Quartile rating: 7.5/10 · 1 rating
The Yamadas are a typical middle class Japanese family in urban Tokyo and this film shows us a variety of episodes of their lives. With tales that range from the humorous to the heartbreaking, we see this family cope with life's little conflicts, problems, and joys in their own way.
My Neighbors the Yamadas is a formally radical departure for Studio Ghibli — Takahata's deliberately sketchy, watercolor-wash aesthetic drawn directly from Hisaichi Ishii's newspaper comic strip gives it an unmistakable visual identity unlike anything else in the Ghibli canon or anime broadly. The episodic, vignette-driven structure eschews conventional narrative momentum in favor of haiku-like moments of domestic comedy and gentle pathos, which is genuinely novel but also means the 'plot' is essentially non-existent by design — a collection of loosely connected sketches rather than a sustained story. The voice performances carry warmth and comic timing appropriate to the material. Cinematographically it is exceptional: the loose linework, sparse color fields, and deliberate flatness constitute a bold artistic statement. The ending, like much of the film, is quietly affecting but episodic rather than climactic. A deeply distinctive, somewhat acquired-taste film that rewards patience.