In This Cor­ner of the World

Sunao Katabuchi, who ear­ly in his career served as Assis­tant Direc­tor on Hayao Miyazaki’s Kiki’s Deliv­ery Ser­vice, funds him­self stand­ing on the toes of his for­mer Stu­dio Ghi­b­li men­tors in this crowd-pleas­ing, and crowd-fund­ed, World War Two melo­dra­ma. Adapt­ed from the man­ga by writer-artist Fumiyo Kōno, In This Cor­ner of the World begins in 1933, and fol­lows the life of a young woman called Suzu as she grows up in rur­al Hiroshi­ma, moves to Kure to mar­ry a navy clerk, and con­tem­plates return­ing home – all the while liv­ing under the shad­ow of what could be called Chekhov’s A‑bomb.

With its painter­ly wash­es of water­colour, the film recalls Ghi­b­li co-founder Isao Takahata’s The Tale of the Princess Kaguya, although with stronger, more defined linework and a draughtsman’s eye for archi­tec­ture. Like­wise, Katabuchi can’t shake the com­par­i­son to the old­er animator’s indis­putable mas­ter­piece, Grave of the Fire­flies, which adopt­ed a sim­i­lar strat­e­gy of restag­ing the clos­ing days of the war from the point of view of inno­cent Japan­ese cit­i­zens. Only replace Fire­flies’ pair of orphaned sib­lings with our unfor­tu­nate pro­tag­o­nist, and swap out Takahata’s har­row­ing, fierce­ly unsen­ti­men­tal per­spec­tive for some­thing a lit­tle more bittersweet.

Katabuchi pep­pers his film with nos­tal­gic details, from Suzu’s youth­ful activ­i­ties, pick­ing pine nee­dles in the for­est near her home, to the war work tak­en up by Japan­ese women in the ear­ly 1940s, dish­ing out rations to local fam­i­lies and mak­ing the most of the lim­it­ed food sup­plies with cre­ative cook­ing. Suzu is our naïve every­woman, forced into an arranged mar­riage and pre­vent­ed by class and cir­cum­stance from answer­ing her true call­ing as an artist. The film’s most tran­scen­dent sequences see Suzu’s artis­tic vision invade the frame – shots of anti-air­craft re in a bomb­ing raid trans­form into star­bursts of colour, as she mus­es, in the midst of the direst per­il, ​“I wish I had some paint…”

There’s a trag­ic under­cur­rent here, as Suzu finds her­self strand­ed in a milieu and a role for which she is ill-fit­ted: her cook­ing is an acquired taste, her house­work isn’t quite up to snuff and her snob­by sis­ter-in-law is nev­er far from offer­ing a with­er­ing cri­tique. In a strange move, Katabuchi and his co-screen­writer Chie Uratani – anoth­er Ghi­b­li alum – dou­ble down on Suzu’s ditzy, absent-mind­ed flaws, craft­ing her into some­thing of an ani­mat­ed punch­ing bag, her head con­stant­ly cocked in befud­dled humil­i­a­tion as she fails to sat­is­fy yet anoth­er quirk of social eti­quette. As the war draws on, and real tragedy and per­son­al injury join the clum­sy gaffes, you start to won­der: how much pun­ish­ment should be dealt out to a pro­tag­o­nist in the ser­vice of dra­ma? A great deal, it seems.

In This Cor­ner of the World recent­ly beat box office smash Your Name and fan favourite A Silent Voice to take home 2017’s Japan­ese Acad­e­my Award for Ani­ma­tion of the Year. This more sen­ti­men­tal take on the war is cer­tain­ly at odds with the night­mar­ish visions found in Grave of the Fire­flies and 1983’s Bare­foot Gen, the twin peaks of this small cor­ner of the ani­mé world. We’ll see if its rep­u­ta­tion endures.