Most of the films under discussion in this series involve elements of the fantastic—or, at the very least, the unrealistic. A flying witch on a broomstick, a giant robot: these are natural choices for cartoons. (Even Grave of the Fireflies is narrated through ghosts.) But what about Only Yesterday, a film in which Taeko Okajima, an unremarkable woman in her late twenties, takes a trip to the countryside and remembers being ten years old? Why should this movie be a cartoon? In a previous post about Mamoru Oshii’s Beautiful Dreamer (1984), I commented that “the strength animation will always have over live action film making is that everything in an animated film is exactly as real as everything else.” It’s easy to see how that’s true when we’re watching a movie in which things are depicted that are not real and do not happen. Trips to the countryside, on the other hand, do happen. You could take one right now, unless you already live in the countryside. Even then, you…
