Maboroshi

Not to be confused with Maborosi.

Maboroshi
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Mari Okada Seimei Kidokoro
Written by	Mari Okada
Produced by	Manabu Otsuka
Starring	Junya Enoki Reina Ueda Misaki Kuno
Cinematography	Yuusuke Tannawa
Edited by	Ayumu Takahashi
Music by	Masaru Yokoyama
Production company	MAPPA
Distributed by	Warner Bros. Pictures (Japan, theatrical) Netflix (worldwide)
Release date	September 15, 2023 (2023-09-15)
Running time	111 minutes
Country	Japan
Language	Japanese

Maboroshi (Japanese: アリスとテレスのまぼろし工場, Hepburn: Arisu to Teresu no Maboroshi Kōjō, lit. 'Alice and Therese's Illusory Factory') is a 2023 Japanese animated science fantasy drama film. Produced by MAPPA and distributed by Warner Bros. Japan, the film is directed and written by Mari Okada. The film debuted in Japanese theaters in September 15, 2023 and was released worldwide on Netflix on January 15, 2024.

Plot

In January 1991, third-year high school student Masamune Kikuiri lives in Mifuse, a steel mill company town surrounded by both the sea and mountains. Masamune's father, Akimune Kikuri, and uncle, Tokimune Kikuiri, both work at the mill. Masamune is studying for an entrance exam with his friends in his home before an explosion suddenly occurs at the mill. Since then, the town has been has entirely cut off from the outside world and the seasons no longer change. A man named Mamoru Sagami, who also works at the mill and also serves as the head priest of the town's Mifushi Shrine, claims that the incident was a punishment from the gods for mining out the local mountain (which has been said to be their sacred home) and the townspeople were imprisoned by the mill, which had become a "sacred machine". Sagami explains that once the mood of the gods improve, the townspeople will be able to return to the real world and emphasizes until then that it is necessary for them to remain unchanged from what they were before the explosion. The townspeople heed Sagami's advice and they are required to periodically submit an identification form that serves as records of the personal background and hobbies in order to prevent any inconsistencies as soon as they return to the real world. Fissures in the night sky open up occasionally and smoke coming from the steel mill would close them up. Minors who have stopped growing since the explosion are now allowed to obtain a driver's license.

Masamune and his friends then start playing pain-inducing games, such as pretending to faint. One day, Masamune is invited by Mutsumi Sagami, a classmate he dislikes, to visit the steel mill with her. Arriving at the mill's fifth blast furnace, they both find a girl there who looked like a teenager like them but acted like a wild child and could only speak in an infantile manner although the girl could barely understand human language. Mutsumi, who is the one taking care of the girl by preventing her from going outside, makes Masamune clean up after her by disposing of her excrements and bathing her. Mutsumi orders Masamune to come three times a week from now on. A while later, one night, Masamune was told by Akimune that he can no longer run away from Mifuse anymore. Akimune works the night shift at the mill afterward, only to never return.

Masamune visits the steel mill alone and gives the girl a hot sandwich before giving her the name Itsumi. Just as Itsumi is playing in the courtyard, Sagami and Tokimune both appear. Sagami claims that Itsumi was a woman of the gods and said that if she was presented in front of them, she would be forgiven by the sacred machine someday. Tokimune debunks Sagami's claims by recalling that Masamune's father said something different, with Masamune secretly listening. Since then, Masamune has been visiting the same blast furnace alone, bringing books from his home for Itsumi to read. Masamune, whose hobby is drawing, sketches Itsumi's appearance. On the day when Mutsumi was absent from school, Masamune is returning from the steel mill and meets Yuko Sonobe, Mutsumi's classmate, who is delivering her school documents to Mutsumi. The two head on to Mutsumi's home, where Sonobe meets Mutsumi. Mutsumi talks about her relationship with Sagami and reveals to them that he is actually her adoptive father. Masamune then drives Sonobe home in his car.

