From Up on Poppy Hill (PG)
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This came out in 2011 in Japan and 2013 in the US, but I didn't see it until 2024, during my Summer of Ghibli. It was the first Ghibli film to be released theatrically in North America by GKIDS after they acquired the rights to Ghibli distribution from Disney. And it's the second film directed by Goro Miyazaki. I watched it during the period when the 2024 Olympics were taking place, because preparations for the 1964 Olympics played a minor part in the story. Apparently it's set in 1963, though the only year I ever heard mentioned in the film was 1964. But of course preparations would have started well before the Olympics were held.

The main character is 16-year-old Umi Matsuzaki (voiced by Sarah Bolger in the English dub), who lives in the port city of Yokohama, in a boarding house on Poppy Hill. Her father was a sailor who died (though I guess his body was never found) when his ship sank during the Korean War, and her mother is currently away, studying in the United States. So Umi and her little brother and sister live with their grandmother, as well as a few boarders. Every day, Umi raises signal flags in the hopes of leading her father home to them.

One day, Umi and her friends see a boy named Shun Kazama (Anton Yelchin) jump into a pool from a roof at school, as part of a campaign to stop the demolition of the Latin Quarter, an old building at the academy from which he and another student, Shiro Mizunuma, run a school newspaper, as well as various clubs being located there. Umi's sister, Sora, buys a photograph of Shun jumping and convinces Umi to go with her to the Latin Quarter to get him to autograph it. While there, Umi starts helping out with the newspaper. She eventually advises Shun that he and his friends should clean up the building and make repairs, so it would be less likely to be demolished. It was all boys in the clubs, but they get a bunch of girls to help out, as well.

Meanwhile, Umi and Shun gradually grow closer and develop feelings for each other, until Shun makes a shocking discovery that I'm not going to spoil, but it put a stop to any potential romance from starting. Although there's another plot twist later on, which I'm also not going to spoil, which casts a new light on everything. Anyway, the school board still plans to demolish the Latin Quarter, to make way for a new building. (There's a big debate between students about holding onto the past versus looking to the future.) So Umi, Shun, and Shiro travel to Tokyo to talk to the board's chairman, a businessman named Tokumaru (Beau Bridges), in a last ditch effort to get him to overrule the board's decision. They invite him to visit the Latin Quarter, to see all the improvements they've made. And... I won't spoil how that goes.

Well, I'm leaving out lots of details and characters (and voice cast), but I think I've given a sufficient idea of what the story's all about. It's not really magical, like most Ghibli films, but it still has the feel of a Ghibli film in any number of ways. It has good characters, and the story is beautiful. And of course the animation has the look of a Ghibli film, and there's nice music. And I don't know what else to say. I just really enjoyed it a lot.