Only Yesterday (1991)
Directed by Isao Takahata
In lyrical switches between the present and the past, Taeko contemplates the arc of her life, and wonders if she has been true to the dreams of her childhood self.
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3 films that influenced Only Yesterday
What critics say influenced Only Yesterday
If you thought My Neighbor Totoro was a lovingly meandering exercise on small moments, Only Yesterday is the animation company’s most outright cribbing of the styles and themes of Yasujiro Ozu and Kenji Mizoguchi, offering a very Japan-centric story (the film still hasn’t been released in North America after over two decades) that’s simply a slice-of-life portrayal of a woman’s childhood in Tokyo and her time spent in the countryside as an adult.
That means Ghibli loyalists won't have to suffer any flashbacks to the compromised versions of My Neighbor Totoro and Kiki's Delivery Service that circulated in America in the ’80s and ’90s before stricter quality controls were put in place.
Directly preceded by two of the studio’s most memorable animated films – My Neighbor Totoro and Kiki’s Delivery Service – Only Yesterday was helmed by The Tale of the Princess Kaguya’s Isao Takahata, who co-founded Studio Ghibli with partner Hayao Miyazaki.
"Only Yesterday" is the rare project of Studio Ghibli — the storied Japanese production company responsible for such masterpieces as "Spirited Away" and "My Neighbor Totoro" — to have never received a theatrical or even DVD release in the U.S., until now.
Isao Takahata’s 1991 Only Yesterday was not Ghibli’s first feature, however; it was preceded by Hayao Miyazaki’s 1986 Castle in the Sky, Takahata’s brutal war drama Grave of the Fireflies and Miyazaki’s fluffy merchandising bonanza My Neighbor Totoro (a pairing that Ghibli had the perverse backbone to originally release as a double feature in 1988), and Miyazaki’s 1989 Kiki’s Delivery Service.
In 1985, Takahata joined with Japan’s fantasy animation master Hayao Miyazaki (“My Neighbor Totoro,” “Spirited Away”) to co-found the legendary Studio Ghibli.
That means Ghibli loyalists won't have to suffer any flashbacks to the compromised versions of My Neighbor Totoro and Kiki's Delivery Service that circulated in America in the ’80s and ’90s before stricter quality controls were put in place.
Directly preceded by two of the studio’s most memorable animated films – My Neighbor Totoro and Kiki’s Delivery Service – Only Yesterday was helmed by The Tale of the Princess Kaguya’s Isao Takahata, who co-founded Studio Ghibli with partner Hayao Miyazaki.
Isao Takahata’s 1991 Only Yesterday was not Ghibli’s first feature, however; it was preceded by Hayao Miyazaki’s 1986 Castle in the Sky, Takahata’s brutal war drama Grave of the Fireflies and Miyazaki’s fluffy merchandising bonanza My Neighbor Totoro (a pairing that Ghibli had the perverse backbone to originally release as a double feature in 1988), and Miyazaki’s 1989 Kiki’s Delivery Service.
By the time Only Yesterday opened in Japan, Takahata had already written and produced a handful of shorts and features with Hayao Miyazaki, and also directed Grave of the Fireflies, which today is widely accepted as one of the greatest war movies ever made.
Takahata is responsible for acclaimed animated films like The Tale of the Princess Kaguya, which earned a 2014 Oscar nomination for best animated film, and Grave of the Fireflies, the heartbreaking 1988 tale about two young siblings struggling to survive in post-World War II Japan.
The director is Ghibli’s other superstar: Isao Takahata, who helmed beloved titles like “My Neighbors the Yamadas” and the grim, post-apocalyptic “Grave of the Fireflies,” as well as the dreamy “The Tale of the Princess Kaguya,” released here in 2014.
Only Yesterday was the follow-up to his critically acclaimed WWII film Grave Of The Fireflies , which was also based on a memoir about childhood.
Greater still is how the film lies in the director’s filmography and how his stories have grown since Grave of the Fireflies ins 1988 to 2014’s epic.
This was Takahata’s follow-up to 1988’s devastatingly powerful Grave of the Fireflies and represented the fifth Studio Ghibli release (three from Miyazaki, two from Takahata).