Goro Miyazaki‘s From Up on Poppy Hill (Kokuriko-Zaka Kara) was the top-grossing animated film in Japan in 2011 (outdrawing two Pokémon movies), and won the Japanese Academy Award for Best Animated Feature. The story unfolds in Yokohama during preparations for the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. Each morning as she prepares for school, industrious Umi Matsuzaki flies signal flags from her family’s boarding house in memory of her father, who was lost at sea during the Korean War. Shun Kazama, the engaging editor of the high school newspaper, gets her involved in his campaign to preserve “the Latin Quarter,” a beloved but dilapidated building that houses the school clubs. The effort to save the ramshackle structure sparks a believable romance between these likable teenagers. The Ghibli artists outdid themselves creating the dust and junk decades of high school students left in the Latin Quarter: the audience can understand both the students’ affection for their ratty headquarters and the administrators’ desire to be rid of an eyesore.

This Fall, in partnership with The State Theatre, CJS celebrates some of the greatest and most influential films of all time from the legendary Japanese animation team at Studio Ghibli.

Directed by Goro Miyazaki.
2011. 92 minutes. Rated PG. Japanese with English subtitles.