Studio Ghibli: A Retrospective, Part Seven - Only Yesterday

I think Only Yesterday will always stand as the unappreciated gem of the Ghibli back-catalogue. It had a positive reception upon release in Japan in 1993 and was a financial hit. Yet for years it was rarely seen outside of Japan. UK viewers were lucky enough to get a subtitled version released several years ago through an Optimum Film distribution loop-hole. The U.S., on the other hand, only got a cinemas and home video release in 2016, where it finally received its first-English language dub. Despite its relative obscurity, it has gained a reputation as being the 'boring' Ghibli film - the melodramatic one, the more adult orientated art-house indie one. I admit that it might not be for all audiences and it may indeed bore younger children or those more prone to the faster paced anime. Whilst understandable, Only Yesterday is actually, in my opinion, one of the most subtle and quietly ground-breaking in the whole Ghibli canon. It's also probably Takahata's second best film (or third, depending on how I feel upon re-watching Kaguya) after the mighty Grave of the Fireflies. It's certainly more watchable!

Set in 1982, Only Yesterday follows 27 year old Taeko, an office worker living in Tokyo. Something of a misfit in the big city, she is receiving increasing pressure from her family to settle down. Taeko decides to get it away from it all by spending her vacation time visiting a family in the country and helping them on their farm by harvesting safflower. On the sleeper train out, she starts to reminiscence about her at 10-years old and remembers her desire to go on holiday, which ends up sparking a whole flurry of emotions and memories. The film intercuts between Taeko at 27, working on the farm and forming a relationship with a farmhand named Toshio, and her at age 10 growing up in 1966.

Taeko, stuck in an office job in the middle of modern Tokyo, decides to break away from it all and holiday by helping out on a farm in the middle of the Japanese countryside

Takahata's reportedly had a difficult time cracking the script and structure on this film. Only Yesterday is actually based on a manga series, which is very episodic in structure and only concentrates on the 1960s sections. While Takahata would return to make a more 'episodic-style' film a few years later with My Neighbours The Yamadas, his solution with Only Yesterday is fairly inspired. The framing device of Taeko looking back at her childhood whilst working on a farm is actually an invention of the film. At key and appropriate times in the framing narrative, we cut to a scene of her as a child, reliving whatever recollection she is having. Sometimes it can be something as simple as a phrase or a person or a smell that sparks her memories. They're only very small things that set her off remembering and, yeah, this really is the way we recall memories, even things we have previously forgotten about. 

The production choices of Only Yesterday are fascinating. In a radical move for anime production, the actors for the adult sections were recorded first before animation was completed. The animators in turn would base their work on the actor's actual performances. The vast majority of the time with anime, the animation is completed first, with the actors coming in later to complete the vocal tracks. The animators paid close attention to the way the actors spoke their dialogue. This had a massive influence on giving the adult sections of the film a very distinctive style. The subtle facial features and expressions give way to a more realistic style. I think this is the only anime film I can think of where the cheek bones of the characters are visible! 

Is Taeko the only anime character in history with distinctive cheek bones?

There is something of a question mark hanging around whether this needs to be presented in animation. I think it works as the two storylines work in conjunction with each other. Contrast the 'adult' scenes with the childhood sections, which are definitely more traditionally 'anime' in style. These sections were animated in a more traditional way, with exaggerated expressions, a brighter colour scheme for the characters and washed out, almost watercolored, backgrounds. Plus all the animation was competed before the voice actors recorded their lines. This gives a great sense of nostalgia, as if evoking a memory. Combine this with the interspersed fantasy sequences, the film evokes the strong emotions one feels as a child. There are simply loads to pick from as examples. Taeko's extremely red face when she is suffering from a cold. Or the visual embarrassment she feels when the girls in the school learn about puberty and periods. The most over-the-top is her first romantic encounter with a boy. See, some graffiti has been scrolled on the side of the school, which essentially translates to "Taeko likes so-and-so" (think of it as the Japanese equivalent of craving a couple's initials on a tree in the centre of a love heart). Taeko and the boy have an awkward encounter to fumble their way through their emotions but end on a good note.  Taeko turns around and literally starts to walk on air, high on successfully navigating her first romantic encounter. All the scenes dealing with her childhood are an absolute treat and help us to understand the woman Taeko has grown up to become. So on the one hand, you have a realistically animated section that deals with real 'grown-up' issues and another part that is more bright and exaggerated. This helps to emphasise the difference the past and the present. 

