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Review: Only Yesterday (おもひでぽろぽろ) (1991)
Really interesting film. I thought it was nice. I felt that it was a bit too optimistic/naive but that's just a personal opinion. I still thought the story and execution were generally really good, expected since this is a Studio Ghibli film!
Spoilers.
Story
The story followed two story lines, one of Okajima Taeko as a working woman in Tokyo, and one of her as a ten-year-old.
In the present, she took a vacation to the countryside, where she would visit a relative's farm. There, she met Toshio and through their conversations, she faced her old memories. They subtly and gently fell in love, and by the end of the movie, she decided to stay in the countryside with Toshio.
My problem with the present story line was that it felt like Taeko was being forced into marrying and staying in the countryside. Though I really felt that Taeko and Toshio liked each other, it was definitely way too early for marriage. And I am watching this from 2022, so I think the independence of women was probably framed differently back then. But I also just didn't think that the romance was a big story line. I thought that the story line was way more focused on Taeko and the countryside, and I thought the movie would have ended their relationship more ambiguously than with a grand reunion between Taeko and Toshio.
As a ten-year-old, there were both good and bad memories.
And actually, it was funny how most of her memories of her family were fairly negative. She clashed often with her family, except maybe perhaps her grandmother. I don't think anything was supposed to come from the examination of Taeko's relationships with her sisters, but they were just to show how she grew up.
Her father was the boss of the family, as was often the case, and his word was law. He seemed a bit cold. The most interaction we saw between Taeko and her father was when she had her tantrum over the purse. Of course it looked like a tantrum but it was a built up thing, that Taeko never felt like she had anything for herself. That scene of silence, when the frame turned from her father to her, was so good. That's how it happens in real life! Taeko wanted her father to comfort her, to acknowledge her feelings, and yet he didn't. And when she changed her mind and wanted to come, her father got angry and slapped her, which even her mother and Yaeko thought was a bit much. The way adult Taeko framed it was really weird though, saying that maybe it was good that Naoko's dad hit her more...definitely a dated view. But the gist here was that Taeko probably wanted more tenderness and attention from her father.
Taeko's mother....she always seemed disappointed with Taeko. More often than not it seemed to be because of her results at school. But her mother was also a bit two-faced sometimes? When Taeko brought home her results, her mom said that she merely "wrote a report that was a little better than others" but when the scout came to scout Taeko for acting, her mother praised her writing. Little Taeko didn't think anything of it, but as an adult, I can see that her mom ddi not handle her the best.
Nanako was the oldest sister. She was a first year university student at the time that Taeko was ten, and wasn't as involved with Taeko, perhaps because of the age difference.
However, Taeko butted heads with Yaeko a lot more, probably because they were closer in age. Yaeko probably felt that Taeko was young and childish and that she was sooo grown up compared to her and Taeko resented her for that condescension.
Taeko's experiences at school were far more varied between the good and the bad though. There were some cute memories, like her romance with Hirota, or the whole deal with getting scouted. There were bad ones too, like being afraid of getting her period, and of course the guilty feelings about Abe-kun.
I did think the story of Abe-kun was brought up at a good time, but it ended up being interpreted differently in the movie than how I did. I'll talk about that below.
I did think the childhood parts of the movie were well done, in a "that's how childhood is" kind of way. My gripe with the adult story line is mostly that Taeko and Toshio confirmed their love when something ambiguous would have fit the vibe. I did think that the kids cheering on Taeko as she returned was extremely cute though. That did make the scenes easier to stomach.
Production
As expected from a Studio Ghibli movie, the animation was beautiful. This movie had some more realistic faces, especially in the adult story line. It was interesting seeing Taeko's cheeks so rounded, people's faces with wrinkles.
But yeah the animation. I really loved how Studio Ghibli always catches the small things, like the way that hair moves when you make a certain action. There was a part in the train cabin when Taeko was lying down on the bed and her braid was splayed. I thought that was so thoughtful.
And of course, the direction style. Like I mentioned, I loved the use of silence and empty space, especially in certain interactive scenes between characters.
Characters
Okajima Taeko
Taeko was our protagonist. As a young girl, I felt that she was a bit stifled. She had dreams, but her dreams were often damped by her family.
