Shiranuhi

Minato is ten years old and calls a coastal town in Kumamoto home, but his home life is rough — his father drinks, and there's not much warmth to be found there. His escape is Benten Island, where he keeps visiting a mysterious girl named Ben-chan, who happens to be a goddess. It sounds strange, but the way their friendship is framed feels genuinely tender rather than fantastical for its own sake. She's the one person — or entity — around whom Minato feels like himself. Then the authorities step in, and suddenly he's facing being sent to a children's home, separated from the only good thing in his life. In desperation, he turns to the Shiranuhi — these eerie, beautiful lights that float above the sea — and prays for something, anything, to change. The whole thing is set in that heavy, humid tail-end-of-summer feeling that late 90s Japan does so well in animation. CoMix Wave Films is behind it, the studio that made Your Name and Suzume, so visually it's going to be stunning. The composer is Taro Umebayashi, who did Yuri!!! on Ice, so expect the score to quietly wreck you. If you liked A Letter to Momo or Children Who Chase Lost Voices — those quieter, mythology-tinged stories about lonely kids and the supernatural — this sits right in that space. It's a single movie, so it's an easy commitment for something that feels genuinely personal.