Miss Hokusai (2016)

Wonderful character development!

Excellent but underrated film

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

"Miss Hokusai" is a beautifully rendered and even 'mystic' anime originating from manga-artist Hinako Sugiura becoming a full-length animated 2015 Film by Keiichi Hara spotlighting legendary Edo period artist Hokusai, famous for the strikingly powerful and iconic painting "The Great Wave off Kanagawa" This particular story 'Miss Hokusai' reveals  the lesser known tale of Hokusai's amazingly gifted & equally artistic daughter 'O-Ei' who never received the recognition she richly deserved, positing that many of O-Ei's original artistic renderings became later attributed to her renowned father.From a purely visual-perspective the meticulous animation of 'Miss Hokusai' presents abundantly breathtaking artistic renderings and recreations of 'Hokusai' inspired Works, also evoking the rich imagery inherent to Classic Japanese Edo period-setting with all its sublime & ineffable-beauty.From the standpoint of storytelling 'Miss Hokusai' provides profound insights into the highly creative but also chaotic lifestyle of the obsessive artist, a Life filled with the endless search for unpredictable/ unexpected but authentic creative inspiration.There are also 'spiritual' (e.g. primarily Buddhist) elements introduced as the Story progresses which adds greatly to authenticity, providing additional insights about the culture (and belief-structure) inherent to the specific time & place in which O-Ei and her father Hokusai produced their timeless Works.'Miss Hokusai' embodies the rich combination of strikingly beautiful animation enhanced by an intriguing rumination reflecting on Edo-period Japanese culture replete with its deeply-spiritual qualities and ineffable contradictions, an anime film that is beautiful, unique and even enlightening.

For a movie that plays in the 18. century the chosen rock music is the worst and absolutely destroying the complete mood of the whole movie right from the start.I couldn't find any ups in the whole story, only one down after another, nothing cheerful in an harsh world that wasn't shown like one.I can't recommend to watch this one, because you will search for an happy end that never comes up.

I watched this movie, because I loved the trailer and I was waiting forward for a nice biography of two great painters! And all I got was some misplaced rock songs, 3 or 4 paintings and a lot of verbosity. Thank Buddha, at least it was well drawn.The movie has a great start and a cool ending but inbetween we see almost nothing. Just vague pieces of their lives. The writing is incredibly bad and boring and the plot is nowhere to be found! Even the final plot twist is confusing.So, watch it only if you want to see a well drawn anime movie with almost nothing going on.A great disappointment.

In 1814 Edo, Japan, a master artist Katsushika Hokusai, known as Tetsuzo, and his daughter O-Ei spend their time creating splendid paintings, some on commission and some just because. Tetsuzo lives away from his wife and younger daughter, who is blind, and he tends to have little to do with them, perhaps because he is afraid of illness and disability. Instead, he instructs O-Ei and others in his art, but in some ways his daughter outstrips even his talent. This lands them in trouble on occasion, for example when one of her paintings is believed by its owner to be enchanted by devils, but Tetsuzo knows how to make things right again. If only his daughter wasn't so hot-headed!This is a beautifully rendered anime based on a manga, Sarusuberi; having not read the manga, I don't know how faithful the film is to the source material. In any event, it looks lovely and the story of the artists' lives is very well told. It has more of an episodic feel to it than a straight plot-line, but since Tetsuzo was apparently a real person in 19th Century Edo (now Tokyo), that method of story-telling works very well. If you like anime, you'll love this movie.