ジョゼと虎と魚たち

Beautiful story told in 関西弁 for intermediate learners

Definitely intermediate level required. First of all, the story takes place in 大阪(おおさか) so literally all the dialogue is in 関西弁(かんさいべん), with lots of slang (I can't count the amount of times I looked-up words marked with ｟俗語｠ in the dictionary). Furthermore, the (Netflix) subtitles stick very closely to the way the characters speak so you end up with subs peppered with 〜、手ぇ、ー、ッ, sounds getting simplified into ん, and whatnot. Compounded with 関西弁 conjugations, this puts you in a situation where mouse-over pop-up dictionaries don't always work. The movie also has its moments where it goes deep into marine and medical terminology so that was a challenge.

Despite all that, it's a well-executed beautiful story with good pacing, great animation and fantastic Kansai language learning potential. It is the kind of story where a character secluded into their home is shown the world and has their horizons broadened when a new person enters their life.

Another language learning point that I appreciated in this movie is that you get a bit of exposure to prose story-telling narrative when they read children picture books out loud, which is rare to hear in movies where you mostly get only dialogue.