Note the incredibly washed out, water-colour style backgrounds to evoke a distant memory

An example of the exaggerated anime style to convey strong emotions, as Taeko dreams of becoming an actor

Taeko high on navigating her way through her first romantic encounter

All that said, I do love how the film shows childhood is not as necessarily ideallic or 'film-like' as one remembers. It's part of why I don't like A Christmas Story (sorry to my American readers, I know this is a holiday classic - I just can't stand it) - childhood is played out like a rosy Clinton's card in that film where only the broadest moments are remembered. I think it's too easy to paint childhood with rose tinted glasses. Only Yesterday does to some degree but only does it where appropriate. If it's a fond memory, then everything does feel exaggerated. However, Only Yesterday does show that this relatively brief period of time is a bit more complex than just "happy memories'. A great example of this is where her father buys a pineapple, a very rare fruit in 1960s Japan. It's a fairly mundane scene - the family is trying a food they have never tasted before but it succeeds because these are the kind of memories you oddly hold onto and can be triggered by a taste or a smell. So, everyone gathers round excitedly to try it for the first time. Taeko is especially excited. However, they have a problem. No one knows how to cut it properly. So it sits on the shelf for a week, Taeko completely deflated of her excitement. However, one of her sister's friends explains how one cuts up a pineapple. The whole family sit down to enjoy the prized fruit but everyone is put off by its rich, acidic taste after one bite. Yet, despite clearly not enjoying it, Taeko keeps forcing it down her - after all, she has waited a week to try this and she is going to convince herself she likes it! So right there you have excitement, boredom and disappointment. It's a not ground shattering character moment - just a cute little anecdote about trying pineapple for the first time that perfectly shows the film's approach to engaging with childhood moments. 

Add captionFrom pie-making to pineapple tasting, Ghibli really knows how to turn mundane scenes in something far more

For a film made by a man, Only Yesterday is actually fairly open, honest and tender about female puberty ... I imagine Takahata had to get some fairly informed sources on this!

Only Yesterday also grapples with the many negative emotions being a child. My favourite scene in the whole film just sums up what it's like being a kid. Taeko and her family are going out for a meal. Her older sister has a fancy new bag and Taeko clearly wants a new one as well. However, she gets stuck with one of her sister's hand me downs. She makes it perfectly clear she doesn't want the bag and by extension won't go to the meal unless she gets a new bag. And her parents are like "fine, stay home then". But now she definitely won't get the new bag and is being left out of the family meal! So she ends up getting very emotional and starts to cry. Young kid doesn't get his or her way - kid gets upset. Despite this being a common truth about children, it's rarely represented on film and with such attention to detail. The scene highlights what a master Takahata is when it comes to animating body language. This scene is just one of the examples where I think the film greatly succeeds at conveying the full range of emotions of being a child; sometimes they're not always positive emotions. Films rarely portray children in this way. 

It's also great at hinting at the family's wider issues. Again, as a child you're never 100% aware of problems that might be occurring, as you're in your own little world. Only Yesterday perfectly conveys this. She has a fairly depressive, patriarchal father, who has a heavy influence over the whole family. In one fell swoop, he actively stops her from taking part in a university-produced play, despite her clear enthusiasm. Add to this, he has a domineering presence over the other women in the house hold. It's clear who wears the shoes in the house. At one point, he takes things too far and actually hits Taeko. My reasoning for the father being so cold and detached is that he grew up World War Two - in fact he was probably Grave of the Fireflies' Seita's age at the height of it all. His cold, traditional, firm look on the world likely comes from growing up in this traumatic time. This may well have been part of Taeko deciding, as an adult, to break out and do something she wants to do after living a repressive household. This is just hinted at though and I may well be reading into it too much but it makes sense. I think in part, the film's deeper layer is a desire to understand and compartmentalise the past, both the good and the bad - however this is impossible, as it's not just our experiences but it's all people's experiences that help to form who we are. Add in the layer of how Japan's complex past directly influenced Taeko's childhood leading into adulthood, you have formed a running theme of how collective experience of how powers out of your control directly influence your life and its course. Taeko's father presumably became traumatised and withdrawn after the war, became emotionally stunted but wanted to run a traditional family household. In turn, Taeko's father didn't encourage her to go into acting (a seemingly silly past time, from his point of view), which may well have been a stepping stone to something else. Instead, she grows up to live in the expected way for a responsible adult, which just adds to her wanting to escape it all. It's just our past that influences who we are - it's everyone's. 

