Crunchyroll and Sony Pictures Entertainment brings the whimsical fantasy film to theaters for one-day-only on September 11
You’ll find it in black-and-white movies like Miracle on 34th Street and Bachelor Mother, or in 80s cult classics like Mannequin. It’s there in the novel that’s most like The Concierge’s source material, the South Korean bestseller The Dallergut Dream Department Store by Lee Miye. While reading or watching Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium you’ll see it there too. And depending on your generational inclination, your parents, grandparents, or great-grandparents have shown you pictures of their times there. Or sat you down to hear their remembrances of it. It is our fascination with the magic of department stores.
One of the greatest feats of commercialism is how the retail industry convinced us department stores are the lands of dreams—the place where any desire can be found and fulfilled. The marketing was so strong it has lasted for generations. Even as the stores themselves fade, their legends continue to grow. I recognized it immediately when I picked up The Dallergut Dream Department Store, got wrapped up in it, and found myself living an experience I never had in real time. It must have been the same for manga readers when they first picked up The Concierge at Hokkyoku Department Store by Tsuchika Nishimura in 2017—earning the series the Excellence Award at the 25th Japan Media Arts Festival.
Within the wonder of those mythic dreamscapes—can anywhere that forces us to buy dreams with currency truly be wonderful?—Nishimura speaks on consumerism and its pitfalls, juxtaposed with environmental destruction. In the anime feature, animator turned-director Yoshimi Itazu, and scripter Satomi Oshima, explore atonement, extinction, and a form of shopping experience that also appears to be near its end.
The Concierge starts with Akino (Natsumi Kawaida), a little girl who wanders into the dreamy Hokkyoku Department Store and discovers a place where animals are the mass consumers and human concierges cater to them. She later returns as an intern. What feels like a fairytale about the service industry quickly evolves into a fable, one that challenges what it means to help someone fulfill their goals without losing yourself. Akino tries too hard in the beginning. A mistake made symbolic each time she bows too low or promises too much. Akino hasn’t learned balance, but her animal clientele will teach her that kindness is not always complicit.
As a sequence of day-to-day anecdotes roll out, we find deeper meaning. The animals who shop at Hokkyoku are extinct or nearing it. With anthropomorphized personalities that match the traits of their species, the animals enjoy the same buzzy experiences that humans destroyed them to create for ourselves. (There’s that atonement I mentioned, but also an indictment of consumerism.) Hidden within the surrealist delights are other analogies. The concierges are all women but their supervisors are men, while the big boss, Elulu (Takeo Otsuka), is a great auk—an extinct species similar to penguins—and the only non-human running the store. This arrangement of power reflects the parallels between women in the workplace and animals in the wild, in regard to the men who seek to rule them both.
The animation adds to the classic ideals of department store magic. The visuals are a blend of creator Tsuchika Nishimura and director Yoshimi Itazu’s styles—enriched by Chiyo Morita’s character designs. The backgrounds have the shadowed and translucent textures of layered tissue paper, while the characters and their movements are stylized similar to classic anime and children’s books. Every aspect enchants.
Beyond the impact of its principles and visuals, The Concierge is elegant, contemporary yet nostalgic; imbued with wonderment and interwoven with meaning.
