Jarinko Chie (Chie the Brat) - Theatrical Version

じゃりんこちえ げきじょうばん

Aired: 1981

A theatrical anime produced by Tokyo Movie Shinsha, adapting Etsumi Haruki's beloved manga 'Jarinko Chie' serialized in Futabasha's Manga Action, written and directed by Isao Takahata. Set in the working-class Nishinari district of Osaka, the film depicts the daily life of the unflappable young heroine Chie Takemoto, who runs her family's hormonyaki (offal grill) shop almost single-handedly; her hopeless deadbeat father Tetsu, perpetually brawling like a low-level yakuza; her runaway mother Yoshie; their bouncer-cum-stray-cat Kotetsu; and Tetsu's parents 'Obaa' and 'Jii.' Takahata's direction faithfully preserves the rapid-fire Kansai dialect humor of the original while quietly deepening the manga's underlying question of what it really means to be a family. Long regarded as a landmark of Kansai-rooted Japanese animation, the picture has been re-evaluated and reissued under the Studio Ghibli label in later years.