She was excited for summer vacation, but her marks were not up to standard so her mom was disappointed. She got scouted for great acting, but her father wouldn't let his child be an actor, so her accomplishments were not recognized.
Unfortunately, that was probably what allowed her to survive in Tokyo for so long. She understood what it was like to fit in while surviving.
In the present, Taeko used her free time to go where her heart took her, the countryside. She liked doing farm work. And there were times when it wasn't great, like when the rain ruined their work and they had to fix it.
The movie's intended message was for Taeko to finally reach for her dreams now that she had the agency to.
When Taeko was asked by the Grandmother if she wanted to marry Toshio and stay in the country, it shook her. She ran out, and started thinking about Abe-kun. I'll talk more about Abe-kun below, but I thought that this was going to be a wake-up call that living in the countryside wasn't always fun and games and that she was just romanticizing things. Now, we did see her encountering hardship in the countryside, but it felt a bit base level. So I thought that while this realization wasn't going to push her away from the country forever, but I thought it would make her think about herself more, about what she's grown up to become in Tokyo. Perhaps this story line would have made more sense if we had seen more of what Taeko was like in the city, what her job was, etc.
Maybe I'm just being a pessimist but I just thought that Taeko suddenly deciding to stay in the countryside as a happy ending was a bit too optimistic for a movie that was so intent on showing the hardships of life. Something a bit less overtly romantic might have felt more appropriate for the tone of the movie. Or maybe I'm just being a killjoy.
Father
Taeko's father was stern, and rarely spoke. I think he had very traditional values about family. The father is the man of the house, and everybody should listen to him. And unfortunately it did kind of function that way. As much of an authority as Taeko's mom sometimes seemed to Taeko, she always deferred to her husband, and Grandmother rarely piped in much.
As I mentioned, the way Taeko framed getting slapped by her dad was weird. I would have accepted if it was more of a "I wish my dad paid more attention to me" story line, but to frame getting slapped more often by your dad being a good thing was a bit strange. The way she said it was that since it was the only time, she couldn't figure out what she'd done wrong, but since Naoko's dad hit her more, she knew what their relationship was. Yeah, weird.
Mother
Taeko's mother was clearly handling a lot, but I don't think she was the best at mothering Taeko. She just wasn't consistent, and I think that can be pretty confusing for a kid. Like I mentioned, she sometimes ridiculed Taeko's writing and she sometimes praised it. So which one is it? She wasn't very good at expressing herself.
There was that part when Taeko's mother and Yaeko were talking about her low math scores, and her mother realized she'd hurt her daughter's feelings. It just...felt too cold.
When Taeko told her mother about how a schoolmate got the acting role instead, her mother told her not to boast about it because it would make her sad. While it was kind of true, this was the one time Taeko felt she could really boast about something and her mother wouldn't even give her some praise for it. Because she deferred to her husband.
It's a complicated position because Taeko's mother was an authority to the girls, but she recognized her husband as the ultimate authority and problems would occur when their views did not line up. And it seemed that they didn't even communicate that often.
Okajima Nanako
Nanako was the oldest sister. She was a first year studying drawing. She was the more mature of the sisters, understandably, but otherwise she didn't show up in Taeko's memories that often, probably because of the age gap.
Okajima Yaeko
Yaeko was the middle sister. She and Taeko butted heads a lot. The first time we saw this was the argument over the purse. The rule was that the sisters would give their hand me downs to the next sister. So Yaeko was supposed to give a purse to Taeko but hadn't yet. After their mom told Yaeko that she should have given the purse, Yaeko said "well, I don't want such an immature purse anyway!" and that angered Taeko. If it was so ugly she didn't want it. But when Taeko said that she didn't want it, Yaeko was very happy about it, since she liked it so much. Yaeko was being mean about it, but also nobody could see why Taeko was mad.
Another big scene we had with Yaeko was when Yaeko tried to teach her to divide fractions. Taeko tried to think about it visually, but dividing fractions is hard to picture so simply, and Yaeko didn't know how to. She just admonished Taeko for being dumb.
Grandmother
Grandmother rarely ever got involved with the family drama, which was unusual. I assume she was Taeko's paternal grandma, and maybe she deferred to her son as well, provided that he supported her.
