Napping princess
Teenage Dream
released OUt NOW! pG | 111 minutes
Director Kenji Kamiyama Cast mitsuki takahata, arata Furuta, Hideki takahashi, shinnosuke mitsushima
Like a YA version of Inception, Napping Princess blurs reality, between a Japanese schoolgirl in 2020 trying to find out why her mechanic dad was arrested, and her recurring dreams of a magic princess, talking animals and battles between oversized robots and monsters. Shame the film hasn’t enough substance for one reality, let alone two.
The SF-flavoured “real” story involves driverless car technology and family tragedies. Characters from that world then show up in the girl’s dreams, and scenes start to flow from one reality to another. Structurally at least, the film’s interesting, even if its tricks are ones we’ve seen before.
Napping Princess should have worked: Inside Out showed how well cartoons can do realityswapping stories, cramming complex concepts into a family film, and anime When Marnie Was There did much the same. But it can’t tell or build a story. None of the characters are engaging, the stakes are never clear enough to care about and the action feels lacklustre, especially as there’s no real sense of threat; even the “real” baddies are like Enid Blyton crooks. Coming from Kenji Kamiyama – who made one of the best SF anime series, Ghost In The Shell: Stand Alone Complex – it’s a sad let-down. Andrew Osmond
The film features Hearts, a car that turns into a robot. Designer Shigeto Koyama was also behind Big Hero 6’s Baymax.