The Pirate Review - Panda! Go, Panda!

This is above average children's animation, but don't expect anything deep or lyrical here—it's strictly for the kiddies.

Minor spoilers

As of this writing, there's a wee bairn of six in our household. She goes to kindergarten, loves to dance, tell stories and create art projects, and has a very fertile imagination. We've tried to be careful about the TV and movies we let her watch, since she's already susceptible to bad dreams and night terrors. So, while searching for age-appropriate titles, we've had plenty of time to ponder why it is that so many "children's shows" are either inexplicably violent or utterly bland. Do we really have to make a choice between gore and pablum?

Relievedly, the answer is "no," thanks to the international video and DVD market. In addition to the occasional home-grown gem, we have access to some of the best children's programming from overseas. Naturally, not everything produced outside the U.S. is going to be stellar—case in point: Pokémon—but if you're willing to look, there's some very good material out there.

Parents who aren't already familiar with the name Studio Ghibli (pronounced "JI-bu-ri") should place it on their short list. This Japanese animation studio, headed by master animator Hayao Miyazaki, has turned out consistently excellent feature films since the early 1980s. Ghibli movies include the theatrical release Spirited Away as well as earlier titles Kiki's Delivery Service and My Neighbor Totoro. One of the many remarkable qualities of a Ghibli film is the way it tells a children's story without "talking down" or underestimating a child's native intelligence. Thus, although several Ghibli movies are gentle and child-friendly, they are never bland.

This kind of excellence in storytelling doesn't come without practice. Both Miyazaki and fellow animator Isao Takahata worked separately and together for many years on a number of different projects before Studio Ghibli was founded. One of these early projects was a set of two short animated movies, both titled Panda, kopanda (Panda, little panda) and released in the early 1970s. The concept was created and animated by Miyazaki, and directed by Takahata. Both short films have been released on VHS and DVD in the U.S. under the single (and not very accurately translated) title Panda! Go, Panda!.

The stories focus on Mimiko, a cheerful and spunky little girl who has no parents and lives with her elderly grandmother. At the beginning of the first story, her grandma has to go to a funeral in Nagasaki, leaving young Mimiko alone in the house. A giant panda and his son, escaped from the zoo, find the bamboo forest outside Mimiko's house and decide to settle in. Upon hearing that Mimiko has no parents, the older panda declares he will fill in as father figure; the baby panda starts calling her "Mama." One set of adventures involves the baby panda following Mimiko to school, with predictably disastrous consequences; the other features a baby tiger escaped from a traveling circus.

It's interesting to see what influences helped to create these little movies, and how they in turn influenced later Ghibli films. Just before working on Panda, kopanda, Miyazaki had drawn up tentative storyboards for a project based on Astrid Lindgren's book Pippi Longstocking. However, the Swedish author did not give her permission for the project and the storyboards had to be scrapped. Much of Miyazaki's vision of Pippi seems to remain in the character of Mimiko, with her cheeriness, resourcefulness, and carrot-red braids that stick straight out from her head. Likewise, many of the characteristics of Papa Panda, with his huge bulk and wide, toothy grin, would later be realized to full effect in the Ghibli film My Neighbor Totoro.

For a feature aimed at children, the dubbing on the American version of the title isn't too bad. Mimiko's voice has a typical Saturday morning cartoonish sound; Papa Panda has inexplicably been given an East Indian accent, to comic effect. Other characters' voices don't particularly stand out. The title song is cloying, but what can you expect?

You can tell these movies were created before the formation of Studio Ghibli, since the animation and storytelling are both not yet up to full Ghibli standards. Both stories are cute and fluffy, but with no particular depth or hidden meaning. They're just about right for kids up to kindergarten age; older children will probably find them too simplistic for their tastes.

Plus, hey, serious kawaii factor! Teenage boys, scream and run.