At the festival Anima, The Grand Store, eponymous adaptation of the manga of Tsuchika Nishimura, finally comes to meet the Belgian public. In a French-style Grand Magasin case, young Akino is trying to become a concierge. She strives to offer the best service to a particular clientele... animals of all kinds. From the largest to the smallest creature, from the most tufted to the most rough, from the quietest to the most angry, Akino will have to use great means to succeed in satisfying their demands and make their visit to the Hokkyoku a memorable experience.
A drawing in the hair
Like these charming first-fruits, the visual style of the film is just as much. This is undoubtedly his greatest success. The soft style of Nishimura present in the original manga is taken over, while enhancing it with a multitude of colorful tones that please the retina. The Hokkyoku then appears as a welcoming and warm place, in which one dreams of strolling through the alleys. The work on the characters is equally careful, especially the anthropomorphic transformation of the different animals. Their bipedia seems natural and the clothes they wear are perfectly adapted to their morphology; their design being supported by an animation ! A work of detail that is not surprising in view of the career of Yoshimi Itazu. If he signs his first feature film as a director here, he has almost thirty years in the community as an animator.
A structure at a discount
Unfortunately, it cannot be said that the scenario has been given such a right. Instead of offering a real intrigue, the film is built as a succession of repetitive events. Akino will first meet an animal in distress, try to help him before failing a first time, then find an atypical solution that will satisfy his client's request and instill in him a little moral or rule of life. We see more a mechanical compilation of serial episodes than a feature film. The repetitive form flows any possibility of wonder going beyond the discovery of the yet enchanting universe.
Writing characters does not improve the picture. Humans rely on archetypes too well known of the genus and the fauna encountered is defined only by its problems, often trivial. They lack depth to become more than functional characters. The poverty of the scenario prevents them from acquiring this suspicion of personality that would make them endearing. Only Akino gets a little better and yet she remains a very generic heroin. When all the animals crossed along the film are gathered for the final scene, it is difficult to be moved to see them again. Their appearance remains enchanting and their aesthetics are charming, but they sound desperately hollow. Barely the dream has begun that we will have to stay on our hunger.
A moral discount?
As the third act begins, the director of the Hokkyoku reveals the raison d'être of his establishment: it is said to have been built by humans with respect to the species whose extinction they caused. To exonerate their sins, they offer these missing animals the pleasure of luxury, consumption and spending. Under the good childish airs of this compensation, is there not something inappropriate to make the figure of the mall a new Eden? All the more so as the products sold are for some of the luxurious perfumes or clothes, some of which come from animal exploitation and have led to the disappearance of the so-called species!
Taken into the fabric of this apparent contradiction, the film is confused in the message it carries. Its lack of narrative depth prevents the necessary nuances from being brought out. Some describe it as a « Film on the theme of voluntary servitude and submission to order. », when others see it « A reflection on normality that goes hand in hand with a vibrating ode to tolerance. » If one imagines that the team behind the film did not have harmful intentions, it is clear that the film remains unclear about it and proposes a way to consume it without questioning it.
If one wants to believe in this idyllic and wonderful environment from the first images, it is impossible not to deny the contradictions that hide under the shimmering varnish. Like his building lost in the middle of nature, The Grand Store is a bubble in a world that doesn't look like him.
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