Only Yesterday

Only Yesterday follows Taeko Okajima, a single office worker of twenty-seven living in Tokyo in 1982. Her family keeps pressing her to marry, and she takes a break from the city to visit relatives in the countryside of Yamagata Prefecture, where her brother-in-law's family farms safflower. The trip stirs up memories of her childhood, particularly the year 1966, when she was in the fifth grade. Scenes of her adult present alternate with these recollections of school, family and a first romance, and Taeko finds herself weighing what she once wanted against the life she now leads.

Isao Takahata directed and wrote the screenplay, working from a manga. The film sits between Grave of the Fireflies and Pom Poko in the run of features he directed. Miki Imai voices the adult Taeko, with Yoko Honna as the child Taeko, Toshiro Yanagiba as the farmer Toshio, and Yorie Yamashita as her sister Nanako. Toshio Suzuki and Yasuyoshi Tokuma produced for Studio Ghibli and its partners.

The film was released in Japan in 1991 and runs 119 minutes. Its reputation rests on unusually strong critical standing for an animated feature, with an 8.5 out of 10 critics' rating across 63 reviews, while audiences are more measured: 7.6 out of 10 on IMDb from around 42,000 votes and 7.4 out of 10 on TMDB from roughly 1,300 votes.