<em>On Happiness Road </em>Is a Playful Yet Profound Coming-of-Age Story

Time and again, traditional hand-drawn films have upended the family-friendly, CGI-filled, box-office-hit formula heralded by Pixar and Disney. Persepolis (2007), for instance, brings to life Marjane Satrapi’s graphic memoir about growing up during Iran’s bloody Islamic revolution. Isao Takahata’s Grave of the Fireflies (1988) also draws from a true story, intricately illustrating the toll of mass conflict by focusing on two young siblings in Japan during the last months of World War II. Released in 2018, the Taiwanese film On Happiness Road, which won a Golden Horse for Best Animation Feature and is a contender for an Oscar nomination in the same category, is a new addition to this lineage of hand-drawn classics.

Following the works of Satrapi and Takahata, the writer and director Sung Hsin-yin’s debut feature film traces the recollections of its protagonist, Lin Shu-chi, over several decades of Taiwanese history. Given and mainland China’s aggressive attempts at , it’s little surprise that Sung