Dear My Life

  Header illustration for the review essay of The Bucket List (2007) . Illustration created for editorial review purposes. 💭 Short Personal Reflection The Bucket List (2007) found me at a moment I didn't quite expect — the quiet edge between what I have lived, and what I have left. Rob Reiner's American buddy comedy-drama starring Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman arrived at exactly the right hour. In the film, two men stand before the vast shadow of death and yet continue to cross items off their list — one by one — until they finally rediscover the quiet joy of being alive. Watching them, I found myself reflecting on my own life. I have always believed that I lived diligently, doing what needed to be done. Now, standing at the threshold of retirement, I have begun to reach for the things I once set aside — vintage pieces for the home, unfamiliar countries, soft watercolor drawings on an iPad. But as I try to begin, I am met with something I hadn't expected: a body tha...

  Header illustration for the review essay of Only Yesterday (1991) . Illustration created for editorial review purposes. 💭 Short Personal Reflection Only Yesterday (1991) arrived quietly, the way certain memories do — not summoned, but simply there. There are moments in life you wish you could erase and write again. Words you shouldn't have said, actions that fell short. When they come back to mind, your past self can feel painfully inadequate. And yet, strangely, those same memories begin to take on a different shape over time. What once felt like regret slowly becomes something you long for. Perhaps the coexistence of regret and longing is simply part of what it means to live. This Studio Ghibli film seems to know that — and to find, in that coexistence, something worth sitting with quietly. 🎥 Film Overview Director Isao Takahata Release July 20, 1991 (Japan) Runtime 118 minutes Cast Miki Imai (Taeko Okajima), Toshirō Yanagiba (Toshio), Yōko Honna (...

  Header illustration for the review essay of From Up on Poppy Hill (2011) . Illustration created for editorial review purposes. 💭 Short Personal Reflection From Up on Poppy Hill (2011) came to me in the way that old things often do — quietly, without announcing itself. In one corner of my room, an old turntable still remains. A box of cassette tapes. A worn wooden desk. There have been many suggestions to replace them, to move on to something better. But that never quite happens. Because those things carry more than function. They hold traces — of time, of presence, of something that once stayed. Among them, one object lingers more than the rest: an old kitchen spatula once used by my mother. Worn at the edges, slightly discolored. And yet, looking at it brings a quiet heaviness to the chest — not sadness exactly, but something close to it. Because it is no longer just a tool. It has become a small place where a certain time continues to remain. Watching this film feels simi...

Header illustration for the review essay of Whisper of the Heart (1995) . Illustration created for editorial review purposes. 💭 Short Personal Reflection Whisper of the Heart (1995), Yoshifumi Kondō's only Studio Ghibli feature and one of the quietest masterpieces in the studio's history, found me at a moment I recognized deeply. There was a time when life felt so overwhelming that I couldn't see what lay ahead — like being stuck in a deep swamp, ready to let go of everything. In the film, Shizuku rewrites a song that once praised a hometown landscape into something closer to her reality — "Concrete Road." No forests, no hills, just a hard path that stretches forward, demanding that you keep moving. There are moments when our own paths feel just like that: dry, rigid, and endless. We don't know where we're going, or what waits at the end. And yet, Shizuku doesn't stop walking. Watching her, I felt something deeper than admiration — it felt like wit...

  Header illustration for the review essay of A Whisker Away (2020) . Illustration created for editorial review purposes. 💭 Short Personal Reflection A Whisker Away (2020), the Japanese animated fantasy film by Studio Colorido directed by Junichi Sato and Tomotaka Shibayama, found me in a feeling I recognized immediately. There are moments in life when you want to let everything go — when the urge to disappear somewhere no one knows you becomes overwhelming. When the reasons to quit feel clearer than the reasons to stay. I once found myself wanting to leave everything behind and live quietly as no one at all. Watching this film, that feeling came back to me — not as pain, but as recognition. Muge transforms into a cat through a mysterious mask and begins living another life. At first, it feels like liberation rather than escape. Behind the mask, no one sees her pain, and she doesn't have to reveal her true feelings. But the film quietly asks: is becoming something else really f...