Mai Mai Shinko and the Magic of a Thousand Years" uses a "mirror" to show us the world that has accumulated.

Sunao Katabuchi's latest film, "In (several more) corners of this world," will be released this month on December 20, 2019. The theatrical anime that director Katabuchi shot 10 years ago is "Mai Mai Shinko to Sennen no Mahou (My My New Child and the Magic of a Thousand Years)."

In Hofu City, Yamaguchi Prefecture, in 1955, a lonely girl named Kiiko, who has lost her mother, transfers to a new school. The film's story is about a young girl who transfers to a school in Hofu City, Yamaguchi Prefecture, in 1955, where she meets Kiiko, a lonely girl who has lost her mother.

What is unique about this film is that the story of a girl (Naoko: Nagiko) who lived in Hofu in the Heian period a thousand years ago and tries to make friends is shown in parallel with scenes from 1955.

What happens in the "present" affects the "past.

What makes this film unique is that it does not necessarily treat the Heian period as a "scene from the past" and the Showa 30's as a "scene from the present. Let me give you two examples.

Showa: Shinko tells Kiiko that "an ox cart will pass" on a road that has remained intact from a thousand years ago to the present day, and Kiiko mimics her avoidance of the ox cart. Kiiko also avoids the invisible ox cart, and the two laugh as they run.
Heian: A man pulling an ox cart looks back curiously in the direction they ran.

Showa: Shinko and Kiiko bounce happily on the ground.
Heian: Noriko, accompanied by her nanny, feels a vibration in the ground and stamps her foot with a thump.

In other words, the people of "a thousand years ago" are reacting to "what happened in the present day.
In this work, the flow of time is not confined to the usual "from the past to the future," and it is depicted as if the Shinkos living in the Showa period and the Noriko living in the Heian period existed simultaneously in parallel worlds.

So when Shinko and Kiiko learn of Noriko's existence, they talk about her as if they knew her (and not in the past tense, but in the present progressive tense), saying, "I hope she makes a friend, too.
Finally, Kiiko meets Noriko ......, or rather, Kiiko becomes Noriko herself and experiences the process of Noriko making a friend in the flesh. It's like a virtual reality. How can one visualize such an outlandish situation?　Actually, by using a familiar prop, a mirror, a miracle is easily achieved in a natural way.
When Kiiko wakes up from sleeping in her bed at home, she is in a Heian-period mansion. When Kiiko looks into the mirror, she sees the reflection of Noriko's face in the mirror.

Why do the "two new children" appear on the screen at the beginning of the film?

The story of how Noriko gets a friend unfolds as if it were a matter of course. In other words, the "world in the mirror into which Kiiko peeks" begins to move on its own. As mentioned earlier, the two worlds that existed side by side "like parallel worlds" become completely seamless through the mirror.

With this in mind, the beginning of the film becomes curious. The opening cut is of a "new child peering into a mirror. The camera starts above the head of the new child and captures two new children, one behind the back of the new child looking into the mirror and the other in the mirror.
Immediately afterwards, while she is talking with her grandfather, she also recalls the events of last summer in a monologue, and sees an imaginary character called "Green Kojiro," which only she can see. In other words, the world (not only Showa and Heian) has always existed side by side with the other from the very beginning.　The world in which we live is not a single sheet of paper, but rather two or three layers of paper.

Shinko's grandfather taught her the wonders of the right-angled river, and she and her friends built a large dammed pond in their mulberry field. On the surface of those ponds, there is always a big blue sky and white clouds. Sometimes, they also reflect the friends who have gathered at the pond. Another world is spreading out comfortably beneath the feet of the new children.
Throughout the film, glimpses of this vast, multi-layered world can be seen. The rivers and ponds seem to play the role of mirrors, don't you think?


(Text by Keisuke Hirota)