The House of the Lost on the Cape

 

I'd live there

"The House of the Lost on the Cape" is a 2021 Japanese animated film that takes place in the aftermath of a devastating earthquake. Japan itself has way too much experience with this kind of thing - I recently watched the most harrowing documentary on NHK about the 2011 earthquake and tsunami, which must have been fresh in the mind of Sachiko Kashiwaba, who wrote the novel this movie is based on. A traumatized, orphaned girl and an abused runaway teen find a home with an odd and kind older woman, who it turns out can communicate with yokai, or enigmas as they call them in the dub. I like that it's fairly realistic in good chunks - the ruin left by the earthquake is exquisitely and carefully rendered - and yet it still goes completely wild with the yokai, who are so funny to me because a lot of them have realistic looks to them too. The animation is very cool - super detailed, beautiful and real in parts but impressionistic, almost abstract in others. There's also a fat, friendly cat. Love the cat. 

The movie is lovely but not incredibly deep - there is grief to be overcome, embodied by a monster, not a hugely original idea, and found family, also a familiar theme. But it works well with them and the personalities of the characters, plus the fabulous art, make it an excellent watch. One very annoying thing was that I was watching the dub - there's a nonverbal character who communicates through writing, and they didn't translate her notes! Guess I have to brush up on my kanji.