Miss Hokusai (2015)

[Drunk Monk]

An odd adult anime - not hentai adult, just a period drama, not porn. Hokusai was Japans great ukiyo painter. You probably know his famous painting of waves. I've always admired his visions of the yokai world. The film centers around his daughter.  She is one of his pupils - they live in an artist's squalor. It's poignant, moving through Hokusai's famous paintings, suggesting back stories to them, references that only work of you know his work. His students earn money by painting porn and visit brothels for models, but nothing is revealed.  It's quite PG, almost G if it weren't for some of the topics discussed. It's not a kids film at all - kids would find it quite boring and incomprehensible because it addresses some philosophical points very softly. It does enter the yokai world, and those were my favorite scenes. It's rather existential. Not sure if I liked it in the end - there was some interesting stuff, and I particularly liked its comments on the artist's life and how art must be balanced or demons arise, but I generally don't care for existential films. Life is existential enough - I don't need my film to be so too. The anime is beautiful and very apropo as if telling the tale in ukiyo style. I guess I liked it. But I'd only recommend it to serious japanophiles or people into both ukiyo and anime.