My Neighbors the Yamadas

deserves more comments



yes yes yes

This one's maybe worth a watch if you want to see how different Isao Takahata can go from much of his other work (this is basically an elevated sitcom, with a vastly different approach to story and characterization than Only Yesterday, and tonally on another planet from Grave of the Fireflies and Tale of Princess Kaguya).

I enjoyed the opening 20 or so minutes, with the introduction of the characters and some delightful visuals to accompany a speech made at the Yamada parents' wedding. But after that the film becomes episodic, focused around different themes for each segment and often concluded with a haiku. A lot of these lean into sitcom style tropes (e.g., the lazy teenager, grumbly father coming back from work, etc.), that might be more up some people's alleys than others. These more sitcom-y moments feel very much a part of the decade that spawned Home Improvement and others in that vein, and they left me wanting more. There's a charm, delight, and beauty to all the haiku and how they play off of the preceding episode, as well as the family's togetherness besides the sitcom feel, but this all feels much more shallow than most of Takahata's work. The original run of King of the Hill does much better with a similar blending of comedy and family.

The animation style is probably what makes it most worth watching. Takahata is consistently impressive with his ability to make his artwork personal and expressive. The style here supports the comedic leaning of the film, but even then its style can shift, like in one episode where the father goes to confront some young "punks" down at the park making a lot of noise. As he walks down the street, we lose the cartoony feel and go for realism, highlighting a sudden feeling of danger.

I'm not sure even that makes this a recommendation from me. Only Yesterday and Grave of the Fireflies shine all the greater in comparison and it'd be far better to start with either of those if you want to explore Takahta's work more deeply.

Masked/Moonlight rider ❎
Moon Knight ✅

I liked the watercolor aesthetic but the lack of a full plot made me lost sometimes.