Director Keiichi Hara discusses his anime feature about a young girl, mercilessly harassed at school, who escapes through a portal to an enchanted castle where she and a group of teens must play a game together to uncover the mysterious connection that unites them; the GKIDS film’s limited North American theatrical run begins June 21.
In 1985, iconic filmmaker John Hughes posed an interesting challenge to the entertainment industry with the release of his film The Breakfast Club: Un-fluff teen drama stories to portray realistic kids talking about ugly issues, with no filter? The coming-of-age film showed five high schoolers from all walks of life - rich, poor, abused, ignored, popular, and bullied - coming together in an unlikely twist of fate, bonded by their shared traumas and unwillingness to accept life’s punches lying down.
And, nearly 40 years later, director Keiichi Hara wants to offer a similar catharsis to Japanese students at a time when the country’s school bullying cases and child suicide rates have reached an all-time high.
Running for two days in North American theaters starting Wednesday, June 21 (tickets now on sale here), GKIDS’ Lonely Castle in the Mirror, from A-1 Pictures, is based on a 2017 novel by Mizuki Tsujimura. The story centers around high school student Kokoro, who is being mercilessly harassed by a group of girls at her school. Kokoro eventually stops going to school altogether and her mother, unaware of the full extent of the problem, encourages her to either go back to school or pursue opportunities at an alternate school, neither choice particularly appealing.
One day while home from school, Kokoro’s bedroom mirror begins to glow and she’s transported to a castle, perched on a rock mound in the middle of the ocean. There she’s greeted by a girl wearing a wolf mask, who introduces her to six other kids about her age. Each kid has a wish they’d like granted, and they’ve been summoned to the castle in order to find the lost key that will grant one of their wishes. The children have roughly eight months to complete the task and they can come and go as they please but, if they stay in the castle after the nightly curfew, they will be eaten by a wolf.
At first, the seven kids either don’t return to the castle or spend their time searching separately for the key. But after a few weeks and some unpleasant exchanges, head back, as the castle becomes like a second home and a place where this unlikely group can confide in each other.
Take a few moments to enjoy the trailer:
The anime may not deal with taped butt cheeks or cigarette burns, but it tackles losing loved ones, familial pressure, being pushed to the breaking point in academics, and sexual assault. Like The Breakfast Club, Lonely Castle in the Mirror paints an unpleasant but relatable picture of why a teen would choose a life on the streets or ending one’s life altogether (and risk being eaten by a wolf), rather than face the struggles waiting for them back at home or in school.
During the 2020 school year, Japan recorded 415 suicides among schoolchildren aged 6 to 18, the highest number since recordkeeping began in 1974. In 2021, the number of suicides among school students in Japan rose to 473, then to 512 in 2022.
When child suicide recordkeeping first began in Japan, director Hara was a student himself.
Though Hara was never a victim of such intense bullying, he says he witnessed the problem grow rapidly and it was one of the reasons he felt compelled direct the animated film Colorful in 2010, as well as Lonely Castle in the Mirror 13 years later. Hara shared his personal take and insight into Japan’s bullying problem with AWN, as well as what he believes needs to change in order to stop the problem from continuing to grow.
Victoria Davis: What initially drew you to the idea of reimagining Mizuki’s original story from 2017?
Keiichi Hara: Currently in Japan, kids often find they can't go to school because of bullying. That’s something that U.S. society is familiar with it too but, in Japan, it's a really, really big issue. So, these children really feel like they have no place at school. This [issue] has been increasing and not decreasing. That's a theme from the original story I felt an immediacy to address.
VD: Was this type of bullying something you also experienced growing up in Japan? Or is this bullying something that's more recently become such a problem with school-age children?
KH: I'm 63 years old now and, in my teens, I feel that there wasn't the type of bullying, like insidious bullying, that you see today. And I also wasn't the type of kid who was always at the center of attention. I was the kid who was kind of off to the side. So, I personally didn't have the same experience that kids may have today. But I see the current trends and it just seems like a really sad future.