Tani Tsuneko
Tsuneko was one of Taeko's school friends, and also somewhat of a teacher's pet. Very proper. It made her unpopular, especially among the boys.
Rie
Rie was a classmate of Taeko's, who was bullied for having her period. When the girls learned about periods, Rie had admitted to Taeko that she'd already gotten her period in grade 4. Later on, it was revealed that Rie had told one of the boys (Nakayama) about periods because she liked him and he'd asked.
Rie was teased a lot for having periods, the boys going so far as to treating her like she had an infectious illness when she did. But Rie never took it to heart. She said that her mother had told her periods were nothing to be ashamed of, and she believed it.
Suu
Suu was the boy who sat next to Taeko. Taeko didn't like onions and Suu didn't like drinking the milk drink, so they agreed to share the foods they didn't like as a pact lol.
Hirota Shuuji
Hirota was a boy in the class over who apparently had a crush on Taeko. Taeko didn't know him and was embarrassed by it all. All of this information was communicated by cliques of girls lol.
Taeko only knew tha the was good at baseball, and she really only got a good look at him during the inter-class baseball game, which Hirota won for his class by being a great pitcher.
After the game, Taeko ran home embarrassed, because she thought Hirota was so cool. But Hirota caught up with her. He asked her whether she liked sunny or cloudy days. Taeko said she liked cloudy days, and Hirota said that he liked cloudy days too. Presumably nothing ever came of the romance, but it was a very cute memory that Taeko still cherished.
Abe
Abe was a kid that transferred to their school. He was apparently not very proper, his clothes were shabby and old, he was always picking his nose with his fingers, and was always wiping his snot on his clothes. He sat next to Taeko, and while everyone told her to ask to switch away, she thought it would be too cruel to do so and decided to just stick with it the whole year.
When he had to transfer away from school again, the teacher told everyone in the class to shake hands with him, and when he got to Taeko, he said that he wouldn't shake hands with her. Taeko took that to heart, thinking that he knew that she secretly found him yucky.
In a flashback, Taeko had once seen Abe and his father on the street holding hands. When Abe saw Taeko, he let go and stuck his hands in his pockets and spit. That supported Toshio's theory that Abe had actually liked Taeko and had only said he didn't want to shake hands with her, because he couldn't find another way to interact with her.
Toshio
Toshio was a relative of Nanako's husband. In the English subtitles, he introduced himself as Kazuo's second cousin, but in the Chinese subtitles, he introduced himself as the first cousin (sharing a paternal grandfather). I'm inclined to believe the Chinese subtitles, since when Taeko spoke to the grandmother she called Kazuo "our Kazuo," maybe implying that Kazuo was also her grandson.
Toshio picked up Taeko at the train station and from then on, they spent a lot of time together. I could see how through those conversations, they had fallen in love, but again, I think it was a bit too blunt.
I do agree that Toshio's a bit of a catch though lol. Can work on a farm so not a stranger to hard work, but he also didn't judge Taeko for being a working lady. He seemed to respect her.
Toshio's Grandmother
I won't lie, I was kind of annoyed with the Grandmother for bringing up marriage to Taeko. Maybe back in those days, it was more commonly talked about, but now it would be a definite no lol.
Themes
Family dynamic
The first scene that really stuck out to me was the pineapple. Everyone in the whole family was so enamoured by what the pineapple looked like and I think Taeko was so proud that her suggestion made everybody so happy. Then, when the pineapple was served, nobody really liked it that much, and Taeko was upset. I don't think Taeko was upset because the pineapple was bad. I think she was upset because she had thought her suggestion made everyone happy but no one liked it. I feel that way because I was the same. I wanted to suggest something that the entire family could enjoy and I would feel so proud if everyone ended up liking it. But sometimes it would just be meh and I would feel so ashamed.
I mentioned this already, but Taeko seemed to have a lot of negative memories with her family, but I don't truly believe that she thinks of her family negatively. The thing about family is that we sometimes spend so much time with them that everything blends together and we only remember the times when we had screaming matches. But do I hate my family? No, absolutely not. Some people have reason to hate their families, but if someone had a lot of iffy memories of their family, I wouldn't immediately jump to "they probably have no contact now."
