Only Yesterday (1991 film)

In 1982, Taeko Okajima lives in Tokyo as an unmarried workaholic that has always liked visiting the rural countryside. She decides to take another trip to visit her eldest sister Nanako’s in-laws to help with the safflower harvest. While traveling at night on a sleeper train to Yamagata, she begins to recall memories of herself as a ten-year-old schoolgirl in 1966, and her intense desire to go on holiday like her classmates, all of whom have family outside of the big city. This precipitates a series of memories from the same school year, including how she met her first boyfriend (a baseball star in an adjacent class), the first time she and her family ate a pineapple, and how she learned about and indirectly dealt with puberty.

When Taeko arrives, she is surprised to find that her brother-in-law's second cousin Toshio, whom she barely knows, is the one who came to pick her up. Toshio himself moved back from the city to become a farmer and help his family, but became passionate about farming and decided to stay. Taeko continues to experience memories of her ten-year-old self, and decides to tell her family about them. When she sees her young cousin Naoko unsuccessfully ask her mother for Puma sneakers, Taeko tells her about how she once similarly wanted a purse. She was eventually granted a hand-me-down from the family middle sister Yaeko, but when she refused to give it to her, the ensuing confrontation led Taeko’s father to hit her. Taeko reflects that she was partially in the wrong herself for begging, convincing Naoko to move on.

Later, when having lunch with Toshio, Taeko recalls about how she always struggled with the concept of fractions in school, and asks him if he ever similarly struggled with something. Toshio mentions his compulsion as a farmer has troubled him due to the industry dying out, and muses how the entire rural landscape was built by farmers in spite of this. Seeing how they all connect with each other, Taeko realizes that the rural country is making her nostalgic, and that her past memories are wielding a tapestry for her present self to reminisce on. With this, she recalls to Toshio and Naoko about how she once discovered a talent for acting and was nearly cast in a university play, only for her father - thinking she would get harassed as an actress - to shut the idea down, breaking the rest of the family’s hearts; Taeko eventually moved on by high school, however.

On the eve of Taeko’s departure, Toshio’s grandmother - sensing Taeko wishes to stay - suddenly suggests that Taeko stay in the country and marry Toshio, flustering her. As she runs out to get fresh air, she recalls an incident where she declined to move her seating assignment away from a poor kid, only for him to reject her anyways. Toshio soon finds Taeko in the rain, and she tells him about the same kid as he drives her back. Toshio bluntly suggests that he may have liked her, while also implying his own feelings for her. Realizing how easy it is to talk with Toshio, Taeko starts to realize her own feelings for him.

Taeko leaves the next day, promising to visit again in the winter. As she sits on the train, however, she is approached by the memories of all her classmates including her past self, who wordlessly convince her that what she really wants is to stay. She gets off the train and meets with Toshio, who drives her back as her past self looks on happily.

Studio Ghibli co-founder and the film's producer Hayao Miyazaki was intrigued by the original Only Yesterday manga, believing there was potential value in depicting the type of children's story it told. However, he felt he was not up to the task of adapting it into a film, but the idea remained in his mind as he directed other children's films such as My Neighbor Totoro, and he eventually brought the idea to Takahata.^[11]

The story takes place within the Takase district of Yamagata City, Yamagata Prefecture.^[12] The Takase Station (and also Yamadera Station) of the JNR (currently JR East) Senzan Line is featured prominently; though it has since been rebuilt, the scenery remains mostly unchanged. During the course of the film, characters visit prominent locales, including the resort destination of Mount Zaō.

Unlike the typical Japanese character animation style, the characters have more realistic facial muscles and expressions due to the dialogue being recorded first (the tradition in Japan is to record it after the animation is completed) and the animators fit the animation to the spoken dialogue. Takahata also had voice actors record some of their lines together, using footage of their performances as a guide for both design and the animation.^[11] However, the scenes of Taeko's childhood past were animated before the voices were recorded, giving a subtle contrast between the anime style of her childhood and the adult "reality" of the framing story.^[11]

Those scenes set in 1966 with the 10-year-old Taeko are taken from the source material. Takahata had difficulty adapting the episodic manga into a feature film, and he, therefore, invented the framing narrative wherein the adult Taeko journeys to the countryside and falls in love with Toshio.^[5]

Taeko recalls her childhood favorite puppet show Hyokkori Hyotan Jima (ひょっこりひょうたん島, "Floating Gourd Island") which was an actual puppet show that aired every weekday on NHK from 1964 to 1969.

