Last night we watched a DVD that I had bought as a gift for Andrew due to his interest in Hayao Miyazaki’s Studio Ghibli movies. Panda! Go, Panda! is made up of two shorts of about 30 mins each stuck together, using the same characters and setting. It plays like two episodes of a TV show, although they are not stitched into one movie, rather when The End shows for Panda! Go, Panda! the next short, Rainy-Day Circus begins.
I was shocked to find the shorts were made in the early seventies as the animation and the whole feel seemed more modern, although I guess there is a timelessness to the whole. An incredibly cute but not too kiddified production, Panda sees young Mimiko abandoned by her elderly grandmother, off to Nagaski, and left to her own devices. Mimiko is looking forward to meeting burglars, and tells all of the townspeople she’ll be alone – a very unwise move I thought, particularly with the red-faced shop owner looking a bit too excited about this. Anyway, this isn’t a cautionary tale about leaving young children alone.
The movie is about pandas, an incredibly cute young one named Panny and a massive one with a strangely Caribbean accent named Papa, who Mimiko asks to be her father, if she can be Panny’s mother. I know, the girl’s clearly got some screwed up views on what family is, but hey, I’m not going to judge. There’s a cute adventure where the girl and her new panda family get up to some hijinks, and then in Rainy-Day Circus a baby tiger is added to the mix, who has escaped from a travelling circus (the clue’s in the title).
It’s all fun and cute, especially the rendering of Panny and Papa, and isn’t taxing on the brain. Involving to a degree, and never boring, Panda! Go, Panda! gives Ponyo a run for it’s money in the cutest anime stakes.
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