is a 2017
Japanese animated fantasy film
Fantasy films are films that belong to the fantasy genre with fantastic themes, usually magic, supernatural events, mythology, folklore, or exotic fantasy worlds. The genre is considered a form of speculative fiction alongside science fiction f ...
produced by
Science Saru
Science is a systematic endeavor that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe.
Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earliest archeological evidence for ...
and released by
Toho
is a Japanese film, theatre production and distribution company. It has its headquarters in Chiyoda, Tokyo, and is one of the core companies of the Osaka-based Hankyu Hanshin Toho Group. Outside of Japan, it is best known as the producer an ...
about the eponymous
ningyo
as the name suggests, is a creature with both human and fish-like features, described in various pieces of Japanese literature.
Though often translated as "mermaid", the term is technically not gender-specific and may include the " mermen". The ...
. It was directed by
Masaaki Yuasa
is a Japanese director, screenwriter, and animator affiliated with Science SARU, a Japanese animation studio which he co-founded with producer Eunyoung Choi in 2013. Yuasa previously served as president of Science SARU, but stepped down from th ...
, and written by Yuasa and
Reiko Yoshida
is a Japanese screenwriter. She has written and supervised numerous screenplays for anime series, live-action dramas and films. Her major works include ''Kaleido Star'', ''Aria'', '' Maria-sama ga Miteru'', ''D.Gray-man'', ''K-On!'', ''Bakuman' ...
.
The music was composed by Takatsugu Muramatsu. It is the second Science Saru film, though it was the first to be produced.
The film was released in Japan on May 19, 2017,
It was also released by
Anime Limited
Anime Limited, also known as All the Anime is a British anime distribution company based in Glasgow, Scotland. It releases anime for British, Irish, French and other European audiences. The company was established in 2012 by Andrew Partridge, b ...
on December 6, 2017, and by
GKIDS
GKIDS is an American film distributor based in New York with, according to the ''Los Angeles Times'', a focus on "sophisticated, indie" animation. GKIDS releases critically acclaimed, mostly hand-drawn, international films—such as the works o ...
on May 11, 2018. Half Symbolic Films released the film on January 31, 2019.
Plot
is a lonely and pessimistic
middle school
A middle school (also known as intermediate school, junior high school, junior secondary school, or lower secondary school) is an educational stage which exists in some countries, providing education between primary school and secondary school. ...
student living in with his grandfather, an
umbrella
An umbrella or parasol is a folding canopy supported by wooden or metal ribs that is usually mounted on a wooden, metal, or plastic pole. It is designed to protect a person against rain or sunlight. The term ''umbrella'' is traditionally use ...
maker, and father. His rock band, "SEIRÈN", was formed by his friends, and .
One day, Kai explores and meets , the
ningyo
as the name suggests, is a creature with both human and fish-like features, described in various pieces of Japanese literature.
Though often translated as "mermaid", the term is technically not gender-specific and may include the " mermen". The ...
girl. The
music beat allows her
fish fin
Fins are distinctive anatomical features composed of bony spines or rays protruding from the body of a fish. They are covered with skin and joined together either in a webbed fashion, as seen in most bony fish, or similar to a flipper, as see ...
to transform into a pair of
human leg
The human leg, in the general word sense, is the entire lower limb (anatomy), limb of the human body, including the foot, thigh or sometimes even the hip or Gluteal muscles, gluteal region. However, the definition in human anatomy refers only to ...
s. The two strike up a friendship, and Kai takes Lu around the town for a tour. Kai learns that Lu cannot touch sunlight or she will burst into flames. He also learned that Lu has a papa and her mother was killed by a ship. Kai introduces Lu to Yuho and Kuino. When Kai accidentally reveals the secret of the merfolk to the townspeople, Lu's love and power of music makes them
dance
Dance is a performing art form consisting of sequences of movement, either improvised or purposefully selected. This movement has aesthetic and often symbolic value. Dance can be categorized and described by its choreography, by its repertoir ...
around town. Despite Kai's
selfishness
Selfishness is being concerned excessively or exclusively, for oneself or one's own advantage, pleasure, or welfare, regardless of others.
Selfishness is the opposite of altruism or selflessness; and has also been contrasted (as by C. S. Lewis) w ...
, videos of Lu go viral and she becomes a celebrity. Inspired by her popularity, Yūho's grandfather reopens an old merfolk-themed amusement park on an island near the town. Kai becomes disinterested in the band and begins to ignore Lu. SEIRÈN plays the park's opening, but after Lu arrives and steals the show, Yūho becomes upset and runs away.
Meanwhile, anti-merfolk feelings have been rising in the town, and when Yūho cannot be found by her father, he puts the blame on Lu and captures her. As he threatens her with sunlight, Lu's father comes to save her, which triggers a curse that begins to flood the town. Kai and Yūho help Lu and her father escape, who in turn rally other merfolk to help the town escape the rising waters. In the process of helping, the merfolk destroy the natural cliff which shades the bay from the sun, exposing themselves as the dawn breaks. As the threat of the curse disperses, the townspeople gather themselves and use many umbrellas to save all sea creatures from the
sun
The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is a nearly perfect ball of hot plasma, heated to incandescence by nuclear fusion reactions in its core. The Sun radiates this energy mainly as light, ultraviolet, and infrared radi ...