There is a repeated Eastern European theme in the film, particularly in the soundtrack reflecting the peasant lifestyle still present in the area and the parallels this draws with Japanese rural life. Folk songs from the area repeatedly occur in the film. For example, "Frunzuliță Lemn Adus Cântec De Nuntă" (Fluttering Green Leaves Wedding Song) is a Romanian folk song written by Gheorghe Zamfir and occurs in the film repeatedly during the landscape shots, for example arriving at the farm. Instruments used include the prominent nai played by Zamfir himself, cimbalom and violins.

There is also Hungarian music in the film, using pieces of music such as Brahms' "Hungarian Dance No. 5" in a scene where Taeko is eating lunch, and making references to Hungarian musicians when she is in the car with Toshio ("Teremtés" performed by Sebestyén Márta & Muzsikás. Adaptation from a Hungarian traditional folk song). The music of Márta Sebestyén with Muzsikás is used in several scenes as well.^[13] Bulgarian folk music is also used in the soundtrack. When Taeko is on the field, one can first hear "Dilmano, Dilbero", followed by "Malka Moma Dvori Mete". These are typical Bulgarian folk songs and the lyrics of both are connected to topics mentioned in the film – the life of farmers and marriage.

The film released in Japan on July 20, 1991 by Toho in theaters. Despite the movie's success in the Japanese box office, Only Yesterday was not released to other Western countries for over a decade. Germany was the first country to release the film on June 6, 2006, dubbed in the German language.^[14] Australia and the United Kingdom would follow suit in 2006 and distribute the film in their region under Madman Entertainment and Optimum Releasing respectively.^[15][16]

In North America, the film held the longest distinction of being the only theatrical Studio Ghibli feature not yet released on home video. Walt Disney Studios, which had then owned the North American distribution rights to Studio Ghibli's catalog, refused to release it because of its candid treatment of menstruation in the flashback sequences. A subtitled version of the film was aired on Turner Classic Movies in January 2006, as part of the channel's month-long salute to Miyazaki and Ghibli.^{[citation needed]}

In 2015, GKIDS announced it would release the film in theaters in North America in 2016 along with an English dub, with actors Daisy Ridley, Dev Patel, Ashley Eckstein and Alison Fernandez confirmed to lend their voices.^[17] The film premiered in New York City on January 1, 2016, with a wider North American release on February 26, 2016.^[8][9] It was later released on Blu-Ray and DVD on July 5, 2016 by GKIDS and Universal Pictures Home Entertainment, earning $1,780,357 in sales revenue.^[18]

Only Yesterday was the highest-grossing Japanese film on the domestic market in 1991,^[19] grossing ¥3.18 billion at the Japanese box office.^[2] The 2016 English-language release later earned $525,958, including $453,243 in the United States.^[3]

The film received widespread critical acclaim. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a rating of 100%, based on 59 reviews, with an average rating of 8.40/10. The critical consensus states "Only Yesterday's long-delayed U.S. debut fills a frustrating gap for American Ghibli fans while offering further proof of the studio's incredibly consistent commitment to quality."^[20] It has a score 90 out of 100 on Metacritic, based on 19 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim".^[21]

Roger Ebert gave the film a very favorable review in his essay regarding anime and the other work of Studio Ghibli calling it "a touching, melancholy meditation on the life of the same woman at ages 10 and 27."^[22] Nicolas Rapold, of The New York Times, gave the film a positive review, saying, "Mr. Takahata's psychologically acute film, which was based on a manga, seems to grow in impact, too, as the adult Taeko comes to a richer understanding of what she wants and how she wants to live."^[23] Glenn Kenny of RogerEbert.com awarded it a similarly positive review, saying "Like Kaguya, it functions as a highly sensitive and empathetic consideration of the situation of women in Japanese society—but it's also a breathtaking work of art on its own."^[24]

• Whisper of the Heart and From Up on Poppy Hill, 1995 and 2011 Japanese animated drama films with similar stories, also from Studio Ghibli.
• Ocean Waves, a 1993 Japanese animated TV film, also from Studio Ghibli.
• Japan, Our Homeland
• Mai Mai Miracle
• List of films with a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes

 

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Only Yesterday.

• Only Yesterday – TCM Overview and release request.
• Only Yesterday at IMDb
• Only Yesterday (film) at Anime News Network's encyclopedia
• Only Yesterday at AllMovie
• Only Yesterday// Nausicaa.net – a richly detailed fan site with reviews, commentary, and links to scripts and song lyrics