A large egg. A large broken egg. A barefoot little blonde girl. A tall blonde man who has forgotten his past and carries a weight. A desolate city. Chasing shadows. Lengthy falls. More allegories than you can shake a large stick at.

It’s difficult to say how much this movie, Angel’s Egg (Tenshi no Tamago), directed by Mamoru Oshii (of Ghost in the Shell fame) and with character designs by Yoshitaka Amano (of Final Fantasy fame), has influenced Imaginary Daughter. I hadn’t watched it in years; I just finished skimming through it in preparation for this post, and was struck by the many similarities. Of course, I made it sound worse (better?) than it is in the above paragraph, but still. This little gem has clearly attached itself to some dark recesses of my mind.

I encourage you to give this movie a try; Imaginary Daughter fans will probably appreciate it. It is a surreal, exceedingly strange experience; a melancholic movie, full of sadness and unearthly, ethereal beauty. And because of the many-layered symbolism, no two watchers reach the same interpretation of its meaning (if there’s one). I won’t pollute your minds with mine; I’m not even sure, after having seen this movie several times over the years, of what my own interpretation could be.

Allow me to finish this with one of Amano’s drawing of the protagonist of Angel’s Egg:

Make your own conclusions on what her resemblance to Daughter (or rather, Daughter’s resemblance to her) could mean.