Children Who Chase Lost Voices from the Deep Below – Hoshi o ou kodomo (2011)

Directed by: Makoto Shinkai | 116 minutes | drama, animation, adventure | Original voice cast: Hisako Kanemoto, Kazuhiko Inoue, Miyu Irino, Rina Hidaka, Fumiko Orikasa, Sumi Shimamoto, Junko Takeuchi

Some animated films transcend their genre. So is this delicate Japanese fairy tale by Makoto Shinkai about a girl who loses a supernatural friend and descends into the underworld to get him back. Everything is extremely subtle with beautiful visual work, which seems to get more innovative and sparkling especially as the ending progresses. The film, beautifully titled ‘Children Who Chase Lost Voices from the Deep Below’, offers a beautiful glimpse into one of Japan’s many ancient mythologies.

We are thus introduced to Agartha, an ancient underground city where the gods settled after creation was complete and could stand on its own two feet. Slowly declining due to many invasions of the ‘top inhabitants’, as the people on earth are called there, the landscape is characterized by ruins and the appearance of many supernatural beings. This is where the creativity of writer Makoto Shinkai and his animators becomes apparent. In wonderful ways, gods, ghosts and monsters are created that will amaze everyone with their shapes and colors. It is at this point that the film really manages to break away from other anime films and become a creative in its own right. Because the story also manages to break free from the clichés of journeys to the underworld, ‘Children Who Chase Lost Voices from the Deep Below’ presents itself as an intense and original Japanese fairy tale. The creations of Shinkai and his followers are never bigger than the story they want to tell and the theme they want to broach, although it is these characters that stay with you the most. Fortunately, they are dosed well, so that there is no excess of special creatures, and the narrative construction is not undermined.

The film thus flows at a leisurely – but not slow – pace to its inevitable conclusion and becomes more intense the longer it goes on. ‘Children Who Chase Lost Voices from the Deep Below’ is an exceptionally good film with superb animation and an admirably original story.