From Up on Poppy Hill, Gorō Miyazaki, Studio Ghibli

From Up on Poppy Hill is a Japanese animation directed by Gorō Miyazaki. It was written by Hayao Miyazaki and Keiko Niwa. It was released in 2011. The film is based on a manga of the same name illustrated by Chizuru Takahashi and written by Tetsurō Sayama. It is set in the port of Yokohama during the 1960s. Umi Matsuzaki is a high school student who has to look after her two sisters and is responsible around the house as her mother, a professor, is away studying in America and her father was a Captain who died in the Korean war. She meets Shun Kazama after he does a stunt for the newspaper he works on with the journalism club. She is unimpressed but meets him later as her younger sister Sora wants his autograph. A relationship develops between Umi and Shun as they work on the newspaper and work to save the school’s clubhouse that is due for demolition.

This is a touching and very human story. You can’t help feeling for Umi as she pulls up her signal flags in remembrance of her father. The music adds a twist of nostalgia into the mix. After getting over my initial, not another high school anime, I came away with a feeling of warmth for the animation.