Lonely Castle in the Mirror Review — Scotland Loves Anime 2023
Keiichi Hara isn’t one of those most widely recognised anime directors, but he reliably produces an excellent movie every few years. Once a slave to the yearly production cycle on annual Crayon Shin-chan movies, he finally broke out into more independent, creative territory with 2007’s Summer Days with Coo. In 2010 he directed (my previous personal favourite of his) Colorful, a serious drama that explored depression, suicide and family dysfunction. He’s perhaps best known for 2015’s Miss Hokusai, with its uniquely anachronistic take on the historical biopic genre. His most recent movie, 2019's Birthday Wonderland (known in the US merely as The Wonderland), was a light and frothy fantasy adventure that I saw at the Scotland Loves Anime film festival. For an overview of Hara’s work that I wrote last year for Anime News Network, follow the link below:
Now with 2023’s Scotland Loves Anime festival, Hara returns with Lonely Castle in the Mirror, an adaptation of Mizuki Tsujimura’s acclaimed 2017 Japanese-language novel (now available from Penguin Random House in English). Hara and his long-term scriptwriting partner Miho Maruo prefer to adapt novels or short stories, and his movies are eclectic in both tone and content, ranging from fish-out-of-water comedy (Coo), to introspective drama (Colorful), surrealism (Miss Hokusai) and psychedelia (Wonderland). Lonely Castle in the Mirror is Hara’s return to the difficult and painful emotions of Colorful, and I have been eagerly awaiting my chance to see it. Receiving a limited US theatrical release back in June, SHOUT FACTORY released it on Region A blu-ray in September. I suppose I could have imported it, but this is a movie I definitely wanted to watch in a theatrical setting, and what better way to do that than at an anime film festival?
Scotland Loves Anime has been running annually in Edinburgh and Glasgow since 2010, though had to pause the in-person festival during the pandemic. Thankfully it’s survived COVID, and the tragic closure of its Edinburgh venue, The Edinburgh Filmhouse back in 2022. The good folks at the nearby Cameo Cinema stepped in so the show can continue. It’s not always easy for me to attend movies in other cities, but this year I made the decision to go all-in and book train tickets, hotel room, and cinema tickets for six of the many films on offer. I’ll do my best to write full reviews of each as I find time to do so, but Lonely Castle in the Mirror is the first film on my itinerary, and the one I’ve been most hotly anticipating.
While Colorful focused mainly on family drama and teenage depression, Lonely Castle in the Mirror examines the effect of bullying on the psychologies of its cast of Japanese middle-schoolers. In many cultures, but Japanese society especially, there is a focus on individuals not doing too much to “rock the boat”, even if that individual has been harmed by another. Victims are encouraged to either “toughen up”, or to try and reconcile or forgive their bullies. Adults in positions of responsibility, like schoolteachers, often fail to grasp the nuances of childrens’ relationships and either give terrible advice, or fail to act appropriately when confronted by difficult emotions or awkward situations. All it takes is for one adult to disappoint a child with their ill-considered actions, and that child may never seek help from an adult again.
Let’s not sugarcoat it — for the sufferer, bullying may be a matter of life or death. When a child is selected for victimisation by another with more social power, it triggers in the target extreme emotions of shame, humiliation and self-hatred. Not only do sufferers fear the consequences of standing up for themselves, the longer the abuse persists the more disempowered they become. No-one was ever bullied by “accident”. Bullies almost instinctively know which children to target — those on the social peripheries, who don’t “fit in”, who aren’t conventionally attractive, who are perhaps awkward, or neurodivergent. Their abuse of another child is a way to elevate their own social standing, and by isolating someone, by “othering” them, they create a scapegoat with whom to manufacture a opponent for their group to victimise. Bullies rarely operate alone — they attract an audience of enablers who either by their direct action or inaction are also culpable for the suffering of the bullied.
Protagonist Kokoro Anzai is a completely normal, average Japanese middle school student, who unfortunately becomes the target of a particularly mean classmate. So confused, gaslit and ashamed by her abuser, Kokoro effectively becomes a shut-in, emotionally withdrawn, refusing to attend school. She can’t even conceive of informing her parents or teachers the reason — she’s only a child, without the experience or emotional intelligence to navigate her horrible, baffling situation. Although she never experiences direct physical violence, the abuse perpetrated against her is none the less horrifying — girls tend to employ vicious psychological tactics with their bullying. Her tormentor lies about her, ringleads a gang of other girls to humiliate her, and even threaten her safety at home. It’s no wonder that Kokoro never wants to attend school ever again.
So it’s with some confusion, fear, and eventual relief that Kokoro finds a way out — via her mystically-glowing bedroom mirror, she’s transported to an alternative world. She finds herself in a fantastical castle ruled over by the “Wolf Princess” — a mask-wearing grade-school-aged girl who informs Kokoro and the six other middle-school kids concurrently summoned that she’s granted them the right to search the castle for a magic key that can grant any wish. They have until the end of the school year (March 30th, giving them nine months), and only one child will get a wish. The castle is only open from 9am to 5pm daily, and the consequences for staying past this time are dire.
