Okko's Inn

I really love to watch anime movies like this, it moves your heart and soul, so much that it leaves you happy and relieved or relaxed at the end.

A lonely female child going to a small town and becoming part of the local culture and growing while being supported by supernatural friends is already a formula, one that has served Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli well. If you like this kind of thing, you will like Okko's Inn.

The problem, though, is that events don't naturally flow from one to another. It's a cute girl going through processing of personal drama, but her behavior is almost robotic. And I don't mean STTNG's "Hero Worship" type of thing, it's just that she goes through all of the actions required by the script without any internal conflict. She starts off afraid of countryside insects, but accepts ghosts immediately, for example. Maybe it was an editing problem, but I doubt it.

In order for a story to hit, things need to happen for a reason that is clear to the audience and slightly forcing to the characters. A person who just does what she was supposed to do and then the movie ends doesn't really fall into that.

Bottom line: really cute, satisfactory, but totally predictable and derivative.

Watched this with my family, this is such a beautiful movie. Beautiful in both animation and plot. This movie was amazing! My family and I cried while watching this movie.

A beautiful film, ideal to teach a child what death is.

Okko survives the car crash that kills her parents. She goes to live with her grandmother, who runs an old-line hot springs inn. The ghost of a young boy persuades Okko to become the "junior innkeeper". Between the flashbacks, the ghosts only she sees, and the mean girl in school, can she find peace?

This animated film by Kitarô Kôsaka is not just Japanese; it is VERY Japanese, with is old-fashioned virtues of service to others, tradition, and to a westerner, exaggerated fear of losing face. Like all good fantasies, it has a strong symbolic message to support the surface plot. Then visual style combines full animation of simple yet effective character design with lush, almost candybox background work.