Miss Hokusai [SUB] (2015) Review

 Miss Hokusai [SUB] (2015) 5/10

Hello everybody. Today I’ll be reviewing the movie Miss Hokusai. Miss Hokusai was released on May 9, 2015 with the director being Keiichi Hara. The movie was produced by Production I.G., the same studio that did notable movies like Ghost in the Shell.

This was a very boring movie. I honestly didn’t really know what I was going into, but man I almost fell asleep watching this lol. The movie tries to have you grow connected to the characters with its underwhelming plot, but just fails in keeping the viewer entertained. I’m gonna keep this short, so let’s begin.

Our story starts in 1814 Edo Period Japan. This is the story of famous Japanese ukiyo-e painter Katsushika Tetsuzo (whose pen name is Hokusai) as he paints his famous works and deals with personal family issues. This story is told through the perspective of his daughter O-Ei and as he pushes her to become a better painter as well.

Despite this sounding like a good plot, it’s boring. It’s just family life happening. Nothing actually happens here. Whenever the duo go to get some inspiration, even these moments are boring. The only interesting parts were: O-Ei fucking up the dragon painting, creation of “Wave”, O-Ei going to the brothel to get some sketches and they see an out-of-body experience, her second visit to the brothel, and O-Ei’s final painting. Everything in between these moments are boring and uninteresting. The movie tries to develop O-Ei’s blind sister and it does make you feel something for her at times, but nothing really stuck with me with her scenes. Although, it was cool to see a blind character in an animated movie and seeing the audio directly affect one of the characters was pretty cool.

I do like the cast of characters, but I feel like the movie could’ve gone further with these characters. O-Ei is a hard-as-nails woman and isn’t afraid to bark back, but she has a softer side to her for her sister. Hokusai is an old, timid master painter and is constantly pushing everyone to become better. The rest of the main cast is just there to give these two a reason to interact with the world. There was this side character that looked like he was suppose to be a love interest with O-Ei, but that went nowhere. Overall the writing for the movie could’ve been better. I got a couple of laughs here and there, but again, this was a boring movie. I will say, if you are an avid enjoyer of ukiyo-e or even someone who thoroughly enjoys the works of Hokusai, you might enjoy this more than most other people, but this is an incredibly niche story to tell, and I don’t think it does a good job at portraying his (or her) story in an entertaining way, hindering my experience. 

The art direction for the movie is decent, I guess. It’s no Makoto Shinkai or Studio Ghibli, but it does its job to give it a somewhat unique look compared to other anime movies. I do like the character designs for everyone. Sound direction is very disappointing (minus what I said earlier about O-Ei’s sister), Music is forgettable. Voice acting is also forgettable.

Overall, this is just a very forgettable experience. The only thing I can take away from the movie was the creation of how these paintings were made. I’ll be forgetting about this boring ass movie in the coming weeks. I can only recommend this to people that are aspiring artists and would like some knowledge on how these paintings were made. Other than that, just stay away from the film.

Thanks for reading and I’ll see you next time.

This is Zorgak, signing off.