This Week in Anime

Is Mamoru Hosoda's Mirai Any Good?

Micchy
Well Steve, as I write this I'm about 24 hours settled into a new place that so happens to be populated by my whirlwind of a toddler nephew. I knew what to expect, but I'm still a little scared by the realization that my life for the next several months are guaranteed to just be

Yeah, that's the thing people remember about their early childhood, but to those raising said children I think the many, many conversations about pants tend to stick out more.

No seriously, I spent several hours this morning trying to get my nephew to put on pants while he ran circles around the kitchen table.

I agree! But sometimes little kids need a few arbitrary rules to follow or else the power goes to their tiny little heads and they cause absolute mayhem. I'm down with his lawlessness in principle, but as an ostensible grownup I get the lovely responsibility of cleaning up after his messes. Kid's gotta learn that we live in a society, you know?

Mirai is mostly about a toddler coming to terms with a new baby sister and learning about his place in his family's history, but it's also about a father's clueless exhaustion with his kids and I find that begrudgingly relatable.

Mirai has the difficult task of capturing the perspective of a small child set out before it when (obviously) none of the artists involved are themselves small children. It's a tricky balancing act to tell an emotionally compelling story from that perspective without ascribing more maturity to the character than appropriate - and I'm not sure Mirai quite pulls it off. On the other hand, the parents' perspectives here very much feel drawn from real experiences. That aspect of the movie is so strong that I almost feel it drowns out whatever interesting things it does with the child characters?

I don't want to just assume that the father character is based on somebody's personal experiences as a busy father, but if it were it... wouldn't be a good reflection of their parenting skills. The character is a hapless, lovable dumbass, but a good dad he is not. Honestly though, I think the movie's most frustrating complication is that despite centering the kid in all this, the realest and most emphasized perspective is the father's - at the mother's expense. Like I know Hosoda already made a movie about a mom in Wolf Children but the way the mom is portrayed in that movie is very different from how the dad in this one is. Wolf Children mom is practically an all-sacrificing madonna. Mirai dad ends the movie barely competent in basic parenting. "Absent dad learns the ropes" is a valid perspective, but it does feel to me that he gets a pass where a female character would never.

It certainly tries! I do like that it acknowledges that the mother wasn't always the perfect homemaker, that she was rambunctious as a kid and terrible at keeping house until getting married. But her development is barely alluded to while the father spends the whole movie learning to do stuff for his children like "pay attention" and "make sure they're fed." Wolf Children mom is out there raising two half-wolf kids alone while Mirai dad struggles to keep an eye on a baby in a basket.

Whatever the movie's implicit gender biases though, let's not forget:

Me, looking alternately between my computer screen and the three-year-old trying to steal my juice right now: yeah, that about checks out

At least from the outside, KUN's reaction seems about accurate. "Cool, a little sister!" lasts for about five minutes before the jealousy kicks in.

As the youngest of three siblings, I just have to assume that nobody did that with me. You better not be lying to me Steve!!

To be fair his dog is a talking human.

It also has to be a little Digimon, as a treat.

Did someone say scary?


Okay yeah several of those vignettes are about KUN meeting progressively hotter men in his family's past and future but I kind of can't stop to focus on them when the last one goes this hard.

I dunno, I'm pretty sure mine is too busy watching Paw Patrol to pay much attention to the Railway to Hell. Maybe I can expose him to the nightmare when he's a little older!

Same! Though I wonder if the Hell Train segment might land better if KUN were closer to five or six years old rather than four. Iirc kids don't usually become aware of their own mortality until at least that age anyway. I just don't 100% buy that KUN gets much out of his magical time adventures at age 4.

Absolutely fair! It's definitely a challenge to get into the head of a 4-year-old several decades after the fact, even harder to turn their "McDonald's! McDonald's!" yelling into something that makes emotional sense to an audience of not-toddlers. I don't think there's a perfect way to do this.

I also think he might've had a slightly easier time learning to ride on pavement rather than grass. Sure you run the risk of scrapes but imo it's worth.

Pretty oof that the family dog and a ghost are better at parenting than that dude, but I guess he's trying.

Just saying dude, better step it up.

I respect what Hosoda's trying to do with Mirai, but it has some trouble balancing its cast's perspectives. Though as far as looking after toddlers goes I think I slightly prefer the drool-free version on screen to the decidedly slimier one irl.

No offense taken! As much as I love the squirt I do acknowledge he can be very, very annoying. But on the other hand, kids can be cute, so it's impossible to say whether they're good or bad.