Studio Ghibli have done it again! For the third year in a row, Japan’s most famous anime studio has got a best animated film Academy Award nomination, this time for Omoide no Marnie (When Marnie Was There). This year’s nominations were announced in Beverly Hills last week and the awards ceremony will take place on Feb. 28.
Based on a 1967 children’s book by British writer Joan G. Robinson, it tells the story of 12-year-old orphan Anna (voiced by Takatsuki Sara), who lives unhappily in Sapporo with her foster parents. While visiting a coastal resort to recover from an asthma attack, she meets Marnie (Arimura Kasumi), a mysterious, blonde-haired girl who Anna had seen in her dreams. “Marnie…” will be up against Anomalisa, Boy and the World, Pixar’s Inside Out, and Aardman’s Shaun the Sheep Movie.
The English-dubbed version features such Hollywood talent as John C. Reilly, Kathy Bates, Ellen Burstyn and Vanessa Williams.
Directed by Yonebayashi Hiromasa and Nishimura Yoshiaki, it was released in Japan in the summer of 2014. It is the fifth Japanese animated film to be nominated for the award, all of which came from Studio Ghibli. But so far only the first, Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi (Spirited Away) in 2002, has come away with the Oscar.