VD: This isn't the first time you've addressed this topic in stories you've directed. Another well-known anime that comes to mind is Colorful, a very complicated story about life and living, a huge theme being bullying and ostracizing classmates that don’t fit the desired mold. And that film was made in 2010. So, this is a message that’s been important to you for a long time, correct?
KH: I'm not a specialist. I don't study behaviors and bullying and things like that. But we see it in the media and in the news that children are committing suicide because of this issue. The question that hasn’t been put out there, at least not as often as it should, is if this issue is coming from within the school. That is a question that needs to be answered. When you look at the teachers, they have their workload as well, and how teachers interact with children is changing these days.
Their workload is a lot, so the teachers who really are serious about teaching, and want to take care of these kids, are absolutely exhausted. They're literally exhausting themselves to the point where they can’t get to work anymore. So, in that way, it's almost turning into what we call in Japan a “black industry,” as in it's not improving itself for the better. But there are a lot of issues. And it's difficult to say who holds the responsibility. But we need to ask these questions. That’s what this film does.
VD: We've also seen more stories coming out of Japan that talk about these issues, where even if bullying isn’t the main focus of an anime TV show or film, it’s always mentioned. We’re also seeing a lot of films - like Mamoru Hosoda’s Belle and Tetsurō Araki’s Bubble - using old fairy tales like Beauty and the Beast and The Little Mermaid as conduits to talk about children who are being abused, bullied, and/or struggling to find their place in the world. Lonely Castle in the Mirror uses The Little Red Riding Hood. Why do you think old fairy tales are being used as a platform with which to address concerns about our modern lives?
KH: It does come from the mind of the original author, but I will share my thoughts on this. So, there are these seven kids who have never met, and these kids end up in a Western-styled castle, which is a really distant reality from Japan, as opposed to a Japanese castle, let's say. And the castle symbolizes a place of protection from the outside.
The whole Little Red Riding Hood thing was a bit of a red herring from the story’s Wolf Queen, because the true fairy tale behind this story is The Three Little Pigs. Or, in this case, The Seven Little Pigs.
VD: It’s so interesting that you highlight the castle’s protection symbolism because so often we focus on fairy tales as an escape from reality painted almost like running away from one’s problems. But this is the one place these kids feel safe.
KH: An extra thing for audiences to know is that the original Japanese title recognizes this individual castle as a place of “last resort.” It’s the only place of safety to go to for them. The castle itself is also like the “last man standing” or The Alamo as well. So, there’s a deeper meaning in its original title.
VD: As you’ve said, bullying is a universal problem that has created an extra harsh environment for schools and students in Japan. As this movie is about to release in the U.S., what do you hope both American and Japanese audiences come away with after watching the film, and what steps can we take to make a better future for other kids entering school across the globe?
KH: When I was creating this anime, I did watch a lot of documentaries on bullying. Through that, I did see that bullying is a worldwide problem. And each country is trying to solve these issues in its own way. I feel that a lot of kids, when they're being bullied or ignored, can't tell their parents or their teachers. And so, you go into this cycle of feeling alone. And then the adults are always like, “Well, why didn't you tell me?” It’s because admitting what’s happening makes it even more real to these kids. And when it's real, they feel weak. And then you get into a cycle where these kids are committing suicide.
I hope, through watching my animation, that kids see it’s okay to say what’s going on. Kids are meant to have weaknesses. It’s normal. That’s why adults are there, to give them strength. Adults are there to protect you. And adults should encourage kids that it's okay to say when they are being bullied.
VD: I have to say, I just became a mom to a little girl and seeing that kind of moment between Kokoro and her mother was extremely reassuring. Knowing this kind of story is out in the world and that my daughter will have these stories to encourage her to reach out for help is so vital. You're doing a lot of us parents a favor as well by making stories like this for the world to see.
KH: Thank you. Thank you for sharing that with me.
Victoria Davis is a full-time, freelance journalist and part-time Otaku with an affinity for all things anime. She's reported on numerous stories from activist news to entertainment. Find more about her work at victoriadavisdepiction.com.
