My Neighbors the Yamadas (1999)

Starts out bad, but gets great.

The first 20 some odd minutes of this movie is a boring half-funny Home Alone clone, but later on when the stories are shorter and move at a faster pace, things get good and downright hilarious. I didn't care for the animation at first either, but when I realized the movie actually plays out like many newspaper style comic strips, I realized it works perfectly. August 17, 2008

What's life with out a bit of humor? (Volume 1: Part 12)

As Ghibli rolls on becoming one of the biggest hits overseas after 'Princess Mononoke' it was time for something completly different. Isao Takahata takes the wheel with 'My Neighbors The Yamadas'. It's a simple story of your average family in peaceful suburbia. Takashi and Matsuko are a quirky couple trying to provide as best they can for their loathing teenaged son Nauboro their innocent daughter Nonoko and their slick mother living with them. They go through a series of events such as losing a family memeber at the mall to fighting over the remote control. Through all the arguements, and fast paced days this nutty family always manages to stay together not wanting to get at each others' throats.

Isao Takahata is known for his realism in his directorial role, but this time he gets as real as it can possibly get. Though the animation is extremly cartoony and these characters have crazy imiginations, this film is all about the little moments that make up average family life. As you watch it you will pick out moments that you can sware happened in your neighbors or your friends or even your very own family! The english voices were perfect for each character. Jim Belushi and Molly Shannon are fantastic in the roles and they have such strong if not loopy chemistry in each scene they share. 'The Yamadas can be compared to the famous sitcom families with the events that take place and the antics involved. The movie is a bit slow, but the content really keeps you in your seat waiting to see what crazy adventure is next! It is also a landmark film for Takahata because he defineltly beleives life is not as fun without the laughs and this film keeps you smiling from begining to end. June 27, 2008

Noodles Yesterday, Noodles Today, Noodles Tomorrow

Generally, when one hears the named of the famous Japanese animation studio Studio Ghibli the first name that comes to mind is that of the brilliant animator/director Miyazaki Hayao who has given the world of animation such wonderful films as Kiki's Delivery Service, Princess Mononoke, and Spirited Away amongst many others. His fame is so widespread in fact that films that are not his, Grave of the Fireflies, often fall under his canopy of greatness. However, Grave of the Fireflies, Pom Poko, Only Yesterday, and other works are in fact the works of Miyazaki's partner Takahata Isao with My Neighbors the Yamadas being the most recent of Takahata's four decades of work in animation.

Based on a manga by the longtime comic artist Ishii Hisaichi, My Neighbors the Yamadas centers on the lives of the Yamada family, a not so average Japanese family who are trying to get through life in this most of the time mundane, but sometimes crazy world, but with limited amounts of success. The family consists of a father, Takashi, an overweight, chain-smoking salaryman with a heart of gold who goes out of his way to try to bring his family closer together, a mother, Matsuko, an overweight, absent-minded woman who tries to keep order in her household while predominantly feeding her family curry and noodles, a son, Noboru, a myopic, overweight high school student who suffers from being in a household with three women and who has a taste for sake, a daughter, Nonoko, who is the star of the long running comic and is the sweetest member of the family, a grandmother, Shige, who is quite sprightly for her age of 70, and a dog, Pochi, who seems to be grumpy most of the time and afraid of snow.

My Neighbors the Yamadas is not a linear film, instead it is a series of vignettes stringed together based on the daily happenings of the Yamada family's life. This format makes the film seem a bit longer than its 104 minutes, but the shorts are well done and some will make the viewer laugh out loud, Takashi and his wife fighting over the television, and some are a bit bittersweet, Shige visiting a friend in the hospital. Also, the film, with no elements of fantasy or science fiction, is completely set in modern Japan with occasional bursts of energy, so younger children might be bored with this film and a number of Japanese cultural references, Momotaro, Tale of the Bamboo Cutter, might go over the head of the average viewer. However, if one wants a glimpse of modern Japan through animation, My Neighbors the Yamadas is a great film to do so. May 13, 2008

Ghibli's Newer Animation Style

Ghibli's 1999 animation work by Isao Takahata one of the founders of the animation giant introduces different animation style from the one previously held by Ghibli and pre-Ghibli works. Ghibli animation works(particularly of Hayao Miyazaki) are featured with vivid real scene structure but this one is roughly sketched animation. This gives collection of 4-panel cartoon series a new life by putting maximum use to the original cartoon style comics. The story is typical sazae-san style post-war Japanese home drama
having a salaried office worker as a father, a housewife as a mother, a junior high school student having trouble with his studies and a happy-go-lucky elementary school girl and a picky grandmother. It occasionally introduces old kids' heroes during 60s such as Masked Rider(not what we call Kamen Rider but a robe masked hero known as Gekko Kamen) just as Takahata did in Only Yesterday. It is entertaining but some scene needs a bit of understanding of modern Japanese culture.

Verdict: Nice animation experiment
Rating: 86 out of 100
Recommended for: Japanese cartoon comics fans. Fans of Japanese family dramas.




March 8, 2008

Not The Quality of Other Studio Ghibli Films

We were very excited to try this DVD. We love animation and cartoons, and I particularly am interested in Japanese culture, and we really love what Studio Ghibli puts out. However we were fairly disappointed in this DVD.

My Neighbors the Yamadas is a series of short stories about the Yamada family daily life. Some of the happenings were cute or somewhat funny, but my son (who watched it with me) and I agreed that most of it was boring. I did like the little bits of Basho's haiku that was included between clips, and some of the discussions of food and daily life was interesting. The drawing and artwork wasn't enticing nor most of the stories.

Nothing attention grabbing here. My son walked away part-way through and went back to his games, and I went back to work while we let the DVD play through to the end - it just couldn't hold our interest. Hmm...I'll definitely try more of their movies, but I'll read reviews here next time before picking up just anything. This studio's films tend to be pricey too, and never marked down, and it was a disappointing purchase.

To be fair, I will try and watch it again. I think if I watched it having no expectations, I might like it a little better. January 24, 2008

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