Jellyfish Eyes

Internationally renowned visual artist Takashi Murakami's feature film serves up a fantasy of childhood innocence with fantastical Pokemon-like creature playmates in a post-Fukushima world. Jellyfish Eyes is also a strange conspiracy tale involving a cult of young researchers in a mysterious lab who apply science and magic to transport creatures from an alternate reality. The central story revolves around a young boy named Masashi (Takuto Sueoka), who lost his father during a tsunami and has moved to a small town with his mother. After a cooing magical creature—looking vaguely like a mushroom doll—essentially adopts him, Masashi discovers that every kid has one of their own, which they control with a handheld device (much like a Gameboy) and send into battles. There is plenty of gentle satire here—game culture and addiction, merchandising, high school cliques and bullying, and religion—but no real teeth to the message or edge to the film. The kids are a flavorless bunch, while the adults have even less personality, and conflicts are resolved in a flash of generosity and rousing call to unity. Jellyfish Eyes ultimately can't decide if it is a parody of juvenile anime and game culture or simply an idealistically upbeat pop-art incarnation of the same. Optional. (S. Axmaker)