Mirai

Mamoru Hosoda's fifth animated feature, Mirai, may seem a bit more small scale compared to his earlier movies such as The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, Summer Wars, and Wolf Children, but it's no less mesmerizing. To anyone unfamiliar with these aforementioned films, I do recommend them highly -- they're all magnificent movies, almost the equivalent of Hayao Miyazaki's work. Mirai isn't quite that, but it's the next best thing.

The film tells the story of a pampered little boy named Kun, used to his parents catering to him all the time. So much so that when he gets a new sister, Mirai (which means "future"), his parents start neglecting him, and of course, he gets jealous. He behaves like any kid in his situation would. He throws tantrums, he bawls, he says nasty things, and at one point, even throws one of his toy trains at his sister. "Your attitude stinks," says another character in the film, quite accurately.

At the peak of every outburst he flees into the garden where a tree is growing, at which point the scene changes to a different location where he meets members of his family when they were younger -- including the pet dog(!), as well as, most mysterious of all, his new sister as a teenager. These close encounters send Kun on flashback journeys where he must learn to be more appreciative and caring and stop acting like a spoiled brat. (In a way, this is sort of like "A Christmas Carol" for 4 year olds, but not feeling "dumbed down" in the least.)

Hosoda handles this story with just the right touch of tangibleness as well as his occasional trademark moments of surrealism. However badly Kun behaves, he remains a very relatable character throughout -- in fact this might be the most realistic portrayal of any such boy I've ever seen in any animated feature. And of course, the animation, as mentioned, is nothing short of gorgeous, complete with a mix of CGI and hand-painted backgrounds -- a rarity in animated films these days... even in Japan. (Hosoda laments how rare this style of background art is becoming and is quite vocal for its support, and rightly so.)

MIRAI is also a surprisingly funny film -- one scene in which Kun and two new friends of his have to put away some dolls without Dad in the room suspecting in particular is hilarious. There's even a brief episode in which Kun tries to ride a bike for the first time -- without training wheels! The results go as well as you'd expect, resulting in yet another outburst as well as a visitation, after which he gets a second chance. There's even a frightening climax at a train station, although I dare not reveal more about it at the risk of spoiling the story.

If you're a fan of Japanese animated features and Hosoda's work in general, Mirai should be a great one to check out. It's accessible to children and adults, and easily superior to many other Western animated features released in 2018, notably the over-bloated Ralph Breaks The Internet. It deserved its Oscar nomination.

Adding to an already great movie is an even better dub provided by the folks at NYAV Post, with top notch directing by the always reliable Mike Sinterniklaas and script adaptation by the similarly talented Stephanie Sheh. This dub, like the similarly grand Disney-Gkids-Ghibli dubs, features a cast of noteworthy names such as John Cho, Rebecca Davis, and Daniel Day Kim. Surprisingly, too, Crispin Freeman -- yes, that Crispin Freeman(!) -- has a brief cameo, and it's always a pleasure to hear him. The real triumph of the dub is, as per usual in a NYAV Post, the casting of the kids. Young Jaden Waldman does an absolutely excellent job at rendering Kun, effectively conveying his mood swings and giving him a lot of appeal in spite of this character's sometimes unlikable personality. (Only issue is that he screams a bit too much, but on the other hand, it makes sense considering the circumstances.) I've always appreciated hearing children voice children -- as evidenced in my praise of the dub for "Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water", and it's a pleasure to see that there are dubs doing this practice today, Mirai being one of them. The lipsync is also spot on with well timed and written dialogue -- a difficult task for any scriptwriter, but it's done well here.

Mirai marks yet another glorious achievement for Hosoda, all the more so because he bases it on a personal story. It's often been said that some of the more inspiring features sing best when the writers write from their own experiences. This is no exception. I look forward to seeing what this director does next.