March 2, 2023
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By Andrew Osmond.
Over The Sky, a cinema fantasy journey, is a detailed relative to Keiichi Hara’s 2019 movie Birthday Wonderand. They’re each family-friendly anime, with out violence or vulgarity, although Over the Sky has threats and even anguish in its closing stretch.
They’re each movies about teenage women getting into fantasy otherworlds that do not use, and even acknowledge, the tropes of so-called “isekai” anime. By “isekai,” I imply the slew of “going to different worlds” anime for the reason that 2010s that refer extensively to videogames, otaku tradition, and one another. As a substitute, the movies draw on older sorts of fantasy.
Over the Sky feels very near Spirited Away at some factors, and likewise to ancestors like Wizard of Oz (particularly the movie musical). Considerably, the heroines in Oz, Birthday Wonderland and Over the Sky all wish to get residence once more, which isn’t the case with many isekai leads. I discuss extra about older fantasy’s affect on anime right here, and Jeanette Ng dives deeper into the problems right here.
Over the Sky’s heroine is Mio, a teenage woman. Like Chihiro in Spirited and Akane in Birthday Wonderland, she appears listless and unmotivated. Within the opening moments, we see Mio drop out of sports activities coaching in class. Even when her good friend Arata encourages her to return and end, she says there’s no level. Arata, by the way, has been her male good friend since childhood, and it’s clear adolescence has began to complicate the children’ emotions about one another. Whereas the movie is usually Mio’s story, Arata performs a big position; certainly, there might have been an entire different movie from his perspective.
There’s a classroom scene, after one thing vital has occurred, after we hear a trainer declaim a poem about the way it feels so snug in spring that you simply oversleep. Or to be precise, “In spring slumber, I’m unaware of dawn” As Jonathan Clements factors out throughout his interview with the director Yoshinobu Sena at Scotland Loves Anime, the poem is Chinese language, by Meng Haoran from the Tang Dynasty. Sena defined that for him, it fitted Mio’s scenario. Though she’s within the spring of her life, a time when pop-culture (together with a lot anime) insists somebody of her age needs to be out on adventures, Mio would moderately sleep it away.
Constructing on this level, you would make a hyperlink with probably the greatest jokes in Mamoru Hosoda’s movie, The Lady Who Leapt By means of Time. That movie’s heroine has simply began to “leap” in time. In panic, she consults her clever aunt, who cheerfully tells her that high-school women do it on a regular basis. In spite of everything, how typically did she herself sleep late in mattress as a teen, considering she didn’t wish to do something… after which swiftly, she was questioning the place the beautiful free day had gone?
Following custom, Mio in Over the Sky should be kicked out of her ennui by going to a magical place. Somewhat extra unusually, the magic world the place she finally ends up is an alternate model of her on a regular basis neighbourhood. It’s Ikebukuro, a district in central Tokyo, however a lot emptier. There are numerous magic figures to find, each pleasant and menacing. One factor to note: when Mio reaches the “alternate” Ikebukuro, all of the background “surroundings” sounds are performed backwards.
Overseas viewers will know Ikebukuro from the Durarara!! saga (though as this weblog famous, the actual place is ridiculously protected compared). The movie options the Toden Arakawa tram (not prepare) line that runs by way of the realm; Mio and her mates use it for his or her every day commute. There are additionally glimpses of Ikebukuro’s signature owl statues; the Seibu retailer rooftop backyard; and the favored “Sunshine Metropolis” rooftop aquarium. Right here, penguins appear to fly by way of the sky, establishing a fantastical payoff later within the movie. (The identical aquarium figures closely within the Penguindrum sequence by Kunihiko Ikuhara).
The thought of utilizing a “actual” city setting because the background to an otherworld fantasy isn’t so widespread in Western media. A classic instance, although, is the movie The Wiz (1978), an all-black remodeling of The Wizard of Oz the place Diana Ross’s Dorothy finds herself in a fantasy New York. In Japan, the concept’s typically related to fight loss of life video games – it’s a staple of the Persona franchise, whereas each Gantz and the latest Alice in Borderland transport characters to “shadow” variations of Tokyo, stuffed with murderers and monsters. There’s additionally the nightmarish climax to Mamoru Hosoda’s Mirai, whose toddler hero is misplaced in a giant-sized model of Tokyo’s already huge stations, with dragon trains and alien adults.
As famous, Over the Sky additionally will get intense in its final act, as Mio realises there could also be no method residence for her in any respect, and the reason being unspeakable. (Plainly she by no means learn Kenji Miyazawa’s Evening on the Galactic Railroad.) However all shouldn’t be misplaced, because of her allies on this fantasy Tokyo. There’s Kiku-chan, a younger lady who remembers Mio from someplace, as Mio does her. She’s voiced in Japanese by the prolific Saori Hayami, who was Shoko in A Silent Voice and Saki in Eden of the East.
Then there’s Gimon, who appears to be like like an enormous furry plush toy and who truly is an opulent toy in Mio’s world, in addition to a cartoon image on the LINE messages that she sends on her telephone. He, or they, amusingly has two Japanese voices – an “outdated man” voice supplied by Koichi “Spike Spiegel” Yamadera, and a girly voice from Ikue Otani, who’s Pikachu in Pokemon and Chopper in One Piece.
Andrew Osmond is the writer of 100 Animated Characteristic Movies. Over the Sky is obtainable to preorder within the UK from Anime Restricted.
