The Secret World of Arrietty is anime that kids will love

The Secret World of Arrietty is presented by Disney, but it doesn’t look anything like a Disney film.  When we got in the theater my friend let me know that it was Anime and not the traditional animation I was accustomed to.  Anime is a type of animation where the eyes are bigger, rounder and have that tell-tale half moon white bit in the pupil of every character. 

I had always naively thought Anime was simply cheap animation.  Even after living in Japan for several years I knew about manga and Anime, but didn’t ‘get it’ or appreciate the art behind it.  So I sit in a movie theater about to watch my first Anime movie, courtesy of Disney, a bit ironic I thought.

Perspective and focus

Anime is beautiful.  There is a scene early in The Secret World of Arrietty where the camera focuses in on a flower, then to Arrietty in the foreground and then back to the flower.  It’s a short shot that takes less than 5 seconds but is a great example of the art, care and love that went into the movie.  Love?  Yeah, it’s sappy to say that now, but you feel that this movie was a labor of love for those that made it.

The scenery in Arrietty is lush, 3-D and a central character in the movie.  At times the background seems to breathe and move on its own, alternating between something that looks like a real picture to one that’s partially animated.

If the scenery and background in Anime is lush and detailed the people are round, stilted and took some getting used to.  The contrast between the detailed background and the characters that were overly simplified did not prove to be distracting.  If anything it highlighted what I liked about Arrietty even more.  It’s the same as a difference in Monet and Da Vinci, both were great painters, but had distinctly different styles.

The audio

I have seen few movies recently where the audio stood out like it did in Arrietty.  The foley artists and the sounds they used were sublime or alerted the audience to the danger at hand.  As the movie was originally released in Japan in 2010apan I paid attention to the characters to see how the lip synch was handled.  It was flawless, there were no glaring stereotypical martial arts lip synch disasters.  Granted part of that may be due to the staccato facial movements in Anime; but aside from the physical cultural differences this movie could’ve taken place anywhere.

The Story

The Secret World of Arrietty is adapted from Mary Norton’s The Borrowers.  It’s the story of little people that live under houses and borrow things that people won’t miss, like sugar and other household items.  The Borrowers have to move every time someone sees them because the humans may trap them, sell their tiny bodies to science or put them on a reality TV show.  OK, I made those last two up.

The Secret World of Arrietty was very entertaining; although it did get a little bit slow in the middle.  I attended the movie with a four and half year old boy and his father.  After the movie ended I asked the boy what he thought of it and he said he liked it.  I thought that with all the digital animation he watches he’d be bored to tears with an Anime movie about tiny people that live under houses.

Color me corrected.  He liked it, I enjoyed it and it’s a welcome change to the normal animated fare that kids see in theaters.  The Secret of Arrietty is disarming, simple, gorgeous to look at and worth the time of kids of all ages.