Miss Hokusai fascinates in the way it presents daily life in Japan in the 1810s and the emergence of Hokusai’s artistic masterpieces.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Aug 1, 2024

Miss Hokusai is a highly entertaining film that excels both artistically and in terms of story.

| Jul 26, 2020

Director Keiichi Hara shapes Miss Hokusai less as a portrait of any one person than as a portrait of a particular time and place, how we in the present relate to that time, and how art bridges the gap.

| Feb 4, 2020

I cannot praise this film enough. It simply refuses to take the easy way out or to tell a cliché story.

| Feb 8, 2019

It's a beautiful exploration into the heart of an artist that I think you will enjoy.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Feb 6, 2019

Through the use of stunning visuals and surprisingly effective, if not sparing, emotional beats, the film is a solid triumph.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Oct 10, 2018

As a bit of storytelling, Miss Hokusai tells not one, but two great biographies at the same time in a remarkably captivating manner.

| Aug 28, 2018

... quiet film with a sense of serenity interspersed with scenes of fantasy and wonder-dreams, stories, and moments of magic that may or may not be all in the creative imagination of the characters-and images of daily life of Japan in 1814.

| Dec 16, 2017

The overall tone is so uneven, and that blaring rock soundtrack so intrusive, the artistry of Miss Hokusai gets lost in translation.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Sep 11, 2017

The film is a curious mixture of everyday life in 19th century Japan and weird supernatural spookiness.

| Aug 15, 2017

Miss Hokusai mostly gets by on atmosphere, but it's a fantastic example of the wide variety found in Japanese animation.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jul 18, 2017

You won't stick with Miss Hokusai because you absolutely must know what happens next. Sometimes it's worth sticking with something just to be immersed.

| Jan 4, 2017

Miss Hokusai gets jarred by a few too-modern music-moments and some preciousness in Ōi and Onao's sisterhood, but otherwise it's a steady sail through one woman's artscape and life that can't be entirely her own.

| Jan 1, 2017

Told through the eyes of Hokusai's daughter as she attempts to forge a destiny of her own out of her father's shadow, Miss Hokusai is animation for adults that packs an emotional punch.

| Original Score: B- | Dec 28, 2016

While the emphasis on suggestion over standard biopic spectacle is novel, one suspects the film probably won't be suggestive, coherent or affecting enough for hardcore Hokusai admirers, leaving it to occupy a curious artistic no-man's-land.

| Dec 13, 2016

A film with an appealing sensibility that invites the public into a dream world where eroticism, sarcasm, comedy, and nostalgia dwell in every scene. [Full review in Spanish]

| Nov 24, 2016

The art here is rawer and more idiosyncratic than some other anime, and there is a pleasing matter-of-factness about fleshy matters - drinking, sex, sickness - even as the more abstract question of art's practice and power is under consideration.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Nov 11, 2016

The Japanese animated drama Miss Hokusai is a unique, fascinating oddity. It's a strong historical drama, and a serious one. Yet it's occasionally joke-y, often uneven, and occasionally difficult to follow.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Nov 10, 2016

Visually gorgeous but doesn't adequately capture a compelling figure.

| Original Score: 6/10 | Nov 3, 2016

I found myself less immersed in the showy dreamlike vignettes than with the film's exploration of the inner-turmoil that inspired Hokusai's astonishing canvases.

| Original Score: 6/10 | Nov 2, 2016