Amateur Recommendation Hour: Children Who Chase Lost Voices

Today’s recommendation will evoke memories of your favorite Studio Ghibli films, not only because they were heavily inspirational to the team at CoMix Wave, wearing their admiration for the legendary titans of Japanese animation on their sleeve while still making something that stands on its individual own beyond its influences.

Children Who Chase Lost Voices, directed by the globally popular Makoto Shinkai, is a work that I feel is under appreciated by far too many. Dwarfed/sandwiched by his more commercially successful work "Your Name" and his best film "5 Centimeters Per Second" (of which I have done a write-up for previously) and the fact that it is very much inspired by Studio Ghibli works, mainly the much beloved Castle In The Sky. But as the most intelligent works of art do, it is able to differentiate itself from the origins of its ideas to feel unique. This is definitely more than just "Ghibli lite." It's a love letter certainly, but a letter that is in Shinkai's own words to those that helped make his dream of directing animation features for the world over to see, a reality.

A young girl who hears distant music through a crystal radio left by her absent father. With said memento she is whisked away into a fantastical world of mythical beasts and ultimately discovers herself to be in the middle of a multifaceted conflict. Goodness why does the premise sound so familiar? *wink wink* but I can promise even if it’s mutually intelligible with other setups it is in it’s execution where it differentiates itself from it’s contemporaries.

I believe this film to be mutually intelligible to Shinkai’s other works, dealing with his motifs of separation, distance, the importance of acceptance, and learning how to healthily move on. But it is never merely derivative. This time however it is more focused on the connection between the living and the dead, the drive to find resolution, and the continued value of loved ones who have passed away. If we are constantly living in the past, fixated on what was, how can we ever move forward with what can be? The past is where it is for a very reason. Moving beyond to the hopeful and greater pays more dividends to our own stories more than those stories we have already lived. Especially at the cost of endangering others livelihoods and living spaces.

If you are a fan of classic Studio Ghibli films this comes recommended heavily. For everyone else, as you’re probably sick of hearing me say at this point: please do give this and/or other anime films/series a chance. It is a medium that is far more than it’s mainstream reputation in the west would suggest. One that is fortunately gaining more and more of a positive reception by the day. If you've contrived yourself so hard to not be convinced, I genuinely feel sorry for you, especially if you are among the artistically driven like myself. Animation is capable of telling serious, thought-provoking, philosophically driven, and valuable story that can resonate in ways that the medium of live action cinema simply cannot (and vice versa).