Dollar Tree Cinema: Napping Princess

“Napping Princess” (2017)
Starring Brina Palencia, Doug Erholtz, Chris Niosi, Lex Woutas and Colleen O'Shaugnessy
Written and directed by Kenji Kamiyama
Not rated, but PG-ish

When I spotted the DVD “Napping Princess” at a Dollar Tree in 2021, I read the description on the back and learned the animated film was set against the backdrop of the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo. With the games actually a couple months away after being postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, I thought it would be a great entry for a series I was thinking about doing for my burgeoning blog.

That series would be titled #DollarTreeCinema and debut in September 2021, a few months after the rescheduled games. But hey, the 2024 Summer Olympics are going on, so... still timely?

I've heard some hubbub about this year's opening ceremonies, but I don't think it involved self-driving cars. That's a key to this enjoyable, albeit confusing fairy tale. The confusion stems not from the fact that this movie is billed as being set in the future and is now four years in the past,* but from an inability to tell just what the heck is going on.

That's not a bug but more of a feature here, as main character Kokone Morikawa (voiced by Palencia in the English dub) seems just as confused as viewers, or at least me. The story opens in the kingdom of Heartland, where a benevolent ruler works to improve his subjects' lives through the production of machines. But not everybody fits in with his vision, including rebellious mechanic Peach and the king's own daughter, Princess Ancien, who can bring machines and toys to life with her magic tablet.

The world is found in the dreams of Kokone, who lives with her widower father, a brilliant mechanic who fixes people's cars in exchange for produce and sometimes money, often hooking them up with self-driving modules that aren't strictly legal. He has trouble communicating with his daughter outside of text messages, and she's looking forward to graduating from high school and heading off to school in Tokyo. Oh yeah, he's also a dead ringer for Peach and uses a beat up tablet – like Princess Ancien's – to make those special vehicle modifications.

Peach and Princess Ancien, Kokone's dream world counterpart despite being several years younger, meet up during an attack by the Colossus, a towering kaiju formed out of lava that constantly attacks the kingdom because of Ancien's magic. Her father commissions a fleet of mechs to battle the creature, operated by a crew of soldiers on bicycles rather than a pair of photogenic, drift-compatible pilots.** Ancien's sure she could use her magic tablet to make them more effective, but her dad – and his grand inquisitor – are skeptical.

Meanwhile, in the real world, the chairman of Shijima Motors is demanding Kokone's dad return the tablet and a guy who looks an awful lot like the grand inquisitor is enlisting the aid of the local police to make it happen. When Kokone's father is arrested, she turns to childhood friend Morio for help getting the tablet – which is hidden in a stuffed dog of her mother's that looks like Ancien's toy-brought-to-life pal Joy – to Tokyo to clear her father's name. Oh, and they're traveling in an old motorcycle and sidecar that resembles another of Ancien's anthropomorphic pals, a flying, transforming motorcycle called Heart.

With me so far? Honestly, neither am I.

I'm not going to do a blow-by-blow synopsis because it gets even more confusing and this is a movie that's better watched than read about. I mean, most are, but especially this one. Every time it started to lose me, it held on with the off-kilter storytelling that shifted ever so slightly when I thought I got the hang of what was going on.

Do Ancien's travels in Heartland correspond with Kokone's in the real world, or is the motorcycle just driving itself while she sleeps and dreams, thanks to her dad's modifications? Are her feats of fantasy in the dream world starting to bleed through to reality, or is there a more realistic explanation? Why do the people in the dream world look like folks in the real world, even the ones Kokone never met? How come her dad never talks about her mom? Are self-driving cars really the stuff fairy tales are made of? Even as revelations start to paint a clearer picture, the lines between the worlds continue to shift and blur.

And why is Kokone a kid princess in the dream world, while Morio is just... Morio?

Again, no spoiler-y recap here, but I will say the movie didn't answer all my questions. I had trouble following some concepts in “Batman: Ninja” that I assume were tropes or traits of anime stories, and I imagine some of that's going on here as well. But Kamiyama delivers a story that entertains and satisfies nevertheless, mixing the mundane and the magical in unexpected ways.

* - We're now nine years removed from 2015 and I think I could watch “Back to the Future Part II” without any problems.

** - You guys remember “Pacific Rim,” right?