Nobody expects a Sanrio character to carry a full adventure. Keroppi doesn't just appear in this one, he lives it, stumbling through a beanstalk fairy tale with the kind of earnest, bumbling charm that makes you root for him even when everything goes wrong. The movie knows exactly what it is: a cozy escape dressed up as a quest, where the stakes are low enough to let you breathe but real enough to keep you watching. It's the kind of film that reminds you why Sanrio characters stuck around, they're not cute first, they're present. You spend ninety minutes in Keroppi's world and forget you ever needed anything heavier.

Sanrio's Keroppi steps into the starring role in an animated take on the familiar fairy tale Jack and the Beanstalk. The 1990 theatrical film mixes adventure, comedy and fantasy. Released as one of the Sanrio Anime Festival movies, it shared the bill with two other Sanrio features, Hello Kitty no Oyayubi-hime and Pokopon no Yukai na Saiyuuki, during the second Sanrio Sekai Meisaku Eigakan touring program.