Of course, as a Confucian society, Japan also has a custom where they show respect to elders. So as a child, Taeko as the youngest always had to heed to her parents, her elder sisters, etc.
Farming
I think farming was shown in a pretty romantic light in this movie. There were hardships, like when they had to fix their mistakes because they left things out in the rain. But otherwise we never really encountered what it was like when the weather was bad and they couldn't grow anything, or when they had pests.
Toshio described the entire countryside as being manmade, being shaped by farmers, and that's an interesting way of putting it. He explained that man and nature had to work together to have the world that they have. Which still romanticized farming in my opinion.
Dreams
The short version of it was that Taeko's dreams were somewhat suppressed as a child and now that she's an adult, she was a bit afraid of making her dreams her reality, of fully becoming a farmer as she wanted to.
Now is when I want to talk about Abe-kun. The situation was that Taeko, like all the other kids, did think that Abe-kun was a bit yucky, but she felt it was too mean to say anything about it. And when Abe-kun refused to shake her hand, she thought it was because he realized how two-faced she was. It's not totally logical, but memories are not logical.
My first impression of the story was that just because you want for something to happen doesn't mean that that things wants you back. Taeko wanted to be nice but it might not always come off that way, as maybe Abe saw through her. And just because Taeko wanted the country life, didn't mean that the country life was for her. Maybe she'd grown up too used to the city life and she'd be in for a rude awakening. Just an example.
And sometimes, it's a kindness. Maybe Abe-kun didn't want to shake her hand because he knew he had snot on his hand and he didn't want to touch her with his hand. Maybe it's a good idea that Taeko doesn't move to the countryside if she's not totally prepared for it.
That was my possibly too pessimistic view of the Abe-kun story. But we later saw that that was not the intended interpretation at all. Toshio said that Abe probably liked her. And that would imply that Taeko was too afraid to make her dream a reality because she thought it wasn't totally right for her, but her dream is telling her that yes, actually, you can make it here.
Overall
I can see why this movie was as well liked as it was. There are some parts of it that might just be too dated or too culture-specific for me. But the animation and the story telling style was very very cute. Would still recommend for the right audience.
Spoilers.
Story
The story followed two story lines, one of Okajima Taeko as a working woman in Tokyo, and one of her as a ten-year-old.
In the present, she took a vacation to the countryside, where she would visit a relative's farm. There, she met Toshio and through their conversations, she faced her old memories. They subtly and gently fell in love, and by the end of the movie, she decided to stay in the countryside with Toshio.
My problem with the present story line was that it felt like Taeko was being forced into marrying and staying in the countryside. Though I really felt that Taeko and Toshio liked each other, it was definitely way too early for marriage. And I am watching this from 2022, so I think the independence of women was probably framed differently back then. But I also just didn't think that the romance was a big story line. I thought that the story line was way more focused on Taeko and the countryside, and I thought the movie would have ended their relationship more ambiguously than with a grand reunion between Taeko and Toshio.
As a ten-year-old, there were both good and bad memories.
And actually, it was funny how most of her memories of her family were fairly negative. She clashed often with her family, except maybe perhaps her grandmother. I don't think anything was supposed to come from the examination of Taeko's relationships with her sisters, but they were just to show how she grew up.
Her father was the boss of the family, as was often the case, and his word was law. He seemed a bit cold. The most interaction we saw between Taeko and her father was when she had her tantrum over the purse. Of course it looked like a tantrum but it was a built up thing, that Taeko never felt like she had anything for herself. That scene of silence, when the frame turned from her father to her, was so good. That's how it happens in real life! Taeko wanted her father to comfort her, to acknowledge her feelings, and yet he didn't. And when she changed her mind and wanted to come, her father got angry and slapped her, which even her mother and Yaeko thought was a bit much. The way adult Taeko framed it was really weird though, saying that maybe it was good that Naoko's dad hit her more...definitely a dated view. But the gist here was that Taeko probably wanted more tenderness and attention from her father.
