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Jun 26, 2022
O, pardon me, thou bleeding piece of earth,
That I am meek and gentle with these butchers!
If you are a fan of the Shakespearaan play, or are interested in seeing something similar, then I feel like this show is not a very good representation of the play for people to watch. People should always have the freedom to creatively edit or change stories and such is the case with 'Baraou no Sourestu'. The story was significantly changed to cater to a different audience and show a different portrayal of the historically based play.
Apart from the many changes in details like Richard's deformity being changed to him
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being an androgynous, the biggest difference of the show is in the themes and narrative of the story. Richard III is no longer the bloody, vicious tyrant that seeks the throne at any cost, but is instead replaced with a meek, lovestricken victim of desire and circumstance. And as a result, I would not consider the show to be related in any way to the Shakesperean play, and it is rather an original story which takes inspiration from the historical characters while pushing its own original narrative.
Story - 2
Truly a wasted potential, Richard III has so much material to animate and actually make a good show. There were so many stories which could have been fleshed out and presented better. Yet the show chooses to focus on the romantic pangs of Richard as he struggles with utterly senseless things like who to sleep with.
Art - 6
If there is anything at all to watch the show for, it would be the backdrops. At the very least, the style they used looked unique, similar to watercolor paint. Unfortunately in most scenes, there is not much variation to what they draw as the setting is mostly placed in dark, gloomy castles. But it is nice to see a style of drawing backdrops different from what is used in most anime.
Sound - 5
A gripe I have with this show is how invariable the soundtrack is. The music all sounds too similar, giving off the same mood and theme throughout the show. The sound design could definitely be improved to give some sense urgency or importance in some of the scenes. Every track just sounds too similar and it does not set the mood or importance of the scene very well.
Character - 3
Designs for characters are really generic and uninspiring. I almost cannot tell differences between some of the princes, and I often confuse one for the other. The characters are generic in both design and personality.
Enjoyment - 2
I am aware that BL and these types of juvenile love dramas are quite popular in Japan, particularly with the female demographic (fujoshi). But I cannot for the life of me see what they find so appealing watching effeminate males making out like young adolescents. If you enjoy watching these things, then you may enjoy watching this show as well. However, I myself found little enjoyment watching the show.
Overall - 4
A real butchering of the play filled with cheap melodrama and unnecessary twists. And if you watch it for school, you definitely will not get any marks for stating Richard III was androgynous. But I give it an extra point just because I know that there are people who like this stuff, and the art at least makes it somewhat watchable.
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
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Apr 30, 2021
Many video game adaptations are really bad, but this is a rare exception. It's been a while since I've played the game and I barely remember most of the story, but I do remember having lots of fun playing it. So this is my biased review of this show, as a nostalgic boomer who plays old video games.
Often times if an anime has a video game source, you don't really get to feel any of the gameplay elements or even remotely grasp the atmosphere of the game. And it's to be expected as adapting the interactive parts of a game is difficult when you're turning
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it into a show, where you can't just ask your audience to flick the stylus or do something, this isn't Dora the Explorer.
How do you actually adapt the flicking of a stylus or the pressing of a button into an anime? Well they managed to pull it of, and that to me just by itself is impressive. The animation for game actions like "Psych" or "Scan" is actually really well thought out, and gives you something you don't get to fully see or understand in the original game.
This game was also among the earliest works to use Shibuya as a full setting. You can actually go and visit the game locations in real life. Of course since then, many other shows and games have also used it, as it is a famous place, but it was memorable to me as it felt like I could visit Shibuya without even leaving the comforts of my home. Unfortunately, you can't explore and search the areas like you did in the game and they do skip some of the iconic areas, but they do well to adapt most of the important locations.
The artstyle and soundtrack are really great. The game has always been praised for its unique artstyle and soundtrack and the show follows suit. I absolutely love the THICK outlines. It breaks the conventional style most anime have and goes for something different. The fight scenes are also really smooth and fluid, well-choreographed. Some would criticize this show for use of 3DCGI but those people are idiots. The use of 3DCGI is actually among the best I've seen in any anime. It's actually amazing how they can use it without breaking the unique artstyle the show has.
If there was anything lacking in the original game, it was that many of the story elements were left to text and it was up to the player's imagination to picture the scenes in their head. With the anime adaptation, we finally get to see many of the pivotal scenes that was just bland text on the screen in the game. That by itself is more than enough reason to watch the show even if you've already played the game.
