Director Masaaki Yuasa
Staring Shota Shimoda, Souma Saitou, Minako Kotobuki & Tani Kanon
Rated PG
Score 6/6

Kai is a talented young musician who longs to move to the big city. During band practice, his melodies catch the ears of an unexpected new friend—Lu, a young mermaid with a magical singing voice! Suddenly, small town life gets more exciting for Kai and his friends. However, the villagers believe an ancient lore that mermaids only bring disaster. Will Kai and Lu be able to keep making music together?

If Lu over the wall did not have such a seemingly limited run at the cinema, I am certain that this is a movie that I would have to take a younger nephew to go see.

Unfortunately, the world can be a deeply cynical and depressing place at times, and I will admit that movies that are overly sweet and heartfelt can be a bit of a chore to watch. However, Lu over the wall is not one of those movies, even though it’s a movie that deals with the power of friendship. It’s the kind of movie that reaches out touches your heart giving you those warm happy feelings that you deserve. As far as ‘heartfelt’ movies go I feel that Lu over the wall is on the same level as Motonori Sakakibara & Kunihiko Yuyama’s 2016 movie Rudolf the Black Cat.
I’m not that familiar with Masaaki Yuasa’s work as a director but one of the things that I enjoyed about he movie was how Yuasa used different animation styles especially when dealing with exposition.
What I really loved about Lu over the wall was the sound track. Sitting here writing this review after watching the movie last night, just thinking about the songs in the movie is a reason to smile.