Panda! Go Panda! with Panda! Go Panda! The Rainy Day Circus and Gauche the Cellist

An early collaboration with Hayao Miyazaki, Takahata’s two Panda! Go Panda! films were made at the height of Japan’s early 1970s panda craze. The first film follows free-spirited redhead Mimiko, whose resemblance to Pippi Longstocking is surely not accidental, as she discovers a baby panda asleep in the bamboo grove near her house