We're 4 episodes in and so far I'm really enjoying the show. But then again, I'm watching this from my biased nostalgia perspective. So take this with a grain of salt as to me, I see absolutely nothing wrong with the show apart from it being too good of an adaptation for a video game.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Mar 28, 2021
90% of anime is crap - Sturgeon's Law
I don't need to tell you how bad this show is, you can probably guess it yourself from the score or other reviews on this site. The show is a complete mess and it doesn't take more than watching a few seconds to guess why. The biggest problem is the animation which is really lacking in most scenes: lip movements are desynchronized and character movements are extremely robotic. And this becomes even more obvious with a series like Ex-arm whose story premise makes it naturally include a shit ton of fight scenes and action, it's obvious the task
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was too much for the animators who probably lacked both the experience and the skills to pull it off. It's almost hard to believe that the show ever got green-lighted and allowed to even air.
But despite how terrible the show is, it's not as if the animators were purposefully trying to make a bad show (or at least I hope not). It wasn't great sure, but there was an effort in some scenes to make it seem somewhat cool or at least unique. The show has a surprising amount of action scenes and despite how horribly they turned out, I guess if there's something that the show has going for it, it's that someone had to actually plan and choreograph these scenes which is somewhat of an effort. The animation didn't turn out all that great, but the fight choreography certainly felt unique.
As for the story, it isn't actually all that bad, however the pacing is horrendous. The first few episodes seem unnecessarily drawn out, and don't really add anything to the show. It's almost as if they put filler episodes at the beginning of the series. It probably wouldn't have been so bad if the animation was decent, but as it wasn't, it made watching the first few episodes a real snorefest. Episode 5 is where the story kicks off in my opinion and the show becomes somewhat watchable, but still really bad. The animation improves somewhat slightly and there is a miniscule improvement in lip syncing but still never good enough to even be called decent. Although, it's good to see that the studio is at least learning from this experience and the quality gradually improves as the show progresses. If there's anything to look forward to in this show, it's that the quality only improves throughout the series.
In any case, if you're going to watch this show it shouldn't be out of any expectation or feeling that maybe you might like it. Because this show is arguably the most boring show of all time. The pacing is absolutely horrendous and the direction is all over the place. However, as I've said despite being horribly animated, the fight scenes are surprisingly well choreographed, which means it can at least be used as a reference for some people. Other than that, you may just be curious how bad this show is, and while it is bad, the worst part is mostly in the first few episodes and although the show doesn't become good or even decent animation-wise, it's definitely watchable from around halfway through.
When you start rock bottom, you can only go up. Ex-arm is a show which really botched its animation, especially in the first few episodes. But it was nice to see the animators at least trying and improve the animation. The quality never becomes even decent but it definitely improved. And with a half decent story and unique fight choreography, I wouldn't call Ex-Arm complete garbage. There's a few good things in this pile of trash.
Reviewer’s Rating: 2
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Feb 11, 2020
So, I had watched 6 episodes of this show so far without realizing that this was supposed to be a promotional short for an upcoming TCG to be released some time next month. And here I thought it was a simple comedy slice-of-life show which just happened to include a card game as a device for people to have a good time and some fun. So I had no idea that this was supposed to be promoting this new card game I've never heard of called "Rebirth" and I was just enjoying the anime for its slapstick humour and comedic tropes. The show itself actually
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rarely shows the card game or its rules for that matter, it focuses more on the characters which are a group of young girls and their daily lives. It's more of a show to promote the characters than the card game, and I find it a really enjoyable slice-of-life for what it's worth.
Despite its very simple chibi art style animation, the show does very well in capturing its audience with unique japanese slapstick humour and expressive animation. And by expressive I don't mean that there's a lot of movement or action, but the characters appropriately show facial expressions and body movement depending on the context of the conversation. You can notice how characters may sometimes blink or tilt slightly as a reaction and the transition between faces and scenes is brief but apparent. There's a lot of attention to certain details which are often overlooked when the super simple art styles like chibi are used but this show manages to keep quality standards despite its simple designs.
The comedy isn't groundbreaking, it's not much of a comedy as it is a slice-of-life. If you're looking for some semblance of story or character development, this isn't that type of anime. But it is a really good slice-of-life. The structure usually follows 1-2 skits per episode, and its appeal is more aligned with moe culture than comedy. It's cute girls doing cute things and it does it really well.
