It was the directorial debut of Nizo Yamamoto, known for his art direction on a number of Studio Ghibli films, as well as The Girl Who Leapt Through Time.

The whole family searches while her grandparents dog, Kuro (meaning black) follows a trail to a massive cherry tree only to find baby Miyori playing with a bear cub.

When the dog barks the bear suddenly grows to a massive size and roars, causing Kuro to turn completely white.

On a walk she sees a massive tiger and finds her way to the old cherry tree, which was snapped in half in a bad storm in the last year.

Miyori starts school but has difficulty adjusting as she has no idea how to deal with the mix of younger and same age children who are much more sincere and direct than her Tokyo classmates; she also runs afoul of Daisuke, the class clown/bully.

Her frustration grows as the forest spirits continue to pester her, and in an attempt to be left alone, finds a fresh spring that's haunted by the ghost of a woman who committed suicide.

During this fight, Miyori faces up to the fact that she has been blaming others for her situation and chooses to start moving forward again.

Her mother agrees to at least talk to her father (while in the manga she's much less sympathetic and says since Miyori is her daughter, she won't be able to survive in the country).

Miyori and the spirits scare the living daylights out of them while the other village children prevent them from escaping after they are chased from the forest.

A month later things have calmed down and the local paper reports that a family of eagles has likely moved into the area, thus ending the dam's chance of being built.

Miyori joyously tells all the spirits that they are safe and reaffirms her desire to stay and continue to protect the forest.