Masamune, Mutsumi, Sonobe and their classmates undertake a test of courage as a pair of men and women in an abandoned railway tunnel cut off from the main railway network. Sonobe, who was paired with Masamune, makes a graffiti drawing to mark the destination on the tunnel wall, drawing an umbrella with her and Masamune's names on it. The graffiti surprises Masamune and Sonobe says to him that she thought he was doing her a favor by letting her ride in the passenger seat. When the other classmates arrived, Sonobe runs to the tunnel's exit before Masamune and the others chase after her until they make it out only to see many fissures open up in the sky and Sonobe started to emit light from her body. Just as Sonobe was talking about how she was embarrassed and wanted to flee, and how her feelings of love became a spectacle, the light spreads out like a crack. Immediately after that, smoke rising from the steel mill hit where Sonobe was, causing her to disappear and close up the fissures in the sky. The townspeople gather at the community center following the incident and Sagami claims that the factory smoke is a "sacred wolf" that fills the fissures in the sky, and that it can also crack people's hearts. Masamune flees the scene and sits down in a corner of the town's shopping street without returning home. Tokimune, who went out to look for Masamune, arrives on his motorbike and Masamune vents his anger at him about being trapped in Mifuse. Masamune displays his distrust towards Tokimune that he and Akimune were hiding the fact that they knew the truth about Itsumi's origins. Tokimune tells Masamune that Itsumi doesn't belong here and takes him home.

After a while, Masamune returns to the steel mill once again and Itsumi is overjoyed to see him. Mutsumi appears and is extremely excited but when Masamune says that he will let Itsumi out of the furnace, he does so. When Itsumi went outside and gazes up at the sky, a large fissure opens up in the sky and could see the sight of the summer behind the fissures. Itsumi climbs onto the crane wagon with Masamune following suit. When Tokimune arrives and tells Masamune to keep still, Masamune disobeys him and says that he desires to see more of the world rather than just Mifuse. Itsumi extends her hand and encourages him to reach into the fissures. The fissures then spread into space, where the steel mill in the real world was all just ruins. Tokimune tells Masamune that he is looking at the real world. A briefing session is held for the townspeople and Sagami claims that their world is an unreal space that was created by the sacred machine. Some residents object to Sagami's claims, and he defends his claims by insisting that there are no inconveniences in their unreal world. In fact, the unreal world could continue forever, and that in order to let that happen, Itsumi has to be returned to the sacred machine. However, Tokimune reveals that their world will soon end and says that he only accepted Sagami's claims because he was still uncertain about how their unreal world came to be. Many of the townspeople agree with Tokimune's point.

The townspeople's identification forms were returned. Meanwhile, the sacred wolf frequently appears and wipes out each of the townspeople one by one, including Masamune's classmate Yasunari Senba during gym class. Itsumi and Mutsumi start to live at Masamune's house. That night, Masamune wakes up in the middle of the night and sees the world beyond the fissure from his living room. There was a middle-aged man who looked like his father and his wife, a woman named Mutsumi Kikuiri, talking about the town's Obon festival. Masamune tries to enter the real world but is pulled back by his world's Mutsumi. Mutsumi asks Masamune if she can see the real world even when indoors, before revealing that Itsumi had a name tag with her real name, Saki Kikuiri. Mutsumi said that the Mutsumi in the real world was what she was supposed to become but the real world Mutsumi was a completely different person who was waiting for Saki, her daughter, to return.

At school, Hina Hara confesses to her classmate Atsushi Nitta. After school, Masamune goes to the town's local roadside stop and amusement arcade, confessing to Mutsumi that he actually likes her. Mutsumi refuses to agree and storms outside but she falls in the snow and is covered by Masamune, who followed her. When Masamune once again confesses his love for Mutsumi in an innocent manner, Mutsumi pulls Masamune's body closer to him and they both kiss. Itsumi then shows up, eavesdropping on their brief affair before crying, resulting in fissures opening up in space all over the town, and the scenes in the real world appear at the same time. At around the same time, the blast furnace at the steel mill that was producing the "sacred wolf" smoke suddenly stopped. Evacuation orders are later issued for Mifuse. While packing up his belongings, Masamune's mother Misato Kikuiri shows him the diary that his father left behind. There, it is revealed that Itsumi, then known as Saki, was transported on a freight train from the real world and Masamune was revealed to be her father in that world. It is also revealed that there is a possibility that something bad will happen in the unreal world due to the big movement of Saki's heart. There was a proposal to return Saki to the real world but Sagami opposed the proposal and locked her up in the blast furnace. Akimune then rejoices over Masamune's improved drawing skills but regrets that he was unable to change like Masamune, robbing Saki of the possibility of change.