Another thing I find that it does really well is how they introduce the characters. The show doesn't bother with creating long narratives or explanations, it goes directly into conversations and leaves it to the audience to connect the dots. I've always been a fan of show don't tell. It's much more interesting and engaging as a viewer. This is much more of a preference of style but I find the redundancy annoying when a narrator overly explains something blatantly obvious about a character. Albeit this may leave some viewers confused with what's going on, I find that the show does quite well in presenting its characters to the audience.
You can notice that it's not the most expensive production. The art-style and soundtrack is kept simple, probably to reduce workloads. But it also shows how good direction can turn even the simplest animations into good anime. Considering it's a 3-minute short, I would definitely recommend even if you're not that into slice-of-life. It's a good example of how a slice-of-life should be. Rebirth may not have the best animation, soundtrack, or story for that matter but it does what it does really well. Definitely give it a try especially if you're into moe and slice-of-life.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Sep 27, 2019
People say: Don't judge a book by it's cover. Granbelm says: Don't judge an anime by the synopsis + half of the episodes...
At first glance, the show looks completely unoriginal and uninspiring; a quick cash grab trying to bait fans of more popular genres: magical girl and mecha series into a show which has both of these elements combined into one and placed in a battle royal setting. Granbelm however, proved it's something more. Unfortunately, it only picks up speed in the latter half of the show. If you dropped this series after trying the first few episodes, I don't blame you. It was one
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of the most boring series I watched at first, I usually had to rewatch several scenes because it was so boring I almost fell asleep. The latter half however was a huge improvement to the show, it had me glued to my seat wanting to watch more.
I hated watching this show at first, everything was just so boring and lackluster. Usually you can say something good about a show like having a good story even if the art is terrible, or having good fight scenes even if the plot doesn't make sense; Granbelm however didn't have any of that, storywise and animation-wise, the show was really terrible. The story felt like the writer took bits and pieces of more popular shows and combined them to create frankenstein's monster. It felt unoriginal, like you've already seen it somewhere before despite being an original series. It was so boring that I barely remember the specific things that happen in the show, and I doubt even the writers remember. There's just too much of the characters talking and blabbering about useless things which 90% of the time isn't even important to the story, it's like they wrote it to be forgettable. Each episode usually had them fighting which was the entire point and story of the series, usually towards the end of the episode, and I barely remember any of them. The biggest problem was that there's not enough hype or buildup in the writing to properly explain why they're even fighting in the first place, it's like the characters just decide to fight and there's no explanation.
The animation was probably the worst part, which if you're making a show that involves fight scenes every episode, that's really bad. Usually for niche shows like this, animation is the one saving grace a show can use to make it more enjoyable for the viewers because no matter how badly written or bland the show is, people will still watch if they can see giant robots brawling it out in a good ol' fashion slugfest or cute magical girls casting overthetop magic spells. Animation is the entire purpose of making these shows so niche, so you can use these unique settings to animate things people want to see and get viewers. Because at the end of the day, people just wanna see some action! Unfortunately Granbelm didn't capitalize on this early on despite having a very niche setting.
However, the show really picked up a lot in the second half, simply put: everything just got better. It was like watching a completely different show. The story, sound, voice acting, animation, designs, EVERYTHING became better. The animation in the fight scenes had the biggest improvement. In the first half, fight scenes usually lasted about 2-5 minutes per episode meaning majority of the show you weren't even watching the entire point of the show which was the characters fighting in this nonsensical magical war. In the latter half, the entire episode could be just the characters fighting and I was really impressed with the quality of animation, despite having longer and more fight scenes, animation quality was consistently top tier.
Storywise the setting of course didn't change, so you could argue that the story is still inconsistent regarding the main storyline which is the explanation of the magical war and the entire world they're living in but at the same time, the individual character storylines got really interesting. The dialogue and backstories of the characters were more fleshed out and explained and it wasn't just for the main characters but the side characters as well. In fact they actually gave the side characters more focus and backstory than the main ones, for example one particular supporting character which was annoying in the first half even got an episode dedicated to her backstory and turned into one of the most memorable characters of the series. If you're talking about plot inconsistencies and writing, then yes maybe overall it's not the best writing but if you're reviewing on an episode to episode basis, the latter half of the show really improved the writing of the characters of the show.
