As Anna, suffocated by social pressures, boards a train to the coast, she is simultaneously reinvigorated by the seaside air, and drawn out of her shell by Marnie, the enigmatic girl-out-of-time, whose globe trotting family bring glamour to Hokkaido, with Jazz Age gatherings that recall the world of The Wind Rises. Still, it often feels like Yonebayashi’s attempt to decode the Studio’s DNA, using Robinson’s story to illuminate Miyazaki’s creative relationship with nostalgia, pastoral settings and European influences. It’s a far cry from Miyazaki’s meticulously controlled, highly sophisticated storytelling, but there’s no denying the radical ambition inherent in tackling topics as yet unseen in the Ghibli canon. The angst keeps coming, as Yonebayashi stacks melodramatic themes on top of an otherwise featherlight timeslip plot, encompassing state subsidies for foster families, burgeoning sexuality, domestic violence, mental illness and, most remarkably, mixed-race identity in Japan. She twists herself into agonised emotional knots. Where Miyazaki found a graceful narrative flow to complement his characters’ growing pains, When Marnie Was There is volatile and unpredictable from the off: a pleasant pre-titles sequence in a summery schoolyard is upturned when Anna suffers an anxiety attack after an everyday social interaction goes awry. Yonebayashi adapts Robinson’s novel himself, in collaboration with Ghibli veterans Keiko Niwa (co-writer of Arrietty) and Masashi Ando (an animator with credits dating back to 1991’s Only Yesterday). Distinct from the studio’s fantastical adventures, When Marnie Was There fits into one of the company’s secondary genre moulds: the ‘teen feels’ drama, as best seen in Whisper of the Heart and From Up on Poppy Hill, both of which were written by Miyazaki as projects for protégé directors. It recounts a summer friendship between Anna (asthmatic, socially awkward) and a mysterious girl she spies hanging around an abandoned waterfront mansion. The result is a fantasy-tinged coming-of-age melodrama adapted from a 1967 novel by British children’s author Joan G Robinson.

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