Fridae

“Love, kinship and families” is the theme of this year’s pinkdot. Despite accusations that there is a homosexual agenda to undermine the family, the truth cannot be further away: study after study shows that LGBT folks dote on their nephews and nieces, showering them with gifts, quality time, life coaching, and even free tuition. I’m sure that some would go to the extend of taking them out to watch movies during the school holidays too. Movies like Yona Yona Penguin, perhaps.

Yona Yona Penguin is an even more loopy take on Alice in Wonderland. A lonely girl who dresses up only in penguin costumes is spirited away by goblins who see her as their saviour from an ancient, evil menace which threatens to destroy their world – which she of course does, but not before making friends with everyone.

Being a kid’s animation (I’d say the target audience is between the ages of 4 to 10), the story is kept as straightforward, heart-warming, and non-frightening as possible. It’s one of those highly entertaining, comic adventures fit to teach a moral.

But what’s in it for the grown-ups in the cinema hall? It’s all in the visuals, or the 3D CGI animation, to be exact. As a general rule, Japanese animators have spurned 3D CGI – and for good reason. Stalwarts like Miyazaki have proven time and again that old school or even computer-aided 2D animation can evoke more atmosphere, a sense of fantasy and wonderment than the American 3D animation style, which tends more towards verisimilitude and life-like models or environments. Here, though, Rintaro creates a 3D CGI style that sells fantasy and imagination, while looking like a console game.

Fans of Rintaro’s works might even have fun spotting references to character designs from the Captain Harlock franchise, Galaxy Express, and Metropolis.