Paco and the Magical (Picture) Book (パコと魔法の絵本, Pako to Mahō no Ehon) is a 2008 Japanese film written and directed by Tetsuya Nakashima, based on a play by Hirohito Gotō.

It was shown at the Munich Asian Filmfest in 2008^[2] and has been nominated for three awards for the 2009 Asian Film Awards.^[3] Actors Kōji Yakusho and Ayaka Wilson and director Tetsuya Nakashima have been nominated for the 2008 Japanese Academy Award.^[4]

The movie is set in a hospital where "strange" people are sent.

One of the older, gruffer patients, is Onuki, a business owner who is sent to the hospital after a heart attack, thinks little of the other hospital patients, and hopes to die without being remembered by such "worthless" people. Another patient, a young girl named Paco, is in the hospital due to a memory disorder- she can only remember the events of one day at a time. Each day she reads a pop-up children's book, and often asks Onuki to read to her. Each day it is a new story for her.

Eventually, the two of them develop a friendship, and Onuki decides to enlist the help of the other people in the hospital to perform a play of the book, hoping it will help Paco.

• Ōnuki (Prince Gama): Kōji Yakusho
• Paco: Ayaka Wilson
• Muromachi (the demon crawfish): Satoshi Tsumabuki
• Tamako (the ricefish): Anna Tsuchiya
• Horigome (the dragonfly larva): Sadao Abe
• Kōichi (the water strider): Ryō Kase
• Masami (the swamp shrimp witch): Eiko Koike
• Ryūmonji (the whirligig beetle): Takaya Yamauchi
• Kinomoto (Queen Gama): Jun Kunimura
• Takita (the fish): Gekidan Hitori
• Asano (the pond snail): Takaya Kamikawa

• Official Site (in Japanese)
• Paco and the Magical (Picture) Book at IMDb