When Marnie Was There

When Marnie Was There (Japanese: 思い出のマーニー, Hepburn: Omoide no Mānii, lit. "Memories of Marnie") is a 2014 Japanese anime film written and directed by Hiromasa Yonebayashi, produced by Studio Ghibli, and based on the novel When Marnie Was There by Joan G. Robinson. It was released on 19 July 2014. It was the final film for Studio Ghibli before they announced that the film division is taking a short hiatus after The Tale of Princess Kaguya, and the retirement of Hayao Miyazaki a year before the film was released. This is potentially the last feature film to be released by Studio Ghibli. The film will be released on Blu-ray and DVD in Japan on 18 March 2015.

Plot

Anna Sasaki is a 12-year-old girl who sits alone on a park bench, sketching a scene of children playing as part of a school assignment. Looking over and comparing herself to a group of girls laughing and talking amongst themselves while sketching the same assignment, she goes into a soliloquy, "There is a magical circle in this world that no one can see. Those girls are in the circle, and then there's me, on the outside. But I don't care about any of that. I hate myself," coughing, and she collapses.

At home, she sees a doctor. A woman, Yoriko, reveals that Anna suffers from asthma and that she does not have any friends, because she is very quiet and closed-off to others. Yoriko explains to the doctor that it seems like she does not know who Anna is anymore, because she used to be so happy and full of emotion, but is now always making the same, emotionless face. In order to help Anna, Yoriko decides it's best to send her away from the polluted air of Sapporo, to a small village on the shores of northern Hokkaido and have her stay with her relatives, Kiyomasa and Setsu for the summer.

Once there, they meet Anna at the station and drive her to their home, pointing out an old silo on a hill where it is rumored that ghosts come out at night. Anna writes a postcard to Yoriko telling her that she arrived safely and goes out to the post office to mail it. There, she encounters a local girl and due to her closed-off nature, Anna runs away from her, ends up tripping down the stairs and landing on the shore of a bay. She sees a large, old manor on the other side of the bay and feels strangely drawn to it. She takes off her shoes, walks through the shallow end of the water to the house and peers inside, to find out that the house is abandoned. Anna then dozes off and awakens several hours later to find that the tide has risen and she has no way of getting back, but then an old man comes along and rows her back to shore. Halfway across, Anna sees all the lights in the house come on.

Back at their home, Anna tells Setsu and Kiyomasa about the house and they tell her people in the village call it the Marsh House and that she could not have seen any lights, because no one has lived in it since the family of foreigners that used it as their villa left decades ago. That night, Anna has a dream, walking to the house again, but is stopped by a heavy wave just close enough to see a blond-haired girl having her hair brushed by an old woman through the house's blue window. After spending her time sketching the house on the lake for a couple of days, Setsu wants her help running an errand at a friend's house. While there, Setsu's friend invites Anna to the neighborhood Tanabata festival, which Setsu accepts.

At the festival, that friend’s daughter, Nobuko, comments that Anna's eyes have a slight blue tint to them, making her look like a foreigner. Anna calls the girl a "fat pig" and runs away from the festival, finding herself standing along the shore overlooking the Marsh House without realizing it. She has a flashback to when she was many years younger, sitting alone in a chair as family members tried to find someone to take care of her, but no one wanted her. But just as she breaks down crying, she notices a row boat waiting for her with a lit candle in it. Finding this strange, she decides to take the boat out, but halfway across, the lights in the house comes on and the boat begins moving towards the house on its own. Tthe blonde-haired girl Anna sees in her dreams runs out of the front gate to the dock and shouts "toss me the rope!" She assures Anna that "this isn't a dream." Eventually, Anna asks for her name and she replies, "Marnie. I thought you knew." The two quickly become friends, promising to "keep the two of us a secret", forever.

Marnie becomes the first person Anna can open up to, but one day Marnie and everything in the house disappears. Since Marnie is gone, Anna goes back to a life of sketching in solitude for a week, then comes across a woman named Hisako, who is painting Marnie's house on a hillside. She tells Anna that she will need to finish it quickly, as a family is moving in and doing renovation work on the house. Startled, Anna runs to the house, and a young girl with glasses looks out from the blue window, calling out to her, "Are you Marnie?" The girl, Sayaka, explains that she found Marnie's diary in her room, and since Anna was always looking up at her window, she assumed that she was Marnie. After Anna reads the 70+ year old diary, she realizes that everything she has been through with Marnie is all written there word-for-word, from sneaking out at night, to the party. This convinces Sayaka that she is mistaken and the two become friends, as they try to find out what or who Marnie really is.