Taeko's mother....she always seemed disappointed with Taeko. More often than not it seemed to be because of her results at school. But her mother was also a bit two-faced sometimes? When Taeko brought home her results, her mom said that she merely "wrote a report that was a little better than others" but when the scout came to scout Taeko for acting, her mother praised her writing. Little Taeko didn't think anything of it, but as an adult, I can see that her mom ddi not handle her the best.
Nanako was the oldest sister. She was a first year university student at the time that Taeko was ten, and wasn't as involved with Taeko, perhaps because of the age difference.
However, Taeko butted heads with Yaeko a lot more, probably because they were closer in age. Yaeko probably felt that Taeko was young and childish and that she was sooo grown up compared to her and Taeko resented her for that condescension.
Taeko's experiences at school were far more varied between the good and the bad though. There were some cute memories, like her romance with Hirota, or the whole deal with getting scouted. There were bad ones too, like being afraid of getting her period, and of course the guilty feelings about Abe-kun.
I did think the story of Abe-kun was brought up at a good time, but it ended up being interpreted differently in the movie than how I did. I'll talk about that below.
I did think the childhood parts of the movie were well done, in a "that's how childhood is" kind of way. My gripe with the adult story line is mostly that Taeko and Toshio confirmed their love when something ambiguous would have fit the vibe. I did think that the kids cheering on Taeko as she returned was extremely cute though. That did make the scenes easier to stomach.
Production
As expected from a Studio Ghibli movie, the animation was beautiful. This movie had some more realistic faces, especially in the adult story line. It was interesting seeing Taeko's cheeks so rounded, people's faces with wrinkles.
But yeah the animation. I really loved how Studio Ghibli always catches the small things, like the way that hair moves when you make a certain action. There was a part in the train cabin when Taeko was lying down on the bed and her braid was splayed. I thought that was so thoughtful.
And of course, the direction style. Like I mentioned, I loved the use of silence and empty space, especially in certain interactive scenes between characters.
Characters
Okajima Taeko
Taeko was our protagonist. As a young girl, I felt that she was a bit stifled. She had dreams, but her dreams were often damped by her family.
She was excited for summer vacation, but her marks were not up to standard so her mom was disappointed. She got scouted for great acting, but her father wouldn't let his child be an actor, so her accomplishments were not recognized.
Unfortunately, that was probably what allowed her to survive in Tokyo for so long. She understood what it was like to fit in while surviving.
In the present, Taeko used her free time to go where her heart took her, the countryside. She liked doing farm work. And there were times when it wasn't great, like when the rain ruined their work and they had to fix it.
The movie's intended message was for Taeko to finally reach for her dreams now that she had the agency to.
When Taeko was asked by the Grandmother if she wanted to marry Toshio and stay in the country, it shook her. She ran out, and started thinking about Abe-kun. I'll talk more about Abe-kun below, but I thought that this was going to be a wake-up call that living in the countryside wasn't always fun and games and that she was just romanticizing things. Now, we did see her encountering hardship in the countryside, but it felt a bit base level. So I thought that while this realization wasn't going to push her away from the country forever, but I thought it would make her think about herself more, about what she's grown up to become in Tokyo. Perhaps this story line would have made more sense if we had seen more of what Taeko was like in the city, what her job was, etc.
Maybe I'm just being a pessimist but I just thought that Taeko suddenly deciding to stay in the countryside as a happy ending was a bit too optimistic for a movie that was so intent on showing the hardships of life. Something a bit less overtly romantic might have felt more appropriate for the tone of the movie. Or maybe I'm just being a killjoy.
Father
Taeko's father was stern, and rarely spoke. I think he had very traditional values about family. The father is the man of the house, and everybody should listen to him. And unfortunately it did kind of function that way. As much of an authority as Taeko's mom sometimes seemed to Taeko, she always deferred to her husband, and Grandmother rarely piped in much.
As I mentioned, the way Taeko framed getting slapped by her dad was weird. I would have accepted if it was more of a "I wish my dad paid more attention to me" story line, but to frame getting slapped more often by your dad being a good thing was a bit strange. The way she said it was that since it was the only time, she couldn't figure out what she'd done wrong, but since Naoko's dad hit her more, she knew what their relationship was. Yeah, weird.
