Only Yesterday
My plan is to watch every single Ghibli movie out there. Luckily it means that I stumble upon things like “My Neighbors the Yamadas”, which is a lot of fun, but unfortunately it also means that at this point, I only have “Pom Poko” and “Earthsea” left, both of which I am expected to dislike.
I don’t even know why I have never seen “Only Yesterday” before, especially considering that it was in my Ghibli collection which included almost all of their other films. I saw all the others in quick succession and then stopped, although I highly anticipated “Only Yesterday”. From the description – a woman is looking for what she really wants to do, while reminiscing about her youth – it sounded like it’s the kind of story I would thoroughly enjoy. Unfortunately, the woman’s only irk with life seems to be that she is bored of city life and prefers the simpler ways of being a farmer. While the film does not hide the hardships of being a farmer, I was not able to approve of her reasons. Perhaps it is plausible that she prefers aforementioned hardships over the superficial glory of the city, but the film still romanticized farming too much for my taste.
Another thing was criticized was how ugly the animation looked. Yeah, they kind of failed at doing a “realistic Ghibli style”, but I am not too bothered by that. What I disliked much more was how not a single story about Taeko’s past seemed in any sense. She was bullied by literally her entire family as well as some random guy at school, and her first love stories didn’t work out for stupid reasons. Somehow “Only Yesterday” just completely failed at giving me the warm, fuzzy feeling that I expected. Maybe it is not intended that way, but the way it is depicted strongly suggests that it is supposed to evoke nostalgia for the times.
“Kokuriko-zaka Kara” did the nostalgy-fuzzy-feelings part right, but somehow “Only Yesterday” completely failed on me. My love for certain Ghibli movies stand uncorrected, but some of their films are just… mediocre.