A Letter to Momo

After her father dies, eleven-year-old Momo moves with her mother from Tokyo to a small island in Japan's Seto Inland Sea, where her mother grew up. Momo struggles to adjust to a place with few shops and little to do, and she is still troubled by an unfinished letter her father, an oceanographer lost at sea, left behind, beginning with the words "Dear Momo." In the attic of her new home she finds an old book, and soon three unruly goblins take up residence there and intrude on her daily life, pushing her toward new friendships and a reckoning with her grief.

The film is an animated family fantasy written and directed by Hiroyuki Okiura, his third feature after Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade (1999) and Cowboy Bebop: The Movie (2001) and before Robot on the Road (2015). Karen Miyama voices Momo, with Yûka as her mother Ikuko and Toshiyuki Nishida, Koichi Yamadera and Cho as the three goblins. It runs 120 minutes.

Released in Japan in April 2012, the film took in about 7 million dollars worldwide, a modest return for a production of this scale. On IMDb it holds a 6.7/10 from 31 reviews, while on TMDB it has a 7.4/10 from 416 votes, so general viewers rate it more warmly than critics did.