General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20266 min read

Lu Over the Wall (夜明け告げるルーのうた)

Lu Over the Wall (夜明け告げるルーのうた, Yoake Tsugeru Ru no Uta, literally "Lu's Song That Announces Dawn") is a 2017 Japanese animated musical fantasy film directed by Masaaki Yuasa about a withdrawn middle-school boy whose life changes when he befriends a mermaid who loves to sing. It was Yuasa's first fully original theatrical feature, produced by his studio Science SARU, and it won the Cristal for a Feature Film, the top prize, at the 2017 Annecy International Animation Film Festival.¹^•²^•³

Key fact	Detail
Japanese title / release	夜明け告げるルーのうた, released in Japan on May 19, 2017, distributed by Toho's Toho Eiga Business Division⁴
Director and studio	Masaaki Yuasa; animation by Science SARU, the studio he founded in 2013¹^•⁵
Screenplay	Reiko Yoshida and Masaaki Yuasa¹
Runtime	112 minutes (some listings give 107 or 113)⁶
Main voice cast	Kanon Tani as Lu, Shota Shimoda as Kai, Soma Saito as Kunio, Minako Kotobuki as Yuho, Shinichi Shinohara as Lu's father, Akira Emoto as Kai's grandfather⁷
Music	Score by Takatsugu Muramatsu; theme song "Utautai no Ballad" (1999) by Kazuyoshi Saito⁷^•⁸
Top honors	Cristal for a Feature Film, Annecy 2017; Grand Prize, Animation Division, 21st Japan Media Arts Festival (2018)³^•⁸

Spoilers

Story

The film is set in Hinashi Town (日無町), a rundown fishing port. Kai, a middle-school student, moved there from Tokyo after his parents' divorce and lives with his father and grandfather. Withdrawn and unable to say what he feels, his one pleasure is uploading songs he composes to the internet anonymously. When his classmates Kunio and Yuho discover he is the composer and invite him to join their band, "SEIREN," he reluctantly follows them to their practice spot on Mermaid Island. There the three meet Lu, a mermaid girl who dances joyfully to their music.⁴^•⁹

Lu's singing has a supernatural effect: it compels humans to dance, whether they want to or not, and her fins turn to feet when she hears a beat.¹⁰ As Kai spends time with her, he gradually becomes able to say what he really thinks. But the people of Hinashi Town have believed since ancient times that mermaids bring disaster, and trouble between Lu and the townspeople builds until the town itself is in danger.⁹ Yuasa described the story as one in which a stiff, conservative town is loosened and set free by the songs and dancing Lu brings.¹¹

Production

An original project. After directing his feature debut Mind Game (2004), winner of the Japan Media Arts Festival Animation Division Grand Prize, Yuasa had built a reputation for inventive, colorful work on titles such as The Tatami Galaxy and Ping Pong The Animation, but Lu Over the Wall was his first fully original theatrical film, with no source material.⁵^•¹² In interviews he said the project grew from ideas and rhythms he had first conceived for his 1999 pilot film Nanchatte Vampiyan, and that talking with screenwriter Reiko Yoshida led the team to make the heroine a mermaid so the film would draw audiences to the theater with lovable characters.¹³ The starting question, he said, was whether people can honestly say out loud what they truly love, in an age of conformity pressure.⁸

Flash animation. Yuasa had long wanted to make a feature film with Flash animation, and founding Science SARU in 2013 gave him the chance: the film was made 100 percent in Flash. The studio was still small, so the feature was produced while training staff.¹⁴ Character design was by Nobutaka Itō from an original concept by the manga artist Yōko Nemu (ねむようこ), with Batiste Perron as cinematographer and Choi Eunyoung as production producer.¹ The production companies were Fuji Television, Toho, Science SARU, and BS Fuji.¹²

Music. The film rides on "Utautai no Ballad," a 1999 song by singer-songwriter Kazuyoshi Saito, used as the theme song, with a score by Takatsugu Muramatsu.⁸^•⁷ Reviewers noted the fit between the song's theme of singing honestly about one's feelings and Yuasa's approach to animation.¹⁵

Release and awards

The film opened in Japan on May 19, 2017.⁴ It was one of two Yuasa features released that year, alongside The Night Is Short, Walk On Girl, and 2017 also marked the thirtieth anniversary of his start in the animation industry.¹⁴

At the Annecy International Animation Film Festival in June 2017 it won the Cristal for a Feature Film, beating a competition field that included A Silent Voice, In This Corner of the World, and Loving Vincent. It was the first time Japan took two of the festival's top feature prizes in one year, and the first anime Cristal since Hayao Miyazaki's Porco Rosso (1993) and Isao Takahata's Pom Poko (1995).³ In March 2018 it won the Grand Prize in the Animation Division of the 21st Japan Media Arts Festival.⁸ It was also nominated for the Golden Goblet at the Shanghai International Film Festival, won the Silver Prize (second-place Audience Award) for Best Animated Feature at the Fantasia Film Festival, and was nominated at the Ottawa International Animation Festival and the Sitges Film Festival.¹⁶^•⁹ It was an official selection at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival, where it premiered in English.¹⁰

North American release. GKIDS released the film in US theaters beginning May 11, 2018, and on Blu-ray, DVD, and digital on February 5, 2019, with an English dub featuring Michael Sinterniklaas as Kai and Stephanie Sheh as Yuho.¹⁷^•¹⁸ The film was later submitted among Japan's candidates for the Academy Awards and included in GKIDS's 2023 box set Masaaki Yuasa: Five Films.¹⁹^•²⁰

Reception

Commercially the film was small: Box Office Mojo records a worldwide gross of $161,253, with $109,857 in North America (a $60,773 opening weekend) and $51,396 in South Korea, where it was released earliest, on January 31, 2018.²¹ Critics were divided. The Guardian's Peter Bradshaw found it overextended and self-conscious, comparing it unfavorably in charm to Miyazaki's Ponyo.²² Other English-language reviews were warmer: Little White Lies called Yuasa "one to watch" in anime and noted that the film took Annecy's top prize over In This Corner of the World and A Silent Voice,²³ and GKIDS's marketing framed it as a family-friendly demonstration of Yuasa's genre-mixing.¹⁰ Japanese commentary described it as, on its surface, the most "ordinary" of Yuasa's films, while retaining his direct emotional pitch.²⁴ IFFR's 2023 retrospective program highlighted how the film's theme of modern infrastructure encroaching on rural life is mirrored in its technique, which combines traditional hand-drawn frames with digital tools.⁶

References

Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Films by genre, form, and subject › Animated and short films › Japanese anime features › Released 2014 to 2026

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

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