, also known as Downtown Story, is a 1981 Japanese animated film directed by Isao Takahata. Based on the 1978 manga by Etsumi Haruki, the film was co-written by Takahata and Noboru Shiroyama, it stars the voices of Chinatsu Nakayama, Norio Nishikawa, Kiyoshi Nishikawa, Kyoko Mitsubayashi, and Gannosuke Ashiya. Taking place in a working class town in Osaka, the young and independent Chie navigates the adult world around her, seeking to reform her father's behaviour and keep her family together.
Produced and animated by Tokyo Movie Shinsha, Jarinko Chie was Takahata's reintroduction to feature-length animated films after working in television anime. Production began in December 1980, with the animation style taking strong cues from the source material. Particular notice was taken to accurately portray the film's setting of Osaka, including research trips, the use of Kansai dialect, and the hiring of Osakan cast members. The film was released in Japan by Toho on 11 April 1981. Jarinko Chie saw moderate box office success and has been praised, particularly for its social consciousness and comedy. Analyses of the film have looked at the story as a commentary on masculinity and the role of community. After its success, Takahata served as the chief director for a follow-up TV series. Chie herself has remained a popular character in Osaka.
Plot Set in a working class district of Osaka, ten-year-old Chie is tasked with helping her troublesome, workshy father Tetsu run a local —an informal bar or pub. Whilst cooking, she sees a stray cat looking hungry. After deciding to feed it, the cat (named Kotetsu), enters the and begins living with her and Tetsu. Constantly in need of money, Tetsu lies to his father () to get money from him, only for him to lose it gambling. admonishes her husband's willingness to lend money. After accusing the boss of cheating, Tetsu fights his way home. and come to the after closing time to scold Tetsu for his neglect of Chie.
Chie grows increasingly upset with Tetsu for always putting himself first. Despite trying to keep it a secret from him, Tetsu shows up to Chie's class unexpectedly during parent's visiting day and causes a scene by berating her teacher, Wataru Hanai. After school, Chie and Tetsu fight about his selfishness. Just as she is about to leave in anger, she notices a flower on the doorstep, recognising it as a sign from her mother Yoshie who has recently separated from Tetsu.
Looking forward to seeing her mother again, Chie leaves without telling Tetsu her plans. Both Chie and Yoshie want to reunite with Tetsu, but Chie recognises it is still too early for them to meet again as Tetsu has yet to change his attitude. That night, and his underlings come to the demanding Tetsu pay his debts to the gambling house. While drinking, encourages his beloved cat, Antonio to fight Chie's Kotetsu. To their shock, Antonio loses, with Kotetsu partially castrating him. Upset by Antonio's condition, leaves before Tetsu returns.
Chie spends her free time searching for work for her father, when she encounters , who has now turned his gambling house into an restaurant upon the death of Antonio. Requiring a security guard, he decides to hire Tetsu. Later, Chie meets with her mother again when Tetsu spots them both. Upset at what he perceives as Chie's rejection, he spends the day sulking. During a home visit by her homeroom teacher, Wataru reveals that he is the son of Tetsu's former homeroom teacher Kankotsu, who also set up the marriage between Tetsu and Yoshie. The elder Hanai seeks to repair the relationship between Yoshie and Tetsu, the two tentatively agree and Yoshie moves in again. Despite an initially frosty relationship, after Chie starts acting up on the train, the two of them begin talking. During the course of the day at the amusement park their relationship rekindles.
One evening, Tetsu is at 's restaurant complaining about Kotetsu's violent tendencies when unexpectedly Antonio Jr. appears, seeking revenge against Kotetsu. Despite pleas, initially from a sober , and then Chie, for things to remain peaceful, Antonio Jr. demands a fight. Kotetsu attempts to defuse the situation by showing his respect for the dead and refuses to fight him, Antonio Jr. forgives Kotetsu and everyone goes home. The film ends with a montage of characters entering the .
Cast Chinatsu Nakayama as Chie Takemoto Norio Nishikawa as Tetsu Takemoto, Chie's father Gannosuke Ashiya as (the boss) Kyoko Mitsubayashi as Yoshie, Chie's mother Kiyoshi Nishikawa as Kotetsu, the family cat Yasushi Yokoyama as Antonio and Antonio Jr., 's cat and the cat's son Ichirō Nagai as Shocho Katsura Bunshi VI as Wataru Hanai, Chie's teacher Nikaku Shōfukutei as Kankotsu Hanai, Tetsu's former teacher Yoshio Kamigata as Maruyama Mitsuru Keisuke Ōtori as , Chie's grandfather Utako Kyō as , Chie's grandmother Shinsuke Shimada as Masaru, Chie's classmate Ryusuke Matsumoto as Shigeru, Chie's classmate Yoshiko Ōta as Masaru's mother
Production Development and pre-production
Jarinko Chie was produced by Toho and animated by Tokyo Movie Shinsha. The film is based on the seinen manga by Etsumi Haruki. After finishing work on the production of the final episode of Anne of Green Gables, Takahata was approached by Yasuo Ōtsuka with the project of Chie from their boss Yutaka Fujioka. Ōtsuka, serving as the film's animation director, and character designer Yōichi Kotabe may have convinced Takahata to direct the film upon realising the manga's entertainment value. Takahata agreed to direct the film and decided that he wanted to balance the manga's story and comedic content with its depiction of the Osakan people and culture. After a research trip to Shinsekai—during which Takahata spent time copying Haruki's art style and reading his manga—he felt that the script's first draft, written by Fujimoto Giichi, was substandard. The final script is credited to Noboru Shiroyama, who wrote the script for the Furiten-kun theatrical film. The film faithfully adapts much of the manga's first few volumes.