One day, Marnie reappears before Anna, and while the two go mushroom picking in the forest, they reveal their biggest secrets to each other: Anna came across a document in a desk drawer revealing that not only is Yoriko not her real mother, she receives monthly payments in exchange for taking care of her. This is the real cause of her depression, as she feels that Yoriko does not love her, and would not be taking care of her if she was not being paid.

Marnie comforts her, then reveals that she is extremely sad as her parents often leave for extended periods of time, so she is all alone with the nanny who abuses her, keeping her locked in her room, brushing her hair so violently that it hurts. Her biggest fear is the silo on the hill, because of a time the nanny and the maids locked her up in it alone during a thunderstorm at night. Because of how much Marnie has helped her, Anna decides to help Marnie and the two head to the silo to conquer her fear, but Marnie suddenly vanishes on the way there. Anna finds Marnie in the top of the silo, shuddering in fear from the pouring rain and lightning crashing overhead. Marnie rushes to Anna and hugs her saying "Kazuhiko, Kazuhiko" over and over. Anna tries to get Marnie to leave, but she says she cannot. She eventually vanishes again, leaving Anna upset that she was left in the pouring rain until she was feverish and collapsed on the side of the road, and Marnie did not come to help her. Sayaka and her brother find her and get her back to Setsu's house where she recovers. A few days later, Sayaka comes over with the missing pages she found from the diary, describing the silo incident, and how Marnie's childhood friend Kazuhiko came to rescue her. Sayaka also has a painting she found that is signed "To Marnie, from Hisako." Recognizing the name, Anna and Sayaka show the diary to the old woman painting on the hill, asking for more information about Marnie.

Hisako then recalls how she and Marnie were best friends as children and were together all the time, until the silo incident. After Kazuhiko saved her, Marnie and Kazuhiko grew closer and eventually got married and had a daughter named Emily. Kazuhiko later died due to illness after which Marnie had to be put in a sanitarium. Emily was placed in a boarding school and raised there until she was 13 years old, when Marnie was well enough to leave, by which time Emily had become argumentative and selfish, eventually eloping with a man whose daughter she already bore.

Emily and her husband were killed in a car accident, leaving their daughter in the care of Marnie, the girl's grandmother. Marnie desired to raise the girl with love, so she would not experience the tragedy in their family, but died the next year, leaving the girl with no one until she was adopted. Anna later sees Marnie again through the window, and asks her why she betrayed her and abandoned her in a time of need. Marnie responds "I couldn't help it. You weren't here when that happened." Marnie asks for Anna's forgiveness as she says goodbye and Anna answers, "Of course I forgive you, because I love you!"

Yoriko comes to get Anna at the end of summer. She is happy to see that Anna is doing much better and has managed to make friends with Sayaka. As the two catch up, Yoriko says that she was lonely and looking at old pictures while Anna was gone, and that she found an old photo of the Marsh House that was taken by Anna's grandmother. Anna flips the photo over to find it signed "My favorite place. Marnie". Suddenly, Anna recalls how when she was in pain as a two year old, her grandmother Marnie took care of her and told her how, just as she made it through the silo, Anna could make it through her pain because she was her only grandchild. Anna says goodbye to everyone, telling Sayaka that she will be back next summer and introduces Hisako to her foster mother, calling her "Mom" instead of "my guardian" for the first time in a very long time, and tells Hisako that she "has a wonderful announcement" to make once she gets home. As she is driven away back to Sapporo, she looks back to see Marnie waving at her from the house's blue window before vanishing one last time.

Cast

• Sara Takatsuki (高月彩良, Takatsuki Sara) as Anna Sasaki (佐々木杏奈, Sasaki Anna)
• Kasumi Arimura (有æ'架ç´", Arimura Kasumi) as Marnie (マーニー, MānÄ«)
• Hana Sugisaki (杉å'²èŠ±, Sugisaki Hana) as Sayaka (彩香)
• Hitomi Kuroki (é»'木瞳, Kuroki Hitomi) as Hisako (久子)
• Ryoko Moriyama (森山良子, Moriyama Ryoko) as Elderly Lady (老婦人, Roufujin)
• Nanako Matsushima (松嶋菜々子, Matsushima Nanako) as Yoriko Sasaki (佐々木頼子, Sasaki Yoriko)
• Susumu Terajima (寺島進, Terajima Susumu) as Kiyomasa Oiwa (大岩清正, Oiwa Kiyomasa)
• Toshie Negishi (根岸季衣, Negishi Toshie) as Setsu Oiwa (大岩セツ, Oiwa Setsu)
• Kazuko Yoshiyuki (吉行å'Œå­, Yoshiyuki Kazuko) as Nanny (ばあや, Baaya)
• Ken Yasuda (安ç"°é¡•, Yasuda Ken) as Toichi (十一)
• Yo Oizumi (大泉洋, Oizumi Yo) as Doctor Yamashita (山下医師, Yamashita Ishi)
• Takuma Otoo (音尾琢真, Otoo Takuma) as Neighborhood Association Officer (ç"ºå†…会役å"¡, Chounaikai Yakuin)
• Hiroyuki Morisaki (森崎博之, Moriyuki Hirosaki) as Art Teacher (美è¡"教師, Bijutsu Kyoushi)

