Josee, the Tiger and the Fish

Josee, the Tiger and the Fish is a 2020 animated film made by studio Bones and directed by Kotaro Tamura. It is based on a short story of the same name by Seiko Tanabe, a well-known Japanese writer, and the script is by Sayaka Kuwamura. The music is by Evan Call. The film first played at the Busan International Film Festival in South Korea in October 2020. Its release in Japan was delayed by COVID-19, and it finally opened there on December 25, 2020.

The story is set in Osaka, a big city in western Japan, and much of it has a bright, sunny, seaside feel. The main character is Tsuneo Suzukawa, a university student who studies marine biology, the science of life in the ocean. He works part-time at a diving shop and loves the sea. His big dream is to go to Mexico to study the ocean there.

One day, Tsuneo sees a wheelchair rolling out of control down a steep road. In it is a young woman. He rushes to stop it and saves her. She lives with her grandmother, who asks Tsuneo to come and work for them as a helper. The young woman calls herself Josee. She cannot walk, and her grandmother has kept her at home for most of her life to keep her safe. Because of this, Josee knows the world mostly through books and her own drawings. She dreams of becoming an artist.

At first, Josee is rude, sharp, and bossy with Tsuneo. But little by little, the two start to trust each other. Tsuneo takes her out into the city and to the sea, and she sees things she has only read about. She shows him a side of life he did not know, too. As they grow closer, Tsuneo is offered a scholarship to study in Mexico, which is the thing he has always wanted. He does not tell Josee about it, and this secret hangs over their growing bond.

The film is about disability, independence, fear, and finding the courage to follow a dream. It looks at how the outside world can feel both scary and beautiful to someone who has been kept away from it. It also shows how people with disabilities can be held back by others, even by people who love them, and how both Josee and Tsuneo must learn to stand on their own. Later in the story, Josee also finds work at a library, a place that fits her love of books.

The lead voices in Japanese are Taishi Nakagawa as Tsuneo and Kaya Kiyohara as Josee. In the English version they are voiced by Howard Wang and Suzie Yeung. Critics were very positive about the film, and its director said he wanted to share a hopeful and uplifting message. It won the Audience Award at the Kotatsu Japanese Animation Festival in 2021 and was nominated for Best Animation Film at the Mainichi Film Awards. It is a warm, emotional romance that is easy to recommend to people who do not usually watch anime.