Four-year-old Kun is an only child — this is,
until his parents bring home a baby sister named Mirai
(the Japanese word for future)
and the boy gets rattled by the new addition to the household.
Not much there for a full-length feature film … or so you’d think.
Except you are in the presence of
Japanese animation artist Mamoru Hosoda (Wolf Children, Summer Wars),
who again transforms the seemingly conventional
into a magic carpet ride of time and memory.
It makes all the difference.
Released in an English-dubbed version,
Mirai emphasizes that family is at the center of the universe for the lad,
voiced here by Jaden Waldman.
Hosoda, who founded the production house Studio Chizu,
pays particular attention to the living circumstances
in the modernist home designed by Kun’s architect father (John Cho),
including a backyard with just one tree.
This totem of nature is symbolic of the days
when the older kid alone dominated this world,
with support from dad, mom (Rebecca Hall),
a kindly grandma (Eileen T’Kaye) and the family’s lovable dog, Yukko.
Each detail of the house is subtly rendered to show the impact
on a child whose life has been knocked out of joint by a bawling,
baby (Victoria Grace).
When his mother goes back to work,
leaving Pops to mind the kids, the tantrum-throwing Kun
—he’s not above popping his sister on the nose or whacking her with a toy train
— feels lost enough to run away from home.

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