.
Kai apologizes to Lu and everyone dances happily until all sea creatures return to the
ocean
The ocean (also the sea or the world ocean) is the body of salt water that covers approximately 70.8% of the surface of Earth and contains 97% of Earth's water. An ocean can also refer to any of the large bodies of water into which the wo ...
. Kai starts a new life in town.
Voice cast
Production
Yuasa announced on his
Twitter
Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...
that he was working on the film in January 2017.
It was animated in a hybrid form in which
key frame
In animation and filmmaking, a key frame (or keyframe) is a drawing or shot that defines the starting and ending points of a smooth transition. These are called ''frames'' because their position in time is measured in frames on a strip of film ...
s were drawn on paper, but instead of the traditional
clean-up
Cleanup, clean up or clean-up may refer to:
* Cleanup (animation), a stage of animation workflow
* Clean-up (environment), environmental action to remove litter from a place
* Cleanup hitter, a baseball position
* Clean-up Records, a record label ...
and
inbetweening
Inbetweening, also known as tweening, is a process in animation that involves creating intermediate Film frame, frames, called inbetweens, between two key frame, keyframes. The intended result is to create the illusion of movement by smoothly trans ...
still used in most Japanese
traditional animation
Traditional animation (or classical animation, cel animation, or hand-drawn animation) is an animation technique in which each frame is drawn by hand. The technique was the dominant form of animation in cinema until computer animation.
Proce ...
at the time, these rough key frames were then
traced and inbetweened in
Adobe Flash
Adobe Flash (formerly Macromedia Flash and FutureSplash) is a multimedia Computing platform, software platform used for production of Flash animation, animations, rich web applications, application software, desktop applications, mobile apps, mo ...
.
Yuasa acknowledged that ''Lu'' shares some similar plot elements and the visual subject of water with
Hayao Miyazaki
is a Japanese animator, director, producer, screenwriter, author, and manga artist. A co-founder of Studio Ghibli, he has attained international acclaim as a masterful storyteller and creator of Japanese animated feature films, and is widel ...
's film ''
Ponyo
is a 2008 Japanese animated fantasy film written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki, animated by Studio Ghibli for the Nippon Television Network, Dentsu, Hakuhodo DY Media Partners, Buena Vista Home Entertainment, Mitsubishi, and distributed by ...
'', and that it occurred to him late into the production of ''Lu''. He considers this due to the influence on him of Miyazaki and
Isao Takahata
was a Japanese director, screenwriter and producer. A co-founder of Studio Ghibli, he earned international critical acclaim for his work as a director of Japanese animated feature films. Born in Ujiyamada, Mie Prefecture, Takahata joined Toei ...
's ''
Panda! Go, Panda!: Rainy-day Circus'', which Miyazaki reused elements of himself in ''Ponyo'', and is happy for his works to include such homages to works he admires.
Kazuyoshi Saito
is a Japanese singer-songwriter. Making his professional debut in 1993, Saito's popularity exploded in 2007 after 15 years in the music industry. He is also one-half of the rock duo Mannish Boys with Tatsuya Nakamura and a member of the superg ...
's 1997 song was chosen to be the theme song of the film.
Reception
Critical reception
On
review aggregator
A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews of products and services (such as films, books, video games, software, hardware, and cars). This system stores the reviews and uses them for purposes such as supporting a website where users ...
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...
, the film holds a 78% approval rating based on 45 reviews, with an average rating of 6.4/10. The website's critics consensus reads, "''Lu Over the Wall'' can be more fun to watch than to follow, but director Masaaki Yuasa's distinctive visual style offers colorful compensation for an occasionally scattered story."
Metacritic
Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...
, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 62 out of 100 based on 14 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".
Charles Solomon from
Los Angeles Times
The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the Un ...
wrote, "Yuasa's bold imagery and sometimes convoluted storytelling defy the conventions of traditional animated filmmaking, but he is clearly an artist with an individual vision whose work offers something genuinely new and eye-catching."
On the other hand, Simon Abrams from RogerEbert.com said "Still, I can't lie: I was bored throughout the 112 minutes I spent watching ''Lu over the Wall''. I initially thought that I was allergic to the mediocre English voice actors' performances. But I soon realized that that my biggest problem was that I couldn't reconcile the basic disconnect between the thrilling story-telling and the paint-by-numbers story. I wanted the film's creators to do something with their formulaic narrative, but they never did."
Box office
''Lu over the Wall'' grossed $161,253 at the box office.
Accolades
References
External links
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{{Japan Media Arts Festival for Animation of the Year
2010s disaster films
2017 fantasy films
2010s supernatural films
2010s teen fantasy films
2017 anime films
Annecy Cristal for a Feature Film winners
Dance in anime and manga
Electronic music films
Films about mermaids
Films based on Japanese myths and legends
Films set in Japan
Flash animated films
Flood films
Japanese animated fantasy films
Japanese disaster films
Japanese mythology in anime and manga
Japanese rock music films
Japanese supernatural films
Japanese teen films
2010s Japanese-language films
Music in anime and manga
Noitamina
Science Saru
Supernatural anime and manga
Toho animated films
Yōkai in anime and manga