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Penguin Highway

Play trailer 1:31 Poster for Penguin Highway 2019 1h 58m Adventure Anime Play Trailer Watchlist
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100% Tomatometer 24 Reviews 77% Popcornmeter 100+ Ratings
A fourth-grade student investigates when penguins appear in his village.
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Penguin Highway

Critics Reviews

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Andrea Gronvall Chicago Reader 05/29/2019
Making his feature debut, 30-year-old director Hiroyasu Ishida confidently adapts Tomihiko Morimi's bestselling coming-of-age novel, gracefully segueing... Go to Full Review
G. Allen Johnson San Francisco Chronicle 04/25/2019
3/4
The joy of discovery is at the heart of "Penguin Highway," a delightful new anime that is about the mysteries of life, both scientific and personal. Oh, and it's about penguins, too. Go to Full Review
Peter Debruge Variety 04/12/2019
An irresistibly out-there mystery that plays like a cross between "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" and "Stranger Things," if either of those influences' sense of horror were replaced with wonder... Go to Full Review
Grant Watson Fiction Machine 11/03/2020
7/10
This is mostly a wonderful animated film with a lovely sense of charm; no, I didn't like its obsession with boobs either. Go to Full Review
CJ Sheu The News Lens International 06/27/2020
Penguin Highway largely delivers on its promise of cuteness and mystery, and adds wonder and heart for good measure. Go to Full Review
Panos Kotzathanasis Asian Movie Pulse 11/30/2019
Hiroyasu Ishida directs an anime in the style mostly established by the aforementioned in the prologue, mixing fantasy with reality, through a story mostly involving children but actually carrying messages that are addressed to adults. Go to Full Review
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Audience Reviews

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A M. @dandelionlight_0414 Oct 7 Anything with penguins is excellent See more @Krixable 12/23/2024 A loveletter to science and knoledge in the most magical and humble way. Truely moving... See more Eye C @ECinc 06/29/2024 A beautiful fantasy movie with penguins and a child obsessive with boobs. See more Kyle M 04/22/2024 Between penguins and scientific method research, this brilliant film seemingly embraced the Spielbergian characterization situated in fantastical surrealism with general charm of laughter and heartened fascination by sharp, performative boosts, even if it tends to not sit well throughout the course in minimal self-contradiction adjacent to the underlying coming-of-age theme. (B+) See more isla s 09/01/2022 This is, I can assure you, the first film I've ever seen in which penguins are imagined into being!. Its a typically cute anime film, although the plot/dialogue does talk about ladies boobs (the main character seems to be noticing his new found puberty via a fascination in a ladies breasts), so its maybe not the best film to show to really young kids. Its not exactly sexually explicit either though. Its quite a quirky and imaginative watch, with a lovely light soundtrack and cheery characters. I liked the main plot, with talk of manifesting penguins and 'the penguin energy' - its so random, it made me smile/giggle a fair bit. The animation is pretty, with fields a bright, luscious green and so on. For an anime film, this is quite cheerful and fun. I particularly liked the scenes set in the forest, the (as mentioned) light and airy, classical/instrumental type music played and the dappled sunshine in between the trees, plus the colourful skies/sunsets in some scenes. Its a fairly engrossing watch, one I'd happily recommend to fans of anime films. I really liked the childhood innocence of it (the ocassional references to body parts aside) - it has a nice whimsical charm to it. See more 05/08/2021 Its an amazing film, and having penguins in it is just an added bonus!! See more Read all reviews
Penguin Highway

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Movie Info

Synopsis A fourth-grade student investigates when penguins appear in his village.
Director
Hiroyasu Ishida
Screenwriter
Makoto Ueda
Distributor
Eleven Arts
Production Co
Studio Colorido Co.
Genre
Adventure, Anime
Original Language
Japanese
Release Date (Theaters)
Apr 12, 2019, Limited
Release Date (Streaming)
Jul 23, 2019
Runtime
1h 58m
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