In a recent review, Guardian reporter Chris Michael considers Studio Ghibli under the helm of Miromasa Yonebayashi, the protege of Hayao Miyazaki who retired from the studio which he co-founded in 1985. Michael places the newest studio film "When Marnie Was There" in historical context:
Made in the wake of the 2011 Japanese earthquake and tsunami, the film is full of references to a conservative ideal of Japan: a traditional festival, an idyllic countryside, and a secret that connects Anna to her ancestors, through which she learns to accept herself.While this may be revealing about the telling of this story, perhaps it's Yonebayashi's characterization about point of view that better explains the story's appeal:
[Anna as] an androgynous character, in the transition between child to adulthood, a very sensitive age....I'm male myself, and if I had a central character who was male, I'd probably put too much emotion into it, and that would lead to difficulty in telling the story.The perspective of storytelling in this animated film is not about asking the world to see through one's own eyes -- Yonebayashi tells the story as one sees through another person's eyes, someone who sees from another perspective, and that becomes the literal focal point, the lens through which the world is imagined to be, and where one can imagine belonging.