‘A New Dawn’ review: Slight Japanese debut pairs delicate 2D animation with story of resistance

Dir/scr: Yoshitoshi Shinomiya. Japan. 2026. 76mins

When a legendary fireworks factory is scheduled for government demolition despite the fact that owner Keitaro Obinata (voiced by Riku Hagiwara) is still living and working in it, Keitaro’s brother and old friend return to coax him out – but eventually help him realise a lifelong ambition. Making its world premiere in Berlin Competition, writer-director Yoshitoshi Shinomiya’s slight but thematically dense animated debut is carried along by undercurrents ranging from gentrification and environmental devastation to the loyalties of youth and family legacy.

Painterly, pastel-hued animation and narrative economy

The film’s almost watercolour canvas is visually distinct from the sharp-edged, often bloated animations that have made waves out of Japan in recent years, films such as Chainsaw Man and Demon Slayer, placing A New Dawn in welcome contrast as a warmer, more intimate piece of anime with something on its mind. Shinomiya trained as a painter is a veteran artist, background designer and second unit director, including on Makoto Shinkai’s Your Name (2016), while animation supervisor Shohei Hamaguchi previously worked as a visual effects animator on the series Cells at Work!, later adapted into a film by Hideki Takeuchi. Their collaboration was likely appealing to France-based co-producer Miyu, which was also involved in Yoko Kuno and Nobuhiro Yamashita’s Ghost Cat Anzu (2024).

A New Dawn isn’t as outré in its storytelling as Anzu but its painterly, pastel-hued 2D animation and narrative economy could broaden its appeal. A theatrical release in Asia after an early March opening in Japan isn’t out of the question, and the pointedly anti-Studio Ghibli aesthetic could earn the film attention from speciality festivals, distributors and streamers in other parts of the world.

Tokyo-based projection mapper Kaoru Shikimori (Kotone Furukawa) heads back to her hometown in Niura City, in coastal Kanagawa prefecture, after an old friend approaches her with a request. Sentaroc – or as Kaoru calls him, Chicchi (seasoned voice actor Miyu Irino, Spirited Away, One Piece) – is still living in Niura and working on its city council, years after his younger brother Keitaro went into a self-imposed exile in the family home. The home also houses the defunct 330-year-old Obinata Fireworks factory, which is scheduled for demolition in a matter of days.

Chicchi and Kaoru arrive to discover Keitaro has been working on completing the nearly mythic and cosmic ‘shuhari’ firework for the local (also defunct) Niura Fireworks Festival, and plans to set it off just as the city comes to evict him. Spending the night together in the house forces the trio to confront a painful shared past, and Niura’s degraded present.

Editor Megumi Uchida cut her teeth on Spirited Away and Princess Mononoke, and A New Dawn is told in three tight acts set to a synthy ’80s-style score and broken up with an effective fourth wall break midway through that flirts with psychedelic stop motion. The film also wastes no time and no frames as it sketches portraits of the trio at the heart of the story; their friendship feels lived in, and possesses its own distinct history, giving authenticity to their successes and sacrifices

The film is equally elegant in its commentary on the environmental and cultural cost of capitalist development. A prologue in which Keitaro, Chicchi and Kaoru consider their futures paints Niura as a sun-dappled, lush green landscape on an inlet, later rendered barren and primed for redevelopment as solar panels move in; the machinery of infrastructure mega-projects reflected like a spectre in a car window.

On a more emotional note, the Obinata family’s pirate heritage, which hints at a strain of rebelliousness, lingers on the narrative periphery alongside Chicchi and Keitaro’s deceased mother and missing father, both of whom dedicated their lives to a dying craft, and one final firework to end all fireworks.