Persepolis and Only Yesterday - Same But Different?

Let's talk about the greatest Graphic Novel movie of all time, in my opinion, Persepolis. I loved it so much. I remember watching it and it reminded me of what it was like in Iran and what my parents must have been through during The Shah's Revolution. I really enjoyed seeing Marji travel from Iran to the Europe and that she had to balance two worlds and remember her routes whilst also adopting other cultures as well from the Western world.

I loved the beginning of the film where you see Marji, all grown up smoking a cigarette in the airport looking glum and through the colour palette you can see she is in colour then all of a sudden a young black and white girl runs up with glee and delight like any child would to greet her relatives and rushes her parents (whom are also black and white). The film had a beautiful way of introducing Marji's character and childhood through the colour of the scene differing past from present, offering the film a hard hitting introduction.

Only Yesterday is an anime about a Japanese office worker who looks back on her childhood as she travels on her way, by train, to the country side in Tokyo. The film is a series of flashbacks however there is also a plot which takes place in the present as well. This film was overall, a nice homely film which made me feel warm whereas Persepolis had my on the edge of my seat. The film had a different tone where anything could happen in a really noisy neighbourhood with more violent neighbours. Persepolis is a film about childhood mixed with war, family and religion in an unstable time which is both heartbreaking and heart warming.

Despite these film's differences both themes correlate between the two and that's childhood. So no matter which film had which tone, I always had the same feeling watching each characters when they were children. They were both cute, innocent and full of adventure and I was admittedly more interested in their childhoods than their present.