Cocoon - One Summer of Girlhood

Based on a well-regarded josei manga by Machiko Kyō, the Japanese anime feature “Cocoon - One Summer of Girlhood” opens with an anti-war, pro-peace inscription.

“Our hope is that this film will serve as an opportunity for the young generation to feel and think about the cruelty, terror, and futility of war – as well as the profound importance of peace,” the filmmakers instruct, making no attempt to shield their pedagogic means. A sharp transition from this political framing, we now see two school girls in a field. The wind blows. Life looks normal.

San (Marika Ito) and Mayu (Hikari Mitsushima) meet in a field during a fictional war with nameless enemies. Based on the real-world Himeyuri students in Okinawa, they attend an all-girls school and are enlisted to help soldiers as nurses in a cave. War barrages without discrimination, and suddenly, too. The idyllic remote island becomes a mass grave in minutes as San and Mayu cling to each other more faithfully than to their own lives.

“Cocoon” is not a Studio Ghibli product, though it’s certainly an extension of the famed studio’s legacy. Veteran animators Akihiko Yamashita (“Spirited Away” and “Howl’s Moving Castle”) and Shinji Otsuka (“Princess Mononoke” and “Kiki’s Delivery Service”) bring the studio’s hand-drawn authenticity and warm pastels to the wartime coming-of-age film. Its frames in isolation could easily be mistaken for Ghibli by even the studio’s biggest of fans, though the same cannot be said of its more grueling, edgy themes.

Continue reading at the Bay Area Reporter.