A Shade of Coquelicot | From Up the Poppy Hill

Kokuriko-zaka Kara

From Coquelicot Hill Based on the manga of the same name by Tetsurō Sayama & Chizuru Takahashi Screenplay by Hayao Miyazaki Starring: Masami Nagasawa, Junichi Okada

Set in 1964 Yokohama, Japan, the film tells the story of Umi Matsuzaki, a high school girl living in a boarding house, 'Coquelicot Manor'. When Umi meets Shun Kazama, a member of the school's newspaper club, they decide to clean up the school's clubhouse, Quartier Latin. However, Tokumaru, the chairman of the local high school and a businessman, intends to demolish the building for redevelopment and Umi and Shun, along with Shirō Mizunuma, must persuade him to reconsider.

🌹What's in a name
コクリコ坂から --> From Coquelicot Hill --> From Up on Poppy Hill
The original Japanese title is コクリコ坂から transliterated as Kokuriko-zaka Kara or From Coquelicot Hill. Kokuriko is the Japanese term for the French corn poppy. 

Coquelicot is the French vernacular term for the wild corn poppy. It is from this flower that the coquelicot shade of red comes from.
The word coquelicot is so pretty and I prefer the original title to the English one.
🏡The pretty neighborhood where it is set

Source: Wikiwand

Poppy/Coquelicot Hill might refer to the neighborhood were the Matsuzaki family (the surname in the manga was Komatsuzaki lived. It is based on the real life neighbourhood of Yamate (山手), which also overlooks the Port of Yokohama; Yokohama being one of the few port areas where foreigners were permitted to reside.

It had been a foreigners' residential area from the Bakumatsu to the Taisho periods; which is why most of the houses here are reminiscent of Western architecture. However, because of the Great Kantō Earthquake, few of the buildings predate 1923.

At the bottom of the hill is the Motomachi shopping district.

💑First Ghibli soukan film?

*coughs* Konshinsoukan means incest. *coughs*
Studio Ghibli films pride themselves as too pure for this world, where our heroines are cinnamon rolls and living the Ghibli life. The love stories are cute and adorable.
You may have seen the movie or, at least, watched the trailer above and there was a 'spoiler' where our intrepid main couple were brother and sister. Like a cheap melodrama indeed.
What should they do? Is this the end? Should they give in to their forbidden feelings?
spoilers The picture in this section is a still from the scene where they confess their feelings to each other after they found out about that they had the same father. They would continue to love each other as if they weren't siblings.
However, later on, Umi went to her mother to clarify things and her mother told a different story.
They weren't siblings.
After meeting their fathers' friend, who confirmed the story, all is well with the world. spoilers end
⛴About the movie

Of course, it's not all about romance. The school is in danger of losing their clubhouse or more known as the Latin Quarter, where the various non-sports clubs are housed.

Should they let go of the past and destroy the clubhouse? Or should they preserve and revitalize a part of history?

What I love about Studio Ghibli movies is its simple storytelling, romanticized but grounded in reality. There are hardships and challenges to overcome; but bravery and kindness win in the end. It's a feeling rooted in whimsy and nostalgia for/of a bygone era when things were good and true.

Obligatory food shots