My Neighbors the Yamadas

“The ups and downs of life.”

In urban Tokyo, the Yamadas are an ordinary middle-class family: Takashi (Toru Masuoka) and Matsuko (Yukiji Asaoka) at the center, with Noboru (Hayato Isohata), Nonoko (Naomi Uno), and the grandmother Shige (Masako Araki) around them. The film moves through short episodes of their days, some funny, some sad, drawn from the manga strip Nono-chan. Isao Takahata, working at Studio Ghibli, drops the studio's usual look for a loose comic-strip style.