He's not in it much but Taeko's father exerts a massive influence over her life and its course

Despite all my gushing about the wonderful childhood scenes, it would be easy to write off the adult scenes as simply the framing device - something to hang all the anecdotes on. However, this is simply not the case with Only Yesterday. While the childhood scenes are certainly the highlight of the earlier portion of the film, a lot of time is spent in the second half exploring where Taeko is at. In fact, a lot of her remembering past events gets stripped away, so we are just focusing on who she is now and where she is going. We see her grow closer to Toshio, as the two share some fairly cute conversations, and a younger girl, who she begins to grow an almost sisterly bond with. There is a clear love and affection for the Japanese countryside. A truly beautiful scene is where the farmers and Taeko are working before day break to harvest the safflower and the sun slowly begins to rise over the valley. Toshio also explains to her that they only grow organic produce, a crazy concept back in the early 90s! I love Taeko's dated reaction to the process of growing 'organic' food. Now common place as part of mass-marketing, back in the early nineties it was only real farmers who wanted to follow this crazy, much harder, method of growing their crops. "Well, I grew organic food before it was cool" is basically Toshio's sentiment, I imagine.

It's hard work but Taeko gets something out of doing a hard's day graft on the farm

Things seem great until the eve of Taeko leaving, where the elderly Grandma asks if she likes Toshio and if she will marry him! It's intended to be loving and simple - she can clearly tell that Taeko loves living in the country and she enjoys spending time with Toshio. Why not get together! But Taeko is completely taken aback by this. Everything she tried to escape from comes into her ideallic holiday in the country. She even begins questioning her motivations for coming in the first place. So she takes a short drive to clear her mind and ends up bumping into Toshio. This leads into an incredibly effective scene where she is talking to Toshio about a boy in her class who she didn't treat right. He was scruffy, dirty and came from a poor background and Taeko always struggled to communicate with him. In an odd move that breaks the formula of the film (in a good way), Taeko relays the story to Toshio verbally. We don't have a flashback scene to illustrate this. The deep regret on her face on how she handled the situation is probably more powerful than any kind of flashback scene could arguably communicate. It's almost as if it's something she'd rather forget, a memory she has long repressed. The only visual we have is of Taeko seeing 'spirit' of him as she is running away from the farm in the pouring rain.

Taeko with her adoptive country family

Taeko comes to the end of her time on farm and must return to her life in Tokyo. She has seemingly not made her decision on how she feels about Toshio. I love her stunted goodbye as she gets on the train. With only a few moments left before the train leaves, she begins to offer loving words to the girl she has formed an almost sisterly relationship with and begins a goodbye to Toshio. However, a very late old man interrupts them and forces his way past them. By the time they have gotten over this interruption, the train starts pulling away. It almost feels like unfinished business for Taeko. Then the credit begin to roll! What? But ... but ... what happens to Taeko? Fortunately, the credits begin to play over fully animated scenes that continues to follow Taeko. With no dialogue and the bittersweet song The Rose playing, we visually see Taeko mulling things over in her head. Suddenly, her younger self is literally beside her, beckoning her to go back, as if her memories have become flesh and are informing her decisions today. Then the rest of the children from her class appear and help her to change trains at the next station, so she can go back to  the village. It's a crazy, beautiful and metaphorical moment, where Taeko decides to seize the day for really the first time in her life. She has made a choice to better herself and was helped literally by her 10-year old self. Reunited with Toshio, the two walking together lovingly, as the children re-create the graffiti on the wall earlier in the film. And ... yeah, I got a bit emotional on this viewing. The ending helps to reinforce the film's ultimate theme. Taeko's past literally enters her life to help reinforce her choices in the present. On a visual level, this is the first time the film has fused the more realistic animation style with the more exaggerated anime character models. Our past experiences help to inform who we are in the present.

Taeko literally changes the course of her life in the ending

I can't find a picture on the internet of the original graffiti on the wall ... but, drawing upon an example I used earlier, this is like if you visually recreated of a wood craved love heart with people's initials in it, only the actual people replace the initials...

Overall, Only Yesterday is an incredibly sweet and effective coming of age story with a very unique structure. The film is a perfect example of what distinguishes Takahata from Miyazaki, with an emphasis on animating subtle body language and a deeper metaphorical layer of dealing with Japan's complex past. I don't think this is for everyone. I can't really see children getting a lot out of it and if you prefer the more fantasy side of Ghibli, then Only Yesterday is probably not for you. However, if you're willing to engage with a slower paced, more introspective anime film, then Only Yesterday casts a great spell.

So, I have not seen the relatively new English dub of Only Yesterday. I might be wrong but I don't think the English dub is available in the UK. We got the Japanese subtitled version through Optimum several years ago and that seems to be our lot. Daisy Ridley plays adult Taeko and Dev Patel plays Toshio. The consensus seems to be that Ridley is great in the role, while Patel .. is not so much. I have heard that to get across the 'countryside' accent, Patel speaks in a broad London accent, which is just bizarre sounding to me. Admittedly, it would be hard to accurately represent that Taeko speaks with a Tokyo accent and that Toshio speaks with a more Japanese countryside accent in an English dub, but surely there must have been a smarter, more organic way?