Family values cross cultures

Americans aren't the only ones with dysfunctional families.

"My Neighbors the Yamadas" is an animated film that follows the life of one family living in a suburb of Tokyo, Japan. They fight, lose their 6-year-old daughter in a shopping mall, eat their dinner in front of a TV set, ignore each other, have a preteen boy who looks at dirty magazines and a grandma who talks to caterpillars.

Just like home.

The film was originally released in Japan in 1999 and six years later made its way to the United States. However, Americans won't get to see the film in all its original glory - the Walt Disney Corporation, who distributes the film, added the voices of James Belushi and Molly Shannon to do the voices of father Takashi Yamada and mother Matsuko Yamada.

The animation is not your typical Japanese anime, but just as whimsical. The characters are all cherubic with short limbs and round features.

During a more serious scene in the film, the animation changes temporarily. Takashi walks down the road to ask a motorcycle gang to keep the noise down. Suddenly, the audience sees Takashi with more realistic features. He is tall and balding with a mature face. He looks scared. The gang members went from looking like extras from Sailor Moon to caricatures of serial killers.

The animation resumes its innocence as soon as Matsuko comes up the street singing and banging pans.

The film uses a lot of visual metaphors to express emotions. Some of the metaphors are easy for most Americans to understand, like when Matsuko and Takashi are sailing through smooth waters that then become rougher, while the grandmother talks about their future as a married couple.

Others might not be as easy to understand unless you're a connoisseur of Japanese metaphors.

At one point, Takashi is being chased down the street by a giant snail with his family on its back. It's hard to tell if that's a Japanese metaphor or if there really are giant snails in Japan. Either way, I didn't get it.

But this film is beautiful. It explores all facets of family dynamics. The husband and wife fight over trivial things, like the remote control and bad cooking, but at the end of the day still surprise each other with unexpected kindness.

But at the end of it all, the family gets past their bickering and moments of insanity to realize that life doesn't have to be the smooth sailing - they really only need each other.