From Up on Poppy Hill (Blu-ray / DVD Combo Pack)

A masterpiece of Miyazaki-style animation with an engaging story that transcends culture and time
(Note: this is a review of the movie, not of the DVD. Based on other reviews, I would advise potential buyers to be cautious about the quality of the specific DVD being sold.)

From Up on Poppy Hill (Kokuriko-zaka Kara) is nothing less than the best Studio Ghibli film since 2004's Howl's Moving Castle, possibly even since 2001's Spirited Away. Directed by Goro Miyazaki from a screenplay by Hayao Miyazaki and Keiko Niwa, From Up on Poppy Hill is based on a 1980 serialized Japanese graphic novel of the same name, illustrated by Chizuru Takahashi and written by Tetsuro Sayama. The animation is lush and lovingly detailed, and the story an engaging tale of two high school students dealing with first love and with the importance of the past, both on a cultural and institutional level, and, as it turns out, on an intimately personal level as well.

The story is set in 1963 in the port town of Yokahama in Japan in 1963 against the backdrop of the country getting ready to...
A Perfect Studio Ghibli Film
Set in the early 1960s in Yokohama, From Up on Poppy Hill details the story of 16yo Umi Matsuzaki. Umi's father is dead. Her mother, a doctor, is away in the United States. Living at home, Umi remains the dutiful young Japanese female teenager. She wakes early to set the rice cooking. She prepares lunches. She takes care of her grandmother (loved seeing her still in her traditional kimonos) and her younger sisters while her mother is away. She raises the signal flags outside her home, because that's what her father and she used to do together before he was killed in the Korean War. She goes to school and is a good student. One day at school she finds herself the subject of a poem. A poem that is romantic! Who could have written it? As if that were not enough trouble, Shun Kazama, the local heartthrob, jumps down from high up on a building. Right in front of her!! This causes the entire school to focus on her.

Suddenly Umi finds herself taken to Quartier Latin, a local club...
Wonderful film
This movie is very well done. Although it is not a Hayao Miyazaki movie, it is made by his son. You can feel how it is similar to Miyazaki's films. It just doesn't have the fantasy elements that most Miyazaki films have. Instead its more of a slice of life, laid back movie like Whisper of the Heart. Which I really enjoyed. So even though its not like watching something like Spirited away or Howl's moving castle, it is sweet and very well done. if you are a fan of Studio Ghibli's work, this is a great movie to watch. I highly suggest you check it out! It will surprise you in a good way!
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