Yumi

Yumi is a 2000 Japanese adult-animated psychological horror teen black comedy film written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki. Produced by Studio Ghibli for Tokuma Shoten, Nippon Television Network, Dentsu, Buena Vista Home Entertainment, Tohokushinsha Film, and Mitsubishi. The film stars Christina Ricci, Lindsay Lohan, Natalie Portman, Matthew Lillard, Tom Hanks and Tara Strong. It received acclaim from critics, who praised its animation, voice acting, humor, visuals, dark atmospheric tone, musical score and motifs of perception, grief and self-deception. The film was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Score at the 73rd Academy Awards.

Plot
Set in Tokyo, the film follows a 16 year-old vampire named Yumi Katsuhiro who spends the night as hitwoman. When she meets a 14 year-old girl named Himari, the two form an unlikely friendship.

Cast
Christina Ricci as Yumi Katsuhiro, a 16 year-old vampire who spends the night as a hitwoman. She also uses the story of Akagi Himura to handle her current situation.

Lindsay Lohan as Himari Okunaga, a 14 year-old high school student who befriends Yumi.

Natalie Portman as Ichika Hirasawa

Matthew Lillard as Daichi Watanabe

Tom Hanks as Officer Genkei Okudera

Tara Strong as Akagi Himura

Crispin Freeman as Shark, a yakuza gang leader

Release
The film was released on July 14, 2000.

Music
The film's score was composed by David Julyan, making it his first animated film score and Miyazaki’s third film not to be composed by Joe Hisaishi following The Castle of Cagliostro. It is also the second anime film composed by a non-Japanese composer after Gentlemen (1992) with Thomas Newman. Julyan composed the film's synthesized score. Julyan acknowledges several synthesized soundtracks that inspired him, such as Vangelis's Blade Runner and Hans Zimmer's The Thin Red Line. Since he describes the entire score as "Yumi's Theme", Julyan says, "The emotion I was aiming at with my music was yearning and loss. But a sense of loss you feel but at the same time you don't know what it is you have lost, a sense of being adrift."

Transcript
Yumi/Transcript

Opening logos




Critical reception
The film holds an approval rating of 93% on Rotten Tomatoes.

Trivia

 * The film's score was composed by David Julyan, making it Miyazaki’s third film not to be composed by Joe Hisaishi. It is also the second anime film composed by a non-Japanese composer after Gentlemen.