Only Yesterday: Difference between revisions

It's 1982 and [[Christmas Cake|27-year old unmarried]] Taeko Okajima works as an [[Office Lady]] in Tokyo. She decides to spend her summer holiday at her sister-in-law's farm in the countryside to help out with the safflower harvest, since she liked going there the year before. She sees it as a great way to get a break from the city life for a while.

 

During her trip she gets overcome with memories of when she was 10 years old and in fifth grade. In a series of flashbacks, imaginatively interwoven with her current life, a picture forms of her youth, filled with math problems, friends, boys and the typical throes of a girl growing up. It results in her wondering whether she is being true to her own nature in life, since she wanted to be in the country as a little girl already.

 

 

* [[Adorkable]]: Toshio. Clumsy, not terribly intelligent, a little too forward, and generally a bit of a hick, but very friendly and eager to put others at ease. He proudly declares himself a peasant and listens to strange Hungarian folk music.

* [[Author Tract]]: The movie is filled with monologues about the importance of Japanese farm life.

* [[Call to Agriculture]]

* [[Christmas Cake]]: Taeko's mother is annoyed that she turned down a marriage proposal, saying "at 27, that's the best she's going to get".

* [[Family Theme Naming]]: Taeko and her older sister, Yaeko.

* [[Ghibli Hills]]: You have to ask?

* [[Imagine Spot]]: Loads as Young Taeko, a bit less as an adult.

* [[Iyashikei]]

** Played straight by The Walt Disney Company, [[No Export for You|who haven't released ''Only Yesterday'' in the US for this reason.]] The addition of a [[Furo Scene]] doesn't help, either.

* [[Real Place Background]]: Eidan Marunouchisen subway, Uenoeki Station and the some of the countryside.

* [[Scenery Porn]]: As usual for a Ghibli movie, but this one delivers some lovely scenes involving safflower.

** The dress Taeko wears as a little girl is the exact same dress Satsuki wears in [[My Neighbor Totoro]].

** In one scene, Taeko watches and sings the theme song from ''[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AMApzGKRPB8 Floating Gourd Island]'', an actual Japanese children's puppet show from [[The Sixties]].

 

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[[Category:Studio Ghibli]]