General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20265 min read

Okko's Inn (若おかみは小学生!)

Okko's Inn (若おかみは小学生！, Wakaokami wa Shogakusei!, "The Young Innkeeper Is a Grade Schooler") is a 2018 Japanese animated feature film directed by Kitaro Kosaka, based on the children's novel series of the same name by Hiroko Reijo. It follows Oriko "Okko" Seki, a sixth-grade girl who loses her parents in a car accident and moves to her grandmother's hot-spring inn, where she trains as the inn's young proprietress and befriends the ghosts who live there.¹^•²

Key fact	Detail
Original title	若おかみは小学生！ (Wakaokami wa Shogakusei!)¹
Director / screenplay	Kitaro Kosaka; screenplay by Reiko Yoshida¹
Source	Children's novel series by Hiroko Reijo (illustrated by Asami), Kodansha's Aoi Tori Bunko, with cumulative circulation over 3 million copies³
Japan release	September 21, 2018, distributed by Gaga; 94 minutes⁴
US release	GKIDS, limited theatrical release April 22, 2019; rated PG⁵
Reception	Rotten Tomatoes 100% (15 reviews), Metacritic 70/100, IMDb 7.1/10⁶
Honors	22nd Japan Media Arts Festival Animation Division Excellence Award; Annecy 2018 feature competition selection; BIAF 2018 Excellence and Audience awards²^•⁷

Spoilers

Story

After her parents die in a traffic accident, Oriko Seki, nicknamed Okko, is taken in by her grandmother, who runs the hot-spring ryokan (traditional inn) Haru no Ya in the countryside. Okko declares herself the inn's young proprietress and begins training in the innkeeper's trade. She can see spirits that others cannot: Uribo, the ghost of her grandmother's childhood friend who has long lived at the inn, and Miyo, the ghost of a classmate's younger sister. Supported by these friends, by her rival Matsuki Akino, heir to a competing inn, and by the inn's colorful guests, Okko grows into her role while gradually confronting the loss of her parents.²^•⁴

The inn's motto is that it welcomes all and rejects none, and a string of new guests tests Okko's ability to be a gracious host; the film's stated resolution is that dedicating herself to caring for others becomes the key to caring for herself.⁸ The film adds an original element absent from the novels and the television series: a story centered on Okko and her parents.³

Production

Director Kitaro Kosaka was a longtime animation director on Studio Ghibli films including Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away, and had previously directed Nasu: Summer in Andalusia (2003); Okko's Inn was his first theatrical feature in about 15 years.⁴ The screenplay is by Reiko Yoshida, whose credits include A Silent Voice and Lu Over the Wall, and the music is by Keiichi Suzuki.⁹ Animation production was by DLE and Madhouse.¹⁰ Kosaka began work at Madhouse in June 2015, and said he initially hesitated at the offer because he had little experience with children's literature and with large-eyed, cute character designs, but came to admire the well-crafted original.¹¹^•¹²

Seiran Kobayashi voiced Okko, Satsumi Matsuda voiced Uribo, and Nana Mizuki voiced Matsuki Akino; Kobayashi, Matsuda, and Mizuki also voiced the same roles in the television anime series.¹⁰

Release and reception

The film opened in Japan on September 21, 2018 through Gaga.⁴ Word of mouth, particularly on social media, drew praise from adult audiences beyond the novels' child readership, and theaters expanded screenings and held re-releases.² GKIDS released it in the United States in limited theaters on April 22, 2019, with streaming on July 2, 2019.⁵

Critics received the film warmly. On Rotten Tomatoes it holds a 100% Tomatometer from 15 reviews, and its Metascore on Metacritic is 70, based on five reviews, four positive and one mixed.⁵^•¹³ Glenn Kenny of RogerEbert.com gave it 3 of 4 stars, calling it a fleet, incident-packed feature in which Okko must learn to get along without her ghosts.⁵ David Ehrlich of IndieWire graded it B− and placed it in the growing subgenre of animated children's films about grief, while noting it is calibrated for young attention spans.¹³ Charles Solomon of the Los Angeles Times described it as an unusual ghost story that follows Japanese traditions and feels very different from its American counterparts.⁵ Audience scores ran lower than critics' scores: the Rotten Tomatoes Popcornmeter stood at 83%, and IMDb users rated it 7.1 out of 10.⁵^•¹⁴

Awards and festivals

The film was selected for the feature film competition at the 2018 Annecy International Animation Film Festival, screened worldwide there in June 2018 before its Japanese release.¹⁵ At the 20th Bucheon International Animation Festival (BIAF 2018) it won both the Excellence Award and the Audience Award in the feature category.⁷ It was nominated for the 2019 Japan Academy Prize for Best Animation Film and for the 2020 Annie Award for Best Animated Independent Feature.¹⁶ It received the Excellence Award in the Animation Division of the 22nd Japan Media Arts Festival and won the Animation Film Award at the 73rd Mainichi Film Awards.²^•¹⁵

Related media

The source novels also spawned a television anime series that began airing in April 2018, before the film's release; the series ran 24 episodes of about 12 minutes each, ending in September 2018.¹⁷ A novelization of the film, written by Hiroko Reijo from Reiko Yoshida's screenplay, was published by Kodansha on August 10, 2018.¹⁸

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 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

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