At the evacuation center, Masamune asks his classmates for help in plotting to return Itsumi to the real world. Meanwhile, Tokimune regenerates the "sacred wolf" smoke by restarting the blast furnace at the steel mill in order to prolong the life of their ending world. Sagami invites Itsumi to become a woman of the gods and dresses her up in a wedding dress. As the Obon festival is visible in the reality beyond the fissures, Masamune and Mutsumi free a reluctant Itsumi onto a freight train, with the train departing with Masamune's grandfather Souji Kikuiri, revealed to be a former engineer who worked at the steel mill, operating the train. However, the train is derailed as someone had activated the track switch to redirect the train into a trackless grassy path. After a battle for Itsumi between the vehicles driven by his classmates, Masamune drives his own car and approaches a train in the real world by driving through the other side of the fissure, and when the train stops, he helps Mutsumi let Itsumi get on board the train. While on the departing train, Mutsumi tells Itsumi that are many things waiting for her at the end of the tunnel that she cannot go after and that she can only go after Masamune's heart. Itsumi hugs Mutsumi and gives Mutsumi her wedding veil by putting it over her head. Mutsumi leaps just before the train shakes off the "sacred wolf" smoke and enters the tunnel. She falls onto the slope and rolls down towards Masamune, telling him that he is alive because of him.

A few years later in the real world, Saki, now a young adult, arrives at Mifuse's local railway station and takes a taxi to the ruins of the steel mill, with much of the town deserted. Although much of the mill has been demolished, the remains of fifth blast furnace were still standing. On a glass wall inside, a picture that depicts Mutsumi and Itsumi was left behind, along with many farewell messages written when the mill was closed down. Saki then jumps along the furnace's platforms like she did as Itsumi and goes up to the furnace's viewing platform to reminisce about the memorable moments she had while she was locked in the blast furnace as Itsumi in the past.

Voice cast

Character	Japanese	English
Masamune Kikuiri	Junya Enoki	Max Mittelman
Mutsumi Sagami/Mutsumi Kikuiri	Reina Ueda	Jeannie Tirado
Itsumi/Saki Kikuiri	Misaki Kuno	Kitana Turnbull
Akimune Kikuiri	Kōji Seto	Robbie Daymond
Tokimune Kikuiri	Kento Hayashi	Isaac Robinson-Smith
Daisuke Sasakura	Taku Yashiro	Jonathan Leon
Atsushi Nitta	Tasuku Hatanaka	David Errigo Jr.
Yasunari Senba	Daiki Kobayashi	Brandon Engman
Yūko Sonobe	Ayaka Saitō	Lizzie Freeman
Hina Hara	Maki Kawase	Valerie Rose Lohman
Reina Yasumi	Yukiyo Fujii	Madeline Dorroh
Mamoru Sagami	Setsuji Satō	Andrew Kishino

Production

The film is produced by MAPPA and directed and written by Mari Okada, with Yuriko Ishii designing the characters and Masaru Yokoyama composing the music. Much of the animation staff from Maquia: When the Promised Flower Blooms worked on the film.

Release

The film is being distributed by Warner Bros. Japan, who released the film in theaters on September 15, 2023. Miyuki Nakajima performed the film's main theme, "Shin-on". Netflix has acquired the global rights to the film and released it, as simply Maboroshi, on their platform on January 15, 2024.

Marketing

Okada wrote a novelization of the film, which Kadokawa Shoten published under their Kadokawa Bunko imprint on June 13, 2023.

Reception

The film won the Mainichi Film Award for Best Animation Film in 2023.

External links

• Official website (in Japanese)
• Maboroshi on Netflix
• Maboroshi (film) at Anime News Network's encyclopedia