You know, now that I think about it for a second, this could almost be advertised as the “sanitized” version of Turning Red, which is to say the one minus any period talk. There’s still Mei disregarding her parent’s wishes, which the haters piled on about, but no (gasp) tampons, or even (the horror) snippets of Mei and her friends acting and talking like garden variety teenagers. I’m sure they’d still find plenty to hate here, because we all know the things I listed aren’t the real reasons, but it is funny that the Little Golden Book practically excises most of the lightning rods. Was that on purpose, like I imagine it was when they took out the time-travel talk in the one for Lightyear (and every Lightyear novelization, for that matter)? That I’m not sure of. Still, it’s fun to think about. But, even without Mei’s over-sized personality fully on display and the period metaphor in the shadows, this remains one of my favorite Pixar stories. There are even little visual callbacks thrown in that won’t really make sense to readers if they haven’t seen the movie, a weird touch, yet one I appreciated as a multi-time viewer of the film. Pixar is in great hands moving forward with Domee Shi getting promoted to vice president of creative. On top of that, I cannot wait for her next film; from Bao to this, it’s been homeruns each step of the way so far, so I think we have another great Pixar director on our hands. And I’m happy this Little Golden Book really just feels like a faithful 2D recreation of her movie; Shi’s art-style was one of the major selling points of the movie for me, so I’m glad it still found its way through here somehow.
