Miraï, ma petite soeur

Mirai is the story of Kun, the eldest child of a pair of young professionals. He, at the start of the movie, ends up becoming a big brother. The new addition to the household of course creates some new tensions, and the way Kun ends up dealing with the divided attention of his parents is by travelling through time to meet his family members in different points in time. Like you do.

Mamoru Hosoda, the director, is a real up-and-coming name in the anime industry, with some true gems under his name. Wolf Children and Summer Wars to name a few. His second to last film, The Boy and the Beast, did not impress me all that much, but fortunately Mirai is a slight uptick from that. And I've always liked his animation style, and I still do. The almost too simplistic character designs set against elaborate backgrounds are a joy to watch and there's a really great sense of movement in everything he does.

I like the idea of Mirai, on paper. A young boy, settled with new responsibilities, turns to make-belief and fantasy in order to grow as a human being and as a big brother. Unfortunately the focus of the film is on his temper tantrums and his difficulties in accepting that he is not the sole focus of his parents' love. The problem with that being that almost the entirety of the film is him acting like a total brat. And it's hard to get behind a character like that. This film sorely needs a bit more sugar to make the medicine go down, if you know what I mean.

I would also have liked for the movie to confirm that he is in fact imagining all these things. Now it's a weird "is it or is it not" that pleases no one.

Then again, some of the individual segments are really great. I especially liked the bit about his great-grandfather with its post-war aesthetics and its focus on looking ahead and not giving up no matter what the circumstances.

Is it the best movie Mamoru Hosoda has ever done? No, not by a long shot, but it's still a very well animated movie with some truly inspired pieces. The main character is a bit hard to swallow, but then again he's a four-year-old boy. None of them are angels to begin with.

Mirai tells the story of Kun, the first child of a young married couple who lives in Japan. Kun gets all the love from his parents until one day, they return home with their newborn daughter. Not getting the same attention as he used to, Kun becomes jealous with her sister and starts doing naughty things just to get his parents to notice him. However, they are so busy with work and the new baby that Kun feels like he was abandoned. Until one day, he finds his dog turned into a grown-up man and is greeted by none other than his sister, Mirai, who comes from the future and is now a teenage girl. From that day on, Kun experiences different events that happen both in the future and the past and are some how related to his family from generation to generation. Kun is the main character of the movie and director Mamoru Hosoda has shown that he understands children really well through the emotions and the mind, specifically the imagination of Kun. The movie is simply the story of a family's daily life that is told through the eyes of a 4 years old child and the process of how that child can become a loving son and a loving brother. The narrative of the movie is just like the way Mirai Mirai (Mirai is the name of his sister which means future in Japanese) told his brother about how their family came to be through those little things that happen every day in our lives. Mirai is a film that shows you how wonderful a child can be, and although Kun is very jealous with his newborn sister, deep down inside he loves her very much.

Director Mamoru Hosoda is up there as one of the brightest talents in modern anime, having brought us gems like Summer Wars, Wolf Children and The Girl Who Leapt Through Time. For me, Mirai unfortunately isn't his greatest work, largely due to poor pacing throughout the first two acts, as well as the seeming lack of depth and introspection compared with his other films, which proves extremely frustrating up until the excellent final act, which eventually helps Mirai come good.

Before we get into that, however, I will say that Mirai is a fairly enjoyable film right the way through. Far more family-friendly than Hosoda's previous works, it has the quirky charm of some of the lightest Ghibli movies, and with that effortlessly beautiful animation throughout, it's hard not to find yourself smiling from time to time.

With a young boy as the film's main character, I'm sure that younger viewers will have a wonderful time with Mirai, as a lot of its central themes focus on those that those even as young as four or five years old can relate to, as we see Kun, the young boy, find himself frustrated and jealous as his parents turn their attention to his newborn baby sister.

It's a pleasant story throughout, and unless you're averse to hearing children screaming (because there is quite a lot of that here), it keeps you engaged and entertained right the way through. However, in comparison to Hosoda's previous works, there's nowhere near as much depth of emotion in Mirai, and its central themes come off as a little simplistic, which can be disappointing if you're expecting something a little bit more captivating.

Certainly, we've all been through that feeling of jealousy much like young Kun, but for older viewers, it's a theme that's a little too far back and simplistic to really provide a deep emotional impact. Of course, it's an enjoyable story nonetheless, but over the course of the film's first two acts, I found myself rather underwhelmed that the plot wasn't going anywhere beyond that simple line of focus.

What's more is that those first two acts move at a painfully jittery pace, as we flip between the present, and Kun's various adventures to eras past and future as he visits his relatives through time. In all truth, Mirai doesn't do a good enough job at tying those two parts of the story together, and although there are clear emotional parallels between the past, present and future, the way that the film transitions between those two main parts of the story is rather jagged and abrupt, which proves hugely frustrating as you look for some sort of flow in the film.

Fortunately, while I can't say I was all too impressed by the first two acts, the film's final vignette proves a stunning conclusion, finally bringing about the depth of emotion and sense of wonderment that everything before was so disappointingly lacking in.

For one, seeing a young boy effectively travelling through time should inspire an incredible sense of wonderment and awe, yet the first two acts seem strangely normal in their presentation of this. However, in that final act, we see Kun transported to a world filled with bizarre and dazzling things, and as he becomes more and more aware of his situation, the gravity and emotion of what he's going through finally hits home for you too.

As I said earlier, the film's central theme is a little simplistic compared to what Hosoda has brought in the past, however, come the finale, he finally crafts a scenario that allows the raw emotion and drama of what the story is about, and with an equal improvement in the screenplay's depth, Mirai comes to a stunning and moving conclusion.

Overall, then, I found Mirai a little bit of a mixed bag. Starting off in rather underwhelming fashion with a jittery and underwhelming first two acts, it does eventually come good with an exceptional finale that finally brings about some strong emotion and drama. It is still a pleasant and enjoyable film throughout, and it's undoubtedly more family-friendly than any of Hosoda's other films, so while it's not perfect, it's definitely still worth the watch.

This film tells the story of a young child who experiences sibling rivalry, after the arrival of his little baby sister.

The emotions of all family members, especially the child's, are conveyed effectively. The Oriental concept of family is presented without being too preachy or suffocating. I enjoyed it.

After the mediocre mistep of The Boy and the Beast, the brilliant Mamoru Hosoda returns reasonably to form with Mirai.

While Hosoda's previous movies all fell solidly in the fantasy genre, this one is somewhat different. The fantastical elements are all in a young boy's mind, and the movie charts the way he processes the real world through wildly imaginative interludes.

Episodic and slight, Hosoda hasn't quite reached the heights of Wolf Children or Summer Wars, but he has made an absolutely lovely, beautifully animated, funny and touching movie.