This animation film, directed by Isao Takahata in 1991, saw its first screenings in the United States recently in both its original Japanese-language version and an English-dubbed edition featuring the voice talents of Daisy Ridley, Dev Patel, and Ashley Eckstein.

    “Only Yesterday” is one of a very distinguished handful of feature films that Takahata directed for Studio Ghibli, the outfit founded by Takahata’s friend and frequent collaborator* Hayao Miyazaki.

    The main character is a kind of young Japanese everywoman*. Taeko is a 27-year-old single working woman in 1982 Tokyo. The movie begins with her telling a colleague that she’s off to visit relatives in the countryside. The truth is, she has no actual close relatives there, but rather has signed up to help the family of her brother-in-law’s older brother in her destination to harvest safflowers*.

    “I didn’t expect to bring my fifth-grade self along for the trip,” Ridley says. And yet there she is. On the train, Taeko relates and relives events from her childhood — some funny and charming, but most of them sad and disturbing*.

    Things like the mockery* of more popular girls, the awkwardness of waiting for first menstruation*, the cruel coldness of a father who refuses to allow her to participate in a semi-pro theatrical endeavor*.

    Once Taeko reaches her destination, she strikes up a friendship with young farmhand Toshio, with whom she talks out more of her mid-’60s trauma*. The possibility of a romance is there, but the film’s ending, while tear-jerkingly satisfying, is ... well, you ought to see it yourself.

    The English language version keeps the movie as it was, Beatles references and cigarette-smoking characters and all.

    (SD-Agencies)