Mother
Taeko's mother was clearly handling a lot, but I don't think she was the best at mothering Taeko. She just wasn't consistent, and I think that can be pretty confusing for a kid. Like I mentioned, she sometimes ridiculed Taeko's writing and she sometimes praised it. So which one is it? She wasn't very good at expressing herself.
There was that part when Taeko's mother and Yaeko were talking about her low math scores, and her mother realized she'd hurt her daughter's feelings. It just...felt too cold.
When Taeko told her mother about how a schoolmate got the acting role instead, her mother told her not to boast about it because it would make her sad. While it was kind of true, this was the one time Taeko felt she could really boast about something and her mother wouldn't even give her some praise for it. Because she deferred to her husband.
It's a complicated position because Taeko's mother was an authority to the girls, but she recognized her husband as the ultimate authority and problems would occur when their views did not line up. And it seemed that they didn't even communicate that often.
Okajima Nanako
Nanako was the oldest sister. She was a first year studying drawing. She was the more mature of the sisters, understandably, but otherwise she didn't show up in Taeko's memories that often, probably because of the age gap.
Okajima Yaeko
Yaeko was the middle sister. She and Taeko butted heads a lot. The first time we saw this was the argument over the purse. The rule was that the sisters would give their hand me downs to the next sister. So Yaeko was supposed to give a purse to Taeko but hadn't yet. After their mom told Yaeko that she should have given the purse, Yaeko said "well, I don't want such an immature purse anyway!" and that angered Taeko. If it was so ugly she didn't want it. But when Taeko said that she didn't want it, Yaeko was very happy about it, since she liked it so much. Yaeko was being mean about it, but also nobody could see why Taeko was mad.
Another big scene we had with Yaeko was when Yaeko tried to teach her to divide fractions. Taeko tried to think about it visually, but dividing fractions is hard to picture so simply, and Yaeko didn't know how to. She just admonished Taeko for being dumb.
Grandmother
Grandmother rarely ever got involved with the family drama, which was unusual. I assume she was Taeko's paternal grandma, and maybe she deferred to her son as well, provided that he supported her.
Tani Tsuneko
Tsuneko was one of Taeko's school friends, and also somewhat of a teacher's pet. Very proper. It made her unpopular, especially among the boys.
Rie
Rie was a classmate of Taeko's, who was bullied for having her period. When the girls learned about periods, Rie had admitted to Taeko that she'd already gotten her period in grade 4. Later on, it was revealed that Rie had told one of the boys (Nakayama) about periods because she liked him and he'd asked.
Rie was teased a lot for having periods, the boys going so far as to treating her like she had an infectious illness when she did. But Rie never took it to heart. She said that her mother had told her periods were nothing to be ashamed of, and she believed it.
Suu
Suu was the boy who sat next to Taeko. Taeko didn't like onions and Suu didn't like drinking the milk drink, so they agreed to share the foods they didn't like as a pact lol.
Hirota Shuuji
Hirota was a boy in the class over who apparently had a crush on Taeko. Taeko didn't know him and was embarrassed by it all. All of this information was communicated by cliques of girls lol.
Taeko only knew tha the was good at baseball, and she really only got a good look at him during the inter-class baseball game, which Hirota won for his class by being a great pitcher.
After the game, Taeko ran home embarrassed, because she thought Hirota was so cool. But Hirota caught up with her. He asked her whether she liked sunny or cloudy days. Taeko said she liked cloudy days, and Hirota said that he liked cloudy days too. Presumably nothing ever came of the romance, but it was a very cute memory that Taeko still cherished.
Abe
Abe was a kid that transferred to their school. He was apparently not very proper, his clothes were shabby and old, he was always picking his nose with his fingers, and was always wiping his snot on his clothes. He sat next to Taeko, and while everyone told her to ask to switch away, she thought it would be too cruel to do so and decided to just stick with it the whole year.
When he had to transfer away from school again, the teacher told everyone in the class to shake hands with him, and when he got to Taeko, he said that he wouldn't shake hands with her. Taeko took that to heart, thinking that he knew that she secretly found him yucky.
In a flashback, Taeko had once seen Abe and his father on the street holding hands. When Abe saw Taeko, he let go and stuck his hands in his pockets and spit. That supported Toshio's theory that Abe had actually liked Taeko and had only said he didn't want to shake hands with her, because he couldn't find another way to interact with her.
