Miss Hokusai (2015) — Keiichi Hara
Indirectly — or directly — it was a film about the father.
Hokusai — who lived during the 18th and beginning of the 19th centuries — is Japan's most famous painter, eternalized by "The Great Wave Off Kanazawa", which is currently the most reproduced print in all over the world. Therefore, it is fair to say that the name is not strange to cinema and anime audiences nor to international festival juries, and that there was no way to lose with a film about the daughter of the man whose work is reproduced even more than the ones of Jesus or J.K. Rowling.
Director Keiichi Hara, a well known name in the Japanese animation industry, was well aware of that as he directed "Miss Hokusai", managing to get himself even more international prestige than with his previous animation feature about teenage suicide, "Colorful" (2010). After decades of experience in the anime world, directing some of the most financially resourceful series such as "Doraemon" and "Crayon Shin-Chan", it comes as no surprise that the man understands by now what does and does not work, and he is definitely destined to more autoral projects.
The fact that Hara spent most of his career on television explains why throughout the entire film there's quite a strong episode-oriented sense of narrative. "Miss Hokusai"'s story was actually taken from a manga series created, drawn and written by Hinako Sugiura, which tells chapters of Hokusai's daughter Katsushika Oei's life. So it's understandable that the film, as an attempt to derive from the manga, feels like it could be chopped into various Youtube short films. 'Understandable' doesn't mean it was the best choice. Something that had what it takes to be original even as a by-product ended as something that seemed unappreciated or that just had to put up with production costs. The thing is it could've been great but it was fulfilled with just being 'foreignly good' — a term that designates those work pieces that are overvalued for the exoticism they present to opinion makers rather than being valued for what they actually are.
To the plot! The film does not have one but the time-wise coherent context linking the events depicted: they all seem to happen at a time when Oei is in her 20s and Hokusai, in his 60s. As the sorted episodes unveil themselves, the relationship between daughter and father is built, from their seemingly peaceful although adventurous routine to the emotional issues swiped under the carpet. Oei understands she will never escape from her father's shadow and doesn't seem to be bothered by it as long as she manages to keep her own artistic ambitions going.
In that sense, "Miss Hokusai" does bring forward the character's particular perspective despite being orbited by Hokusai's influence, more as a fatherly figure than the one of an art master. As an example, there's the brothel incident. Oei is at the time single and, although familiar to the female body, she can't fully grasp its sensualness, needed to paint the high selling erotic scenes. One day Oei, redirecting her disappointment at love to the bettering of her art, runs back to the city more specifically to the red light district where she finally experiences love in its full form: erotic and emotional splurge.
To conclude, "Miss Hokusai" is an interesting, well-directed and well-drawn — although with some slouch motion effects — feature. There's a sad feeling in the animation industry (maybe since it is an industry after all) today concerning the fact that most important thing in a production is being able to sell, criticism that the very director Keiichi Hara has spoken of. From that point of view, "Miss Hokusai" isn't just good, but great. Yet, from an artistic and even cultural efforts' perspective, it somehow wastes potential and quality material that could've been tools for an art piece as inspiring as Hokusai the legend himself.
