“Children Who Chase Lost Voices”, released in 2011, captured the attention of the anime community. The anime film focuses on a girl who has grown up quickly due to her father’s death at a young age. The girl’s path intersects with her substitute teacher’s life. He has lost his wife and is trying to find the underworld Agartha to bring his wife back. One thing leads to another and the girl, Asuna, the substitute teacher Ry?ji Morisaki and an Agartha boy named Shin are on a journey to the gates of life and death. The film has this ability to create an emotional connection with the viewers through the use of animation and through development of the main character. “Children Who Chase Lost Voices” is an anime film that is essential to complete one’s collection; it can be purchased here.
Immediately after seeing the first few scenes of “Children who Chase Lost Voices”, director Shinkai creates an instant connection with his viewer. His animation throughout the film is beautiful. The backgrounds rival paintings and his characters are animated with emotion. His specialty in animation is of nature and landscapes and he captures it perfectly. The first example is when the main character is running to her secret base and we see a droplet of water falling from a leaf. This is not any droplet of water falling from a leaf. The precision evokes an emotion that makes you feel that this is the best anime in the world. Even though this anime clip of the droplet falling lasts for a few seconds it shows that this director is willing to give his fans the best anime and delivers. When this type of animation is given such small details it is a sign of appreciation toward the fans production is spending the extra money.
The second example of an amazing anime scene is toward the end of the movie when the main character falls through a waterfall. This waterfall, much like the leaf and water droplet, is highly detailed. But even more so Shinkai captures the essence of what a waterfall should be which is high water current pulled by gravity. It might seem easy to capture this but when the scene is viewed you have a perfect impression of a waterfall that can be used in either the anime or real world. This ability to capture an idea so perfectly that it can be interchanged between worlds is a skill that very few animators have. It is the difference between a great animator and one who is becoming a legend.
The main character of “Children Who Chase Lost Voices’ is well developed and connects well with the audience. The main character, Asuna, has experienced the lost of her father at a young age and was forced to grow up extremely young. In this processes she had to do her homework and take care of the house including cooking and cleaning as her mother was busy at work. She has become a loner and has abandoned the thought of fantasy existing. Her character immediately changes when she meets Shun, a boy from the underworld Agartha, who immediately restores the hint of fantasy that once existed in her. Furthermore, Shun spends time with Asuna and as a result Asuna is not lonely anymore. Eventually, Shun dies leaving Asuna lonely again but has peaked her interest in the myth of Agartha. She goes to ask her substitute teacher about Agartha. Shun’s brother Shin then come to the surface to take back Shun’s clovis, a key to open Agartha, and Asuna, Shin and, Ry?ji Morisaki are trapped in Agartha. Asuna immediately has a choice to make as she can either stay in the entrance of Agartha or join her substitute teacher on his journey to find a way to bring back the dead.
As the story progress Asuna finds herself constantly growing. The first instance is when one of the cursed tribes captures her and a girl from the village, as they do not like foreigners in the underworld. This tribe’s goal is to eat both girls and Asuna makes a decision that she has never had to make before that will affect both her and the young girl’s life. Selflessly Asuna decides to get the girl to safety even though it will mean that this tribe captures her and kills her. She begins to abandon her loner life style and puts somebody’s life before her own.
The second major choice that Asuna makes toward the end of the film is not to descend toward the gate of life and death. In choosing this she comes into a state of realization that bringing back the dead will not solve her problem of being lonely. Rather the solution is making friends and being social. She further realizes that this journey she just went on has subdued her loneliness as she met many different people who she connected with. Ultimately, Asuna, came into the age of understanding that the dead cannot be brought back to life. The real root of her problem was that she missed her father and the first people to understand her, Shun and her teacher. After she went on this journey to find she realized she needed to say goodbye to her old life with her father and hello to her new without her father.
