Only Yesterday review - Animage - January 1991
Only Yesterday review - Animage - January 1991
The following is reprinted from page 8 of the January 1991 (Vol. 5, #25) issue of THE ROSE, the bi-monthly fanzine of the Anime Hasshin anime club:
Omohide Poroporo
From Animage, January 1991
Translated by Kevin Leahy
Presenting in the summer of 1991 Studio Jiburi's newest production!
Hayao Miyazaki - producer, Isao Takahata - director. *Omoide Poroporo* (literally, "Remembering in Drops", unofficially titled in English "Only Yesterday").
A 27-year-old office lady sets out on a journey, and her companion is a remembrance of when she was 10 years old.
Roughly two years after the release of *Majo no Takyubin* (*Witch's Delivery Service*), Studio Jiburi's newest production - Omoide Poroporo - is set to be released to the public. In 1987 this production was published serially in "Shukan Myojo" (Monthly Morning Star) as a manga of the same name. The original creator, Hotaru Okamoto, wrote of her experiences as a young lady, and Yuko Tone drew the manga.
The stage was Showa 41 (1966), the year the Beatles came to Japan, and when weaved [sic] with the home and school experiences of the heroine - elementary school 5th grader Taeko Okajima - and described from the view-point of a 10-year old girl, the sympathy of a lot of readers is gained.
Isao Takahata is supervisor for the script writing. Since Hotaru no Haka (Grave of the Firefly), three years have been spent supervising production. In the anime, unlike the original work, Taeko appears grown to the age of 27 years and the reminiscences that form the original work are told paralleling Taeko's trip of self-discovery in modern times.
Showa 41 (1966) - Taeko Okajima, 10 years old, elementary school 5th grader.
The things I like: hamburgers, bananas, loose sushi, and the dandy from *Hyokkori Hyotan Island*.
The things I hate: horse radish, onions, fish salad, and math.
I recall... left-over school lunches, couldn't compute fractions, sour pineapple, scolded by Dad...
I recall... triumphant composition, the age of enlightenment, the school literary club, the first time I was depressed about boys...
The youngest of the three sisters, Taeko badly takes advantage of her situation and soon she is always being silenced by her older sisters. Her strong suit is Japanese, and her weak point is math. In class, it can't be said that she's overly conspicuous. Already the idols they like fill the conversations of the girls of the present class, and their fav-orite star is *Hyokkori Hyotan Island*'s dandy, they say, but it might be a little bit of a secret...
In short, this story's heroine, Taeko Okajima, is an ordinary girl like those anywhere else. The background era of Showa 41 (1966) and other things aside, the episodes of this production are the general experiences of childhood, crossing generations and the world, and something with which everyone can sympathize. If we can set our adult eyes back on them just a little, when we were children these were urgent matters. These events, for anyone who may not recall their time, are their own memories, too.