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“Wow, you made this? It’s like magic!”

A coming of age story that brings in the ever-expanding adult perspective that each person is an unpolished gem to a different degree, no matter their age or stage in life.

The old shopkeeper is the most capable of mending and maintaining broken and forgotten things, but he has unfulfilled hopes and dreams, privately kindling a desire that can never be fulfilled or mended. Shuzuku’s sister has her life together for someone her age but expresses her wisdom in ways that are brash and thorny so her sister does not heed her well intentioned and correct advices. Their mom is studying in her middle age but does not communicate clearly her need for assistance in the household and relies on the people around her to initiate communication when things aren’t clear about what needs to be done or addressed.

Shizuku herself being the most unpolished gem of all, of course. Being the central character whose eyes we view the world through, it comes with the territory, however the film has great empathy for her like so few other pieces of media about teenagers do and lets her be an emotional being who pouts and expresses distaste and shock a bit too freely. Obviously stuck in trying to figure out her steps toward becoming a more grown up person and expressing herself in brash ways that are somewhere in between.

It’s such a lived-in film in terms of both environs and experiences. The densest backgrounds showcase homes full of character, disarray and differences between one another. While the public spaces are brimming with people living their own lives, most of whom are going place to place evoking the same imagination of what their destinations might be in the same way Shizuku gets involved in following the cat Moon. The shop of various old and hand crafted items is the centerpiece of the film, being the mediator of the internal and the external coming together through the act of crafting and expressing understanding. The outer and inner lives of this cast of characters joining together, unpolished people among well crafted, overlooked items full of equal character and story.

Craft being a key word that defines all in the film. It is the polishing of the gem. It is the pursuit of perfection that will always allude us. Our society increasingly demands perfection but that is impossible to ask of imperfect beings, we are all works of art in the process of being eternally formed and reformed. Never our most perfect selves for that most pressing specific time to be perfect in a specific way. So craft here is treated like the trial of polishing oneself and learning to understand ourselves better and how we can be polished or have the light shone on our gem sides.

The art of Ghibli films tends to favor studying and depicting the outer world’s many textures, our motions and clashing realities in their most authentic ways and thus they bring out the magic through the craft. Crafting is an act of magic and even nature crafts its own magic on the daily. The sun rising and painting each morning sky a different color. The gems in the cracks and crevaces of rocks forming from the various elements and pressures around them. Ghibli recognizes that magic and variety time and time again and this might be their most restrained effort in terms of the supernatural that still wants to capture and understand what makes something magical. It is why the glow of gemstones, the colors of the sky and the evening streetlights, the slowly emerging feelings and hearts of the characters all feel so wonderous and glowing in their greatest moments.

The most memorable moment of all in the film being the most communal one, where the magic of Shizuku’s lyrics, Seiji’s violin and the gang of experiences musician older men joining in to imbue her lyrics with fuller sound and togetherness. It is pure magic of different crafts coming together, of hearts and experiences and craft synchronizing and enhancing one another for something that cannot be replicated.

Although Studio Ghibli IS a production house that must meet the requirements of capitalism, it has shown itself time and time again, to be a place of artists coming together, to share those experiences, to pour out their hearts and minds and hands into something that is far closer to craft and art for the sake of art rather than chasing absolute guaranteed successes. The act of the craft matters far more than the destination or value as a product. and just like art, crafting ourselves to become our best selves is the magic we should all strive for the most and communicate ourselves clearly to our little corner of the world. To foster one another is to foster a community that values more than just monetary value.

These words are one of my crafts, that I’ve honed online for a decade and a half and I’ve seen it reach some hearts and they have helped the world feel a little bit less like an isolated place that incentivizes misanthropist towards our fellow man. I have many other crafts and unformed iron slabs in the fire, some of those I keep for myself for the love of the craft, but others I share either online or with my closest circle since in the end craft is best served to be visible to the eye of the communities we foster rather than changing hands for cash or obscuring in a drawer.

If there is one wish and takeaway that I hold dear towards anyone who takes joy in Ghibli films, it is to seize their essence as motivator that doing anything artful is giving to yourself and the world. Everyone has the potential to polish their own gems, so please polish yours, find meaning in the craft and share it with others when you feel ready to.