Kuno. It was also directed by Nobuhiro Yamashita who, wait, why do I know that name—
As fate would have it, Kuno and Yamashita collaborated together in 2019 to create the music video for the annual Higashi Asia Buka Toshi event. I suppose their sensibilities clicked, because here they are collaborating again, only this time on a feature length adaptation.
The presence of Yamashita certainly explains the camerawork in Anzu. At various points it pans with the vivacity of a live-action film, a quality that makes discerning how exactly each background or layout came to be difficult. It’s certainly familiar ground for both directors, however, as Kuno has throughout her career worked with rotoscope, her most notable credit being the rotoscope animation director on Shunji Iwai’s 2015 romp, The Case of Hana & Alice, which is probably the best looking rotoscoped anime we’ve got. (Flowers of Evil fans may respectfully disagree.)
The “acting” in Anzu is noticeably lifelike and complex. The manner in which characters walk, the way they are layered in some group shots, the bagginess of their clothes and limbs—these are all things that will make you squint your eyes and think, Yeah that is definitely rotoscoped, but the magic trick here is Kuno and team’s hybrid approach to rotoscope and traditional animation. Squint your eyes a bit harder and soon you’ll note how frames are modulated to fit a more “limited” rhythm of movement, if that word can be trusted. It is such a unique approach that it becomes hard to imagine anybody else creating this film. Every aesthetic choice seems to derive specifically from its head creatives (Kuno also provided the character designs). According to AniList’s current staff listings there were two animation directors and seven assistant animation directors. That’s, simply put, a LOT, and it shows in the end product. The film looks superb.
The most surprising element of Anzu is not its visuals, however unique they are, but its sound design. The voice actors are all comprised of live-action stars. This isn’t something new in and of itself (Hideaki Anno and other GAINAX staffers, for a short time, turned non-anime voice acting into a stylistic choice for Kare Kanoand FLCL), but what is unique is their method of recording. I have no idea if what I’m saying makes any sense, but the voices seem to jut out in the midrange. There’s a presence to them that, although fitting for a film attempting to evoke a concrete corporeality in its world, still required a lot of getting used to. Still, it is a deliberate creative choice. The film’s sound designer, Masumi Takano, is not an anime sound designer by trade. He’s partially a live-action sound designer, hence his fixation on the tangible depth of space within the film, but more truthfully his professional credits derive mainly from experimental animated short films outside of the anime industry.
This is a common trend in Anzu’s staff. Many of them aren’t really anime creators. Most of them have been involved to varying degrees with commercial anime production, to be sure (one must never forget Kuno’s standout animation on Beastars itself an outlier in its use of colored pencils, but this is a carefully assembled team of creatives usually found outside of anime’s corporate structure now given undue liberty on a feature film. The result is that there is nothing else from anime this decade that looks and sounds like Ghost Cat Anzu. It is wholly original compared to its contemporaries. I don’t care what the top review on LetterBoxd says about people comparing this to Spirited Away. This is a one of a kind project. It is everything that Yōko Kuno has deserved since her college graduation project, Airy Me, broke waves back in 2013.
If these creatives are not given carte blanche in the future then I will be devastated. There was only me and one other person in the theater for the 7:30PM Anzu showing tonight. There should have been more. There ought to be more this week. At the very least, it needs to be more than what Inu-Oh got. What is arguably the best anime film of this decade saw only me, my sister, and one other person in the theater back in 2022.
This is a call to action: Please go see GKids film showings that are not just Ghibli related. They are the only company handling ambitious anime film distribution in America. If you want more films like Look Back, then please support these releases! Nobody else will gamble on them! It’s either we take a golden goose or we allow all of these original titles die on your choice of awfully managed anime streaming services like CrunchyRoll. We’ve seen recently how limited their attempts at distribution have been with Kizumonogatari, so this is your chance! Give them a much needed wake up call! If Naoko Yamada’s Kimi no Iro does not sell out at my local theater this upcoming January I will riot. Mark my words.
But first! Go watch Ghost Cat Anzu. I’ve deliberately avoided saying anything about the film’s plot and themes so that people may experience it blind. It’s a lovely little film about a family comprised of weirdos on the fringes of society, not unlike the people who created it. I promise you, it may not change your life, but it is worth interrupting your day for. There are not five movies released every week that are worth interrupting your day for.
(On a side note: this film isn’t Spirited Away. It’s Jarinko Chie. Go watch that pre-Ghibli Isao Takahata film, please. It’s really good and also follows a young, snarky girl with a deadbeat father, an absent mother, and a strange bipedal cat. Maybe go see Pom Poko and Princess Kaguya in theaters next week, too. Show the non-Miyazaki Ghibli films the love and respect they deserve.)
