maboroshi

After an explosion at a steelworks the town is sealed off and time stops. Nobody ages, the season never turns, nothing advances. To preserve the state the townspeople impose strict rules: change is forbidden, because change widens the crack. Masamune, in his last year of middle school, grows up inside that arrangement, and then meets a girl who does not follow the rules. Written and directed by Mari Okada, the film lays adolescence over frozen time so that children forbidden to grow and a town refusing to grow become the same thing. MAPPA handled the animation, and the smoke pouring endlessly from the factory chimney hangs over everything. It opened in Japan on 15 September 2023, and Netflix released it worldwide on 15 January 2024. Its flaws: the logic of the rules is never fully explained, the middle sags, and the emotional peaks are spoken aloud far too much. Who it is for: viewers who like Okada's emotionally charged anime drama. Who it is not for: anyone wanting the science fiction rules to hold.