It's an anime movie based on a two-volume manga called The Concierge at Hokkyoku Department Store. I saw it on the plane. It's charming, but it has an episodic plot that I ended up watching in bits and pieces. Watch a chunk, pause, do something else. Repeat until you've reached the end. I enjoyed the film, but it doesn't inspire urgency.

Our heroine, Akino, works in a department store for extinct animals. (These exotic customers talk, think and behave like people, though.) Akino has an air stewardess's uniform (tight blue dress, neck scarf) and a job description that boils down to "move heaven and earth". This is the kind of old-fashioned department store where the customer is practically worshipped and a concierge is expected to achieve the impossible. (Meanwhile, the kitchens are like all of France came to live there and philosophise.) Akino thinks she has the best job in the world... but she's a bit of an idiot who's capable of treading on small customers and promising things she can't deliver (e.g. to find a bottle of a perfume that stopped being made a few years ago). She's super-lovable, though.

We see an assortment of service industry dilemmas. If a customer is god, what if they're also evil? There's also a comedy manager who watches Akino at all times like a ninja and is liable to stick his head out of absolutely anything. That said, though, the film's a happy, romanticised fantasy that's really not trying to say anything cutting or sharp about the world of customer service. (Extinct animals, on the other hand, definitely.) It's just mining Akino's work life for story material, that's all.

I was surprised by how the scent storyline wrapped up. I'd been expecting a more imaginative resolution about French chefs recreating the smell in dinner.

This is a quietly lovely little film. Utterly non-essential, but it made me happy and it even has a Christmas ending. I'd laugh at cute bits of animation, like the zip-up mouth. The film talks about its extinct animals, making it slightly educational and drawing a small amount of attention to an important issue. I'm not sure how well it carries even its short running time, but my bits-and-pieces viewing worked well.