Something Cult, Foreign-Language or Indie #237: In This Corner of the World (2016).

It's between the World Wars, in rural Japan. Suzu (voiced by Rena Nonen in the Japanese-language version) is an innocent young girl who loves drawing and lives near Hiroshima. As she grows up, mainly working in her family's edible seaweed-making business, Suzu meets and falls for Shusaku (Yoshimasa Hoyosa), an out-of-town boy who her parents reveal is coming to propose to her and who, it turns out, Suzu actually already met randomly as a child. She chooses to indeed marry him and, despite the arranged nature of their marriage, it proves to be a loving one. But by now, of course, war clouds are gathering and this threat gradually arrives on Suzu's doorstep. Now she must do everything she can to protect her family and her marriage from it.

Based on a manga of the same name by Fumiyo Kouno, In This Corner of the World is an anime movie I'm honestly neutral about. Director Sunao Katabuchi and his co-writer Chie Uratani do a praiseworthy job of visually recreating this era of Japanese history and in a style very distinctive from films like those of Studio Ghibli et cetera; it actually has a rather watercolour feel to it in numerous scenes. J-pop singer/songwriter Kotringo delivers an authentic and emotionally understated score, and the voice cast all bring conviction to their roles. But I found the story itself simultaneously fresh in perspective but quite dull in plotting and action. Where Grave of the Fireflies explored WWII-era Japan with emotional restraint and objectivity but nonetheless a touch of immediacy, this lacks that last element and subsequently felt much less suspenseful for me and therefore, nowhere near as impactful.

However, narratively it does work quite well as a statement on the matriarchy Japanese society had then (and perhaps still has) and how important that was. It reminds the audience that while the men had to leave and fight for their nation, the women and girls who were left behind on the home front had to keep that nation going, which was a war in many other ways, and the film successfully conveys that too-frequently trivialised message and honours those strong females behind it (as well as the men who risked their lives in military service). 7/10.