Kokoro’s fellow kids all have their own troubles, though for most of them the details of these aren’t revealed until much later. Much of the runtime is filled by their at first faltering interactions, getting to know one another. They soon all become close friends, confidantes and emotional supports, which makes one of the central twists so effectively upsetting. Gaining a wish means losing something precious.
To detail much more of the plot would be to rob the film of its emotional power — and it certainly is powerful. The last twenty minutes in particular had me in constant tears. In particular, witnessing Kokoro’s feelings be validated by both her mother and her “special” teacher is deeply satisfying. This is a movie that lays bare the reality of bullying without talking down to or lecturing its audience. Sometimes being a child is shit, other kids are shits, and sometimes well-meaning adults make it even shittier. Lonely Castle in the Mirror goes out of its way to make a point that bullying victims have no responsibility to ease their bullies’ consciences. Half-hearted self-serving apologies do not warrant forgiveness. I particularlt liked Kokoro’s one decent school friend’s description of her bullies as “shallow, stupid girls who will grow up to have shallow, stupid lives” (or words to that effect.) Kokoro is dumbfounded (and delighted) to hear another person point out the obvious truth in such blunt terms.
Some later scenes are particularly intense, including one depicting a terrifying attempt at sexual assault, and another featuring a heart-stopping attack from a flaming, snarling fantasy beast. There’s an effective sense of dread conjured during the climax which is effective despite the somewhat unclear, fuzzy nature of the plot logic. Kokoro must make a heartbreaking existential choice that not only services the more fantastical elements of the story, but will lead to real consequences back in the “real” world, consequences that threaten to reverse all of the positive changes that she and her friends have achieved during their time together. There is a certain cruelty to the central premise that is only partly mitigated by the big ending reveals (and I did certainly see at least some of them coming — it’s not a subtly plotted film, but it doesn’t need to be).
Perhaps its an effect of condensing a 350-page-long book into a fairly lean two-hour movie, but I felt most of the tortured plot logic was hand-waved away in the interests of efficiency. For example the method of finding the key rests on fairy-tale rules that don’t make immediate sense to me. It’s not a story that holds up to cold analysis, dealing more in emotional truth than cold logic. That’s often the nature of fairy tales though, and Lonely Castle in the Mirror maintains a constant underlying fantastical vibe, with its magical mirror portals, mysterious and beautiful castle, arbitrary rules with terrible consequences for transgressions, and an actual wolf that eats children. Wolf Princess even refers to the children as her “Red Riding Hoods”, amongst many other explicit references to traditional stories with moral messages. Don’t expect a convincing explanation for why the castle exists — although all the loose plot ends are tied up tidily by the conclusion, it’s very much with the ethos “don’t think, feel”, and for this genre of story that’s absolutely fine.
Birthday Wonderland’s character designer Ilya Kuvshinov returns this time to design the castle and its environs. It’s suitably mysterious, yet bright and colourful. I love Kuvshinov’s art. He also designed the characters for Netflix’s recent Ghost in the Shell SAC_2045, and directed an excellent music video related to Cyberpunk: Edgerunners. It’s worthwhile looking at his gorgeous art on his instagram. Lonely Castle in the Mirror’s actual character designs this time are handled by Keigo Sasaki, known for Seven Deadly Sins, Blue Exorcist and Erased. The characters all look perfectly fine, though don’t display the unmistakable stylistic flair that Kuvshinov brings to everything he draws.
Having watched six very different movies this weekend, as I expected it would be, Lonely Castle in the Mirror was the standout movie for me. With this sensitive, emotional, truthful and beautiful film, director Keiichi Hara has outdone his past work. This is now my favourite of all his films. It’s shame he couldn’t start making non-franchise films until he’d already been working in the industry for 25 years. He’s already 64, but I sincerely hope he’s got several more movies like this in him. Perhaps he’ll do a “Miyazaki” and keep working into his eighties. Is it bad not to want one of your favourite directors never to retire?
Lonely Castle in the Mirror
Directed by: Keiichi Hara
Screenplay by: Miho Maruo
Music by: Harumi Fuuki
Character design: Keigo Sasaki
Visual concept and castle design: Ilya Kuvshinov
Studio: A1 Pictures
JP premiere: 23rd Dec. 2022
US premiere: 21st June 2023
US blu-ray release: 26th Sept 2023 (SHOUT! FACTORY)
UK premiere: 4th Nov 2023
Runtime: 116 minutes
Language: Japanese audio with English Subtitles
Based on the novel by: Mizuki Tsujimura
JP publication: 11th May 2017 (Shueisha)
UK publication: 08 Sept 2022 (Penguin Random House)
ISBN: 978–1529176667
