Mai Mai Miracle (マイマイ新子と千年の魔法) is a Japanese animated film based on Nobuko Takagi's autobiography, Maimai Shinko. It was produced by the animation studio Madhouse, distributed by Shochiku, and directed by Sunao Katabuchi.
The film debuted at the Locarno International Film Festival in Switzerland on August 15, 2009. The movie's plot is partially based on research on Sei Shōnagon's The Pillow Book.
Plot background
It's the spring of 1955 in Mitajiri (in the countryside around then small-town Hōfu) in Yamaguchi Prefecture, southwestern Japan. A nine-year-old girl named Shinko Aoki grew up hearing her grandfather's tales of life a thousand years ago, and is able to vividly see the past. Back then, a princess named Nagiko Kiyohara lived in the same village, at a time when the area was known as the province of Suō and its capital Kokuga.[3] Shinko claims that her ability to see the past is a gift from the single cowlick on her forehead, which she calls her “mai mai”. Shinko invites Kiiko Shimazu, a new student who has recently transferred to her school, with her to her vivid imaginings of the past. Despite the girls' quite different characters – Shinko is an outgoing, exuberant tomboy, while the shy and city-raised Kiiko still mourns her deceased mother – they get along surprisingly well and end up learning from each other's differences.