Music

Fine on the Outside

"Fine on the Outside" is a single by American recording artist and musician Priscilla Ahn. It features the title song, "Fine on the Outside", the theme song of the 2014 Ghibli movie, "When Marnie was There", as well as "This Old House", the theme song of the "When Marnie Was There x Yohei Taneda Exhibition" that was held at the Edo-Tokyo Museum from 27 July 2014 to 15 September 2014.

Background

Priscilla Ahn grew up as a girl who was friendless and alone, and so turned to music, movies, books, and her guitar as her only friends. She describes how she "would literally sit on my bed and look out the window at night at the moon, and wonder if I was loved... if anyone would miss me if I was gone." This led her to writing "Fine on the Outside" in 2005, but she had never released it due to the lyrics being too personal, open, and vulnerable, and because she didn't want to have to change the song in any way to make it fit in with her other albums. As a big fan of Ghibli, she read the original novel "When Marnie was There" after the announcement they were working on a movie adaptation, immediately saw herself in Anna, and eventually decided to submit the song to Ghibli. The movie's producer Yoshiaki Nishimura contacted her soon afterwards saying how much he loved the song, and it was later officially chosen as the theme song.

Release

It was released in Japan as a CD single and a digital single on 2 July 2014.

Track listings

1. "Fine on the Outside" â€" 4:12
2. "This Old House" â€" 3:19
3. "Fine on the Outside (Original Karaoke)" â€" 4:12

Just Know That I Love You

"Just Know That I Love You", known as Anata no Koto ga Daisuki (あなたのã"とが大すき, , lit. "I Love You") in Japan, is an album by American recording artist and musician Priscilla Ahn. It features theme songs, "Fine on the Outside" and "This Old House" that were featured on her previous single, as well as other "When Marnie Was There"-inspired songs written by Ahn.

Release

It was released on CD in Japan, and in 113 countries worldwide (including Japan) as a digital download on the iTunes Store on 16 July 2014.

Track listings

1. "Fine on the Outside" â€" 4:12
2. "Deep Inside My Heart" â€" 3:43
3. "Pretty Dress" â€" 2:23
4. "I See You" â€" 3:58
5. "Marnie" â€" 3:07
6. "This Old House" â€" 3:18
7. "With You" â€" 3:45
8. "You're A Star" â€" 3:45
9. "Waltzing Memories" â€" 3:31
10. "I Am Not Alone" â€" 4:12

When Marnie Was There Soundtrack Music Collection

"When Marnie Was There Soundtrack Music Collection", known as Omoide no Marnie Santora Ongaku Shuu (思い出のマーニーサントラ音楽集) in Japan, is a two-disc soundtrack and image song album that was released on CD in Japan and in 113 countries worldwide (including Japan) as a digital download on the iTunes Store on 16 July 2014. The first "Image Song" disc features music composed to express the personality of the characters and feel of places in the film. The second disc features all the background music for the film, as well as its ending theme song, "Fine On The Outside".

Track listings

Disc 1

Disc 2

Reception

The film opened at third place, grossing ¥379 million during its opening weekend in Japan. By its fourth weekend, it had earned ¥2.08 billion, made an additional ¥930 million in its next two weekends, and had a total of ¥3.63 billion by its eighth weekend.

Release

The film was released in Japan on July 19, 2014. It is expected to be released on Blu-Ray/ DVD in Japan on March 18, 2015. On January 14, 2015, GKIDS announced that they will be distributing the film for an North American release. The film will premiere at the New York International Children's Film Festival on February 27, 2015. There is no word yet on a English cast or official release date.

References

External links

• Official website (Japanese)
• When Marnie Was There at the Internet Movie Database
• When Marnie Was There (anime) at Anime News Network's encyclopedia