Masaru Hoshi composed the music. Art director Nizo Yamamoto was working on the final episode of the Lupin the Third television series when he was asked to work on Jarinko Chie for the first time. Takahata was impressed by Makiko Futaki's work on The Castle of Cagliostro and employed her as an in-between animator for Jarinko Chie. Working on the film represented a shift for Takahata from working under an established studio (as he had done at Toei Animation) to making films independently. The author Jonathan Clements credits the production of Chie with the revitalisation of Takahata's career producing feature-length animation, and for once more allowing Takahata to collaborate with his former colleagues at Toei (who he would later form Studio Ghibli with).
Production and animation Jarinko Chie started production in December 1980. The film intentionally copied the manga's artistic and tonal style by balancing realistic and impressionistic animation (e.g. the introduction of Kotetsu as a normal cat before showing him anthropomorphised). Care was taken to emphasise moments directly from the source material's manga panels. The animation used a deliberately stylised "uncool" look; Ōtsuka recalled being talked to by Takahata for drawing character poses that looked good, but artificial within the world of Haruki's manga. The production crew experienced some difficulty in drawing the cats in the film, due to their more human-like movements, while remaining faithful to Haruki's drawings. As a result of having a large interacting cast of characters, the number of cels drawn was larger than normal, with each frame averaging about five layers of cels. Yamamoto used thin, watercolour-like paints for the film's backgrounds and firm pen lines for shading, but the combination in certain scenes made inking night skies impossible. The production lasted only a few months, as a result, the style of the animation changed to be more solid as it was easier to animate than the manga's more sketched visuals.
This was the first film in ten years that Chie's voice actress Chinatsu Nakayama had been in. At the time, she was a sitting member of the legislature in Japan's House of Councillors. During her first meeting with Haruki, the artist revealed that he partially based Chie on Nakayama's character from the film . The film's dubbing started on 7 February 1981 at Tohokushinsha Studio in Asakusa, with characters being recorded separately in Osaka, which began on 13 February. During the dubbing process, Gannosuke Ashiya's nearsightedness made it difficult for him to watch the screen to match his character's mouth movements. Commenting on the process, Takahata referred to the voice acting as "honest", but found that the pre-animated sequences limited the ability for experimentation. Due to the original manga's episodic narrative, Takahata had difficulty cutting material from the film during the editing process. The film's theme song "Chie" was performed by the band .
Setting
Takahata and Ōtsuka tried to ensure accuracy to the area of Osaka they were depicting, in order to do so, Takahata reportedly stayed overnight in a doss-house in Osaka. The film is based in the north-east of Nishinari Ward, in a working class district of Osaka. The characters of the film speak using Osaka dialect, a way of speaking considered more casual and emotional by speakers of standard Japanese. Chie herself uses it increasingly in proportion to her level of anger, toning it down dramatically when she is with her mother.
Numerous references to regional culture are made in the film, for instance, 's restaurant serves which is considered a regional speciality, and Tetsu and Chie's is named , referring to offal, derived from Osakan dialect meaning 'to throw away'. Throughout the film, the Tsūtenkaku can be seen in the near-distance and Chie and her mother visit Tennōji Park together. The film also features many comedians in its voice cast, a form of double-act comedy associated with Osaka and the Kansai region. At this time, comedy was undergoing a boom in popularity on Japanese television. Clements attributes the popularity of to the reason the film focusses on the city's culture.
Release Jarinko Chie was released on 11 April 1981, on the same day as the Furiten-kun theatrical film. For the comedians playing characters in the film, this was their first role in animation. The television programme Kao Master Theatre TV promoted it with an animated sequence. During an interview to promote the film, Takahata was asked by Toshio Suzuki—then a journalist—how he could shift from "producing a classic like Heidi" to a film about "skid row" in Osaka. Suzuki would later become the president of Studio Ghibli, working with both Takahata and Hayao Miyazaki. Following the film's success, Takahata agreed to be the chief director for an animated television series, although he later left the production team.
The film was released in French cinemas on 9 February 2005, but has not received a wide distribution outside of Japan.
Reception