The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
‘Miss Hokusai’ adds notes to Japanese history
The year is 1814 and a demure kimono-clad young woman walks across a crowded bridge in Japan’s capital city of Edo. Have we heard, she asks us, about “a nutty old man” who creates enormous paper canvases and also paints two sparrows on a grain of rice?
“That nutty old man,” she concludes as, out of nowhere, 21st-century electric guitars create a rock music crescendo on the soundtrack, “is my father.”
That opening scene of “Miss Hokusai” says a lot about the offbeat sensibility of this unusual, visually adventurous animated feature, simultaneously modern and steeped in Japanese culture and history.
Directed by Keiichi Hara and adapted by Miho Maruo from a celebrated manga by Hinako Sugiura, “Miss Hokusai” surprises us with its different emotional tones, ranging from the sinister and supernatural to the unapologetically sexual and the sweetly sentimental.
Most of all it is the story of the artistic and personal evolution of a real person about whom little is known, a young woman named O-Ei (voiced by Anne Higashide) who is the daughter of the legendary painter and woodblock artist Hokusai, best known for images like “The Great Wave” that this film brings to vivid life.
Gruff, grumpy and unconcerned about personal hygiene, Hokusai, known to his daughter by his real name, Tetsuzo (Yutaka Matsushige), lives only to paint, and his daughter, who shares living space with him, does the same.
Life with her father, however, is more complicated than that. She is invaluable to him professionally, often doing work that is sold under his name, including erotic drawings known as “pillow paintings” that would be unusual for respectable women of the time to see, let alone create.
It is in glimpses like these of O-Ei’s day-to-day existence that “Miss Hokusai” comes to life, as we see her dealing carefully with men who are attracted to her as well as a vivid illustration of the exhilaration she feels watching the huge conflagrations that were a regular feature of Edo life.
When our travels with O-Ei are over, we not only understand when she says, “this life is nothing special but we’re enjoying it,” we feel privileged to have been along on the journey.