Summer Days with Coo

Summer Days with Coo
Directed by	Keiichi Hara
Screenplay by	Keiichi Hara
Music by	Kei Wakakusa
Production company	Shin-Ei Animation
Distributed by	Shochiku
Release date	July 28, 2007 (2007-07-28) (Japan)
Running time	138 minutes
Country	Japan
Language	Japanese
Budget	$3,333,389

Summer Days with Coo (河童のクゥと夏休み, Kappa no Kū to Natsuyasumi, lit. "Summer holidays with Coo the kappa") is a 2007 Japanese animated film about a kappa and its impact on an ordinary suburban family, written for the screen and directed by Keiichi Hara based on two novels by Masao Kogure.

Reception

The film won the Best Animation Film award at the 2008 Mainichi Film Awards and was nominated for Best Animation Film at the 2008 Japanese Academy Awards, and for Best Animated Feature Film at the 2007 Asia Pacific Screen Awards. It also won the Grand Prize for Animation at the 11th Japan Media Arts Festival and the Feature Film category at the 2008 Tokyo Anime Award.

Plot

A small, lone kappa miraculously survives over 200 years into modern day Tokyo, Japan when he is found by young Kōichi. "Coo" who is secretly adopted by the whole family, faces a tragic past and the present's challenge of living in a dramatically changed environment, searches with his new human friend for places not invaded by people hoping to find any remaining of his kind. When this intelligent "water spirit" draws the popular attention of the whole city upon being discovered and then confronted with his past, it forces him to take action and make an ultimate decision, in order to preserve his kind, inner peace and well being in today's harsh world.

Characters

• Coo (クゥ Kū) – The kappa the whole story revolves around. He is found by Kōichi Uehara, after he had survived over 200 years as a fossil. He then lives with Uehara family.
• Kōichi Uehara (上原康一, Uehara Kōichi) – A fourth grade student. One day he finds a fossil of a baby kappa who survived for 200 years.
• Ossan (オッサン) – The Uehara family dog.

Other mythical creatures

There are other Japanese mythical creatures appearing in the movie:

• A doll-like zashiki warashi, living in a magariya in Iwate Prefecture
• Kijimuna, living in Yanbaru, Okinawa
• A rain or water elemental Asian dragon.

Cast

• Kazato Tomizawa as Coo
• Takahiro Yokokawa as Kōichi Uehara
• Naoki Tanaka as Yasuo Uehara
• Naomi Nishida as Yukari Uehara
• Tamaki Matsumoto as Hitomi Uehara
• Yoshito Yasuhara as Ossan
• Michio Hazama as the Samurai
• Akiko Yajima as Announcer
• Keiji Fujiwara as Emcee
• Gori as Kijimuna

Release

Over a decade after its debut, the film became widely available in a native English-speaking region for the first time when, in the United States and Canada, it was released direct to home video on January 21, 2020 by GKIDS.

External links

• U.S. and Canada official web page
• Summer Days with Coo at Anime News Network's encyclopedia
• Summer Days with Coo at IMDb