ehalcomb: My Neighbors the Yamadas Review || Anime Movie Review

This movie really took be by surprise. By the art style and tone of the film you wouldn't think that it would be this good and relatable. My Neighbors the Yamadas is a film of stories. It has different chapters of the Yamada's life split up into small short stories that make the film. This is the movie's greatest strength and weakness as at about half way through I checked the progress bar to see how much of the movie was left. Though I do enjoy all of the little stories, watching them all in one sitting is just a little bit overwhelming. I would have probably taken a break half way through if it weren't for the wonderful cartoon art style that the film is showing. The entire feature feels like it was ripped straight from a comic book and just looks great the whole way through. There were a couple scenes on the Yamada's TV that even look rotoscoped from real broadcasts, though it could just be that the animation team was brilliant. This is also the funniest Studio Ghibli movie I've seen with the comedy not coming from slapstick or action like with some of Ghibli's other films, but rather with just an interesting family being interesting and inherently funny. None of the situations that the characters seem to get themselves into are too far fetched from reality. All of them are relatable. How many times have you gone to school or work just to realize half-way through your trip that you had forgotten a crucial object needed for those activities. Or how many times have you fought with a family member over what you wanted to eat for dinner? That is the comedy that My Neighbors the Yamadas provides and it is always on point. The music in the film can be described in one word: happy. This word can really describe the whole movie. If I had one problem with the movie it's that the youngest sibling, Nonoko, didn't get as much screen time as I would have liked. The very first short story was centered mainly around her but I would have liked more from her because of how much I enjoyed her personality. In fact all the characters have personality and I loved each and every one of them.

My Neighbors the Yamadas was unique.