by Jake Bourgeois, Contributing Writer
I’ve always had a soft spot for animation. More years than not, at least a couple of animated features find their way onto my top 10 list. So, I’m setting out to shine a light on some films that may have passed you by. The idea with Animation Celebration is to take a look at some underseen gems — so no Toy Story or Frozen here.
Let’s get started.
There aren’t a ton of positives to having intermittent internet for a month and a half, but one side effect is I popped in more physical discs in form my collection that I hadn’t checked out yet, including crossing more films from Studio Ghibli off my watchlist.
That, and the fact that The Boy and the Heron released its first trailer ahead of its end of the year release, provided enough of an inspiration to be going off of for this month. Though I’ve covered one of their films before, thanks to the rabid fanbase, “underseen” isn’t really something that happens often for a Ghibli film. However, for the big players involved, Ghibli was not the beginning of their animation journey. We’re going back to a collaboration between Hayao Miyazaki and one of Ghibli’s other founders, Isao Takahata, for an early project they worked on together back in 1972 — more than a decade prior to the first Ghibli release.
With Takahata directing and Miyazaki writing, Panda! Go, Panda! sees the eventual studio co-founders telling the tale of a father and son panda who get taken in by a young girl (Mimiko, voiced by Kazuko Sugiyama) after her grandmother leaves for Nagasaki. Things get more complicated when an outing to school leaves the bears prone to discovery. Later, a tiger joins the family after he wanders off from the circus. If that sounds like two separate stories, that’s because it is. Technically speaking, the version I watched was a combo of the two shorts, Panda! Go, Panda! and The Rainy-Day Circus.
As I got started on the first film, it gave me almost a reverse Goldilocks and the Three Bears feel to it. She lives alone in the bamboo forest after her grandmother leaves for Nagasaki, only to come home and find strangers in their house, and the concept of adult supervision seems nonexistent. I thought it might’ve been reading into things a tad too much after the first one, before it uses literally the identical setup to the fairytale for the second short.
As an early example of the duo’s animated work, it’s very simplistic when it comes to the backgrounds and some of the other aspects of animation. Don’t get me wrong, it still looks good, but it’s more monochromatic than what we’ve become used to. The colors are a little less complex and there’s not a ton of color blending going on — there are a lot of solitary colors. (It’s also more than 50 years old at this point, so that’s not a big point against it.)
There are some early signs of what’s to come, and the influence can be felt in Ghibli proper projects. The papa panda has a very Totoro look to its smile, and I don’t think that’s a coincidence. There are other similarities, too. Concerning a relative animation contemporary, there are some similarities between the tiger character and Tigger from Winnie the Pooh.
Another Ghibli trademark that can be seen, even in this early work, is the fantastical charm. These shorts are adorable. Both Mimiko and the pandas are impossible not to fall in love with. The audience for this one is purely aimed at kids. So it lacks some of the depth of later works, but that’s all by design, and that’s okay. There’s something to be said for something that can just give you a serotonin boost. It very much feels like a classic children’s special, but not in a bad way. It made me feel a little nostalgic, in fact.
The musical score is light and enjoyable with sound that literally pops (again, a bit like My Neighbor Totoro). It’s got a bit of synth and has a super catchy theme song, something Miyazaki himself noted upon first watching it in the theater.
I think these shorts truly have something to offer everyone. As someone who’s still working his way through the Ghibli catalogue, I found Panda! Go, Panda! to be both enjoyable and instructive of the studio’s later endeavors. For Ghibli, fanatics I think they’ll likewise find the insight from this early work intriguing. Even for Ghibli noobs who haven’t taken the dive, checking out both or even just one of the shorts is an easy point of entry into the catalogue.
I’m excited to continue to geek out on some great animated work you may not have had a chance to catch. Next month, I’ll have a special project to review, unlike anything I’ve covered on the series before.
You can read more from Jake Bourgeois, and follow him on Twitter and Letterboxd