The Girl from the Other Side (2022)
★★★ — The Girl from the Other Side (2022)
The Girl from the Other Side arrives in 2022 as a film adaptation of Nagabe's manga series of the same name, published in Japan by MAG Garden from 2015 onwards. The manga built a devoted following on the strength of its spare, fairytale-inflected art and its quietly unsettling premise: a divided world where cursed, inhuman beings roam the outer lands, and a masked creature the young girl Shiva calls "Teacher" takes it upon himself to protect her. The film compresses that world into a 70-minute runtime, which places it closer to a feature-length OVA than a conventional theatrical release, a format that suits the source material's contemplative, slow-burn sensibility rather well.
Production falls to WIT Studio, the Tokyo-based animation house that has earned a reputation for lavish, hand-crafted work across a range of celebrated projects. Co-directors Yutaro Kubo and Satomi Maiya bring a painter's eye to the material, favouring soft watercolour textures and meticulous linework over the kind of fluid action choreography WIT Studio can also do when it wants to. The result is something more akin to an animated picture book than a genre fantasy, polished but unhurried, gentle but with a definite undercurrent of dread. It is the sort of film that asks rather a lot of your patience and offers atmosphere in return. Fans of other Japanese animation that leans into folklore and the supernatural, such as the films covered in our looks at Mononoke the Movie: The Phantom in the Rain (2024) and its follow-up Mononoke the Movie: Chapter II - The Ashes of Rage (2025), will find themselves on familiar thematic ground here, even if the tone is considerably quieter.
The voice cast is headed by Jun Fukuyama as the Outsider referred to by Shiva as Teacher, and Rie Takahashi as Shiva herself, with supporting roles from Hiroki Goto, Tadashi Miyazawa, and Kouichi Sakaguchi. Fukuyama is a widely experienced voice actor whose range runs from theatrical villainy to restrained warmth, and the role here calls firmly for the latter. Takahashi, meanwhile, brings a natural lightness to Shiva that keeps the film from feeling oppressively sombre. Together their performances carry a relationship that exists almost entirely in small gestures and careful words, which is fitting for a story built around what is left unsaid. For a sense of what animation can do when it commits to mood and craft over conventional story mechanics, it is also worth glancing at our coverage of Josep (2020), another animated film reviewed here that puts artistic vision ahead of narrative momentum, and the rather different but equally hand-crafted The OceanMaker (2014).
The Girl from the Other Side (2022) is a visually stunning short film that leans heavily into atmosphere and mood over plot or action. Adapted from the acclaimed manga, it unfolds in a haunting, fairy-tale-like world where a mysterious curse separates the “Inside” from the “Outside,” and a masked being cares for a lonely young girl. The hand-drawn animation is breathtaking. Delicate linework, soft watercolour textures, and shadowy forests that feel pulled straight from a storybook. Every frame is composed with care, creating a dreamlike, melancholic tone that lingers long after it ends. The voice acting (I listened in Japanese with subs) is subtle and sincere, especially the gentle, protective timbre of the Outsider and the childlike curiosity of Shiva. Their quiet conversations carry emotional weight, hinting at deeper themes of isolation, fear, and unconditional love. But that’s also where the film may lose some viewers: there’s very little action, no real conflict in the traditional sense, and a pace so deliberate it borders on meditative. For fans of poetic, introspective storytelling, this is a treat. But if you’re looking for narrative drive or momentum, it might feel frustratingly still. It’s less a story you follow and more a mood you step into, beautiful, yes, but slow by design. A gorgeous, emotionally resonant piece of animation that prioritises feeling over forward motion. Worth watching for its artistry alone, but don’t expect thrills, just quiet, lingering beauty.
I think that last point is the honest crux of it. There is real craft here, the kind you want to pause on and study, and the relationship between Teacher and Shiva carries a warmth that earns its place. But I would be doing anyone a disservice if I sent them in expecting a plot to grip onto. Go in the right frame of mind, treat it less like a film you watch and more like a piece of music you sit with, and it rewards you. Go in expecting momentum and it will leave you cold. For me, the beauty is genuine enough to justify the stillness. Sometimes that is more than enough.
Rating: ★★★ | Year: 2022 | Watched: 2026-04-13
Trailer
▶ Watch the official trailer for The Girl from the Other Side (2022) on YouTube
Where to watch
Watch in the US
Stream: Crunchyroll
Physical: Amazon US
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Related on Movies With Macca
More from Japan: Mononoke the Movie: The Phantom in the Rain (2024) · Mononoke the Movie: Chapter II - The Ashes of Rage (2025) · Blue (1993) · The Ghost of Yotsuya (1959)
More from the 2020s: Mononoke the Movie: The Phantom in the Rain (2024) · Mononoke the Movie: Chapter II - The Ashes of Rage (2025) · The Long Walk (2025) · Americana (2023)
More animation: Fantastic Planet (1973) · Alice in Wonderland (1951) · Mononoke the Movie: The Phantom in the Rain (2024) · Mononoke the Movie: Chapter II - The Ashes of Rage (2025)
More drama: Viy (1967) · Wonder (2017) · A Better Tomorrow (1986) · Beautiful Boy (2018)