Toshio
Toshio was a relative of Nanako's husband. In the English subtitles, he introduced himself as Kazuo's second cousin, but in the Chinese subtitles, he introduced himself as the first cousin (sharing a paternal grandfather). I'm inclined to believe the Chinese subtitles, since when Taeko spoke to the grandmother she called Kazuo "our Kazuo," maybe implying that Kazuo was also her grandson.
Toshio picked up Taeko at the train station and from then on, they spent a lot of time together. I could see how through those conversations, they had fallen in love, but again, I think it was a bit too blunt.
I do agree that Toshio's a bit of a catch though lol. Can work on a farm so not a stranger to hard work, but he also didn't judge Taeko for being a working lady. He seemed to respect her.
Toshio's Grandmother
I won't lie, I was kind of annoyed with the Grandmother for bringing up marriage to Taeko. Maybe back in those days, it was more commonly talked about, but now it would be a definite no lol.
Themes
Family dynamic
The first scene that really stuck out to me was the pineapple. Everyone in the whole family was so enamoured by what the pineapple looked like and I think Taeko was so proud that her suggestion made everybody so happy. Then, when the pineapple was served, nobody really liked it that much, and Taeko was upset. I don't think Taeko was upset because the pineapple was bad. I think she was upset because she had thought her suggestion made everyone happy but no one liked it. I feel that way because I was the same. I wanted to suggest something that the entire family could enjoy and I would feel so proud if everyone ended up liking it. But sometimes it would just be meh and I would feel so ashamed.
I mentioned this already, but Taeko seemed to have a lot of negative memories with her family, but I don't truly believe that she thinks of her family negatively. The thing about family is that we sometimes spend so much time with them that everything blends together and we only remember the times when we had screaming matches. But do I hate my family? No, absolutely not. Some people have reason to hate their families, but if someone had a lot of iffy memories of their family, I wouldn't immediately jump to "they probably have no contact now."
Of course, as a Confucian society, Japan also has a custom where they show respect to elders. So as a child, Taeko as the youngest always had to heed to her parents, her elder sisters, etc.
Farming
I think farming was shown in a pretty romantic light in this movie. There were hardships, like when they had to fix their mistakes because they left things out in the rain. But otherwise we never really encountered what it was like when the weather was bad and they couldn't grow anything, or when they had pests.
Toshio described the entire countryside as being manmade, being shaped by farmers, and that's an interesting way of putting it. He explained that man and nature had to work together to have the world that they have. Which still romanticized farming in my opinion.
Dreams
The short version of it was that Taeko's dreams were somewhat suppressed as a child and now that she's an adult, she was a bit afraid of making her dreams her reality, of fully becoming a farmer as she wanted to.
Now is when I want to talk about Abe-kun. The situation was that Taeko, like all the other kids, did think that Abe-kun was a bit yucky, but she felt it was too mean to say anything about it. And when Abe-kun refused to shake her hand, she thought it was because he realized how two-faced she was. It's not totally logical, but memories are not logical.
My first impression of the story was that just because you want for something to happen doesn't mean that that things wants you back. Taeko wanted to be nice but it might not always come off that way, as maybe Abe saw through her. And just because Taeko wanted the country life, didn't mean that the country life was for her. Maybe she'd grown up too used to the city life and she'd be in for a rude awakening. Just an example.
And sometimes, it's a kindness. Maybe Abe-kun didn't want to shake her hand because he knew he had snot on his hand and he didn't want to touch her with his hand. Maybe it's a good idea that Taeko doesn't move to the countryside if she's not totally prepared for it.
That was my possibly too pessimistic view of the Abe-kun story. But we later saw that that was not the intended interpretation at all. Toshio said that Abe probably liked her. And that would imply that Taeko was too afraid to make her dream a reality because she thought it wasn't totally right for her, but her dream is telling her that yes, actually, you can make it here.
Overall
I can see why this movie was as well liked as it was. There are some parts of it that might just be too dated or too culture-specific for me. But the animation and the story telling style was very very cute. Would still recommend for the right audience.