Today we watched From Up on Poppy Hill, Gorô Miyazaki's second film. There will be spoilers in this write-up.
There are two main threads in this film (and similar themes to Whisper of the Heart): 1) trying to save the school clubhouse; and 2) the burgeoning romance between main character Umi and Shun. I will be focusing on the second point because, well, I was a bit weirded out.
Umi helps her grandmother run a boarding house in 1960s Japan. Every morning, she pulls up signal flags in honor of her father, who died during the Korean War. At school, she's helping her friends fix up the Latin Quarter, the old rundown building that houses all of the school's clubs, to stave off its tearing down. One of those friends is Shun, who she meets when he jumps into a pool of water in protest of the Latin Quarter's imminent demolition.
There is an immediate attraction, but we soon find out that Shun was adopted. It's something he's known his entire life, but he's only just realized that his biological father is also Umi's biological father. They agree to remain friends, but after a trip to Tokyo to meet a school alderman that can help them save the Latin Quarter, Umi confesses she loves Shun, and even if he is her brother, her feelings won't change. Shun says he feels the same.
This is about the time I started feeling weird. This is not a common plot device in western fiction (I guess soaps maybe play with this sometimes?), but the girl assures me this trope is quite common in eastern Asian fiction. This isn't the first time I've encountered it, but it's the first time I've encountered it with protagonists so young, which thankfully lessened the weirdness as their romantic relationship is very chaste. They only ever get as far as holding hands for a bit.
At the end of the film it's revealed (spoiler alert!) they are not related. I said "Oh thank God" out loud, I was so relieved. These kids were adorable together and I really, really wanted them to not be related.
This is a good movie, with great characters and a sweet story (with a bit of weirdness that can be overlooked since it is ultimately resolved), and far, far better than Tales from Earthsea.
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