If you're a mecha fan who just loves watching giant robots fighting regardless of context, you'll probably like this because they incorporate some unique mechanics and attacks for the machines and their battles. The only problem is all the good fights are in the latter half of the show and the first half is pretty stale in terms of action. But after that all the fights are really well animated and really a treat to watch. Sound direction during the fight animation was also really good, the orchestral soundtrack accompanying the fights really fit with the theme of the show. I really enjoyed watching the show personally and the only reason I'm giving it a lower score is because of its slow start.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Sep 20, 2019
If I could rename this show, it would be "Joshikousei no Nichijou".
These aren't your average everyday memes, these are ADVANCED memes. I wouldn't expect the average anime otaku to understand Joshikousei no Mudazukai. You would have to have very high IQ to understand it. The humour is extremely subtle, and without a solid grasp of DAIBUTSU or WASEDA most of the jokes will go over a typical viewer's head. There's also Tanaka's AHO outlook, which is deftly woven into her charaterisation- her personal philosophy draws heavily from OMOSHIREONNA, for instance. The fans understand this stuff; they have the intellectual capacity to truly appreciate the depths
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of these jokes, to realise that they're not just funny- they say something deep about LIFE. As a consequence people who dislike Joshimuda truly ARE idiots- of course they wouldn't appreciate, for instance, the humour in Tanaka's existential nickname "BAKA" which in itself is a cryptic reference to an Ancient Chinese Proverb of calling a deer the same as a horse. I'm smirking right now just imagining one of those addlepated simpletons scratching their heads in confusion as ビーノ's genius wit unfolds itself on their television screens. What fools.. I pity them. 😂
In all seriousness though, one of the best comedies I've seen in a long time. Joshimuda does everything it can to destroy the image of japanese highschool girls being shy, delicate flowers. If you're ever tired of watching girls acting girly, this is probably the show for you. In this show you can find not just one character, but an entire cast of the weirdest most unusual cases of joshikousei in their natural habitat. Often times, observing natural joshikousei is a very rare chance, because they're quick to hide themselves behind a facade of cute phrases or dazzling cosmetics, distracting the male predator in order to buy time to escape into their safe space. Here, we have rare footage of them acting as naturally as any human being would: quirky, full of faults and, with lack of a better term, simply human. I'd be lying if I said I never liked any pandering moe shows. But in all fairness, joshimuda's portrayal of joshikousei is probably the most realistic in a weird way, and I think that's what makes it funny.
Story - 7
The series is quite episodic, usually focusing on a character at a time or playing out a skit involving a few characters. Similar to Nichijou or Danshikoukousei no Nichijou, all three shows follow this skit-like pattern (and coincidentally have 3 main characters). The main character "BAKA" is usually involved, but the show focuses on the side characters quite a lot as well.
Art - 7
No, it doesn't have gorgeous backdrops, nor does it have breathtaking animation. But I think the art of the show perfectly fits the theme of the show. It's simple and that's all it needs since the focus is not really the art, it's the comedy.
Sound - 6
Don't expect any catchy tunes either. Although the opening is really good, the show itself doesn't have much to go for in terms of soundtrack. There was a special song episode but that's pretty much it. However what it lacks in BGM it makes up for in dialogue and voice acting. Japanese voice acting has always been known for its high quality and this is no exception.
Character - 10
Each character basically represents a different stereotype of a japanese highschooler. And you may think: Can people like this actually exist? And you might be surprised to find out that they're really not that uncommon. In the prodigality of highschool youth, people can act in the most unusual ways. I'm sure everyone has acted strangely in one way or another during their youth. Adoloscence is one of life's greatest mysteries and watching people act as strangely as they do is what I think makes these characters very interesting and fun to watch.
Enjoyment - 10
I found it funny, and does a comedy really need to be anything more? If it can make you laugh, smile or maybe even just a smirk, then I say it's a good comedy.
Overall - 8
All in all, a series I would totally recommend 100% for any slice-of-life aficionado. A bit unfortunate that not many people are picking it up but in my list, it's up there as one of the best SOL/comedy shows of all time.
And yes, by the way, i DO have a Joshimuda tattoo. And no, you cannot see it. It's for the ladies' eyes only- and even then they have to demonstrate that they're within 5 IQ points of my own (preferably lower) beforehand. Nothin personnel kid
WA! MOON! DASS! CRY!
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Sep 19, 2019
Kanata no Astra is pure garbage, but it's the garbage everyone talks about.
The way the show started, I was thinking this was going to be something of "Star Trek the Anime", which in a way that's how the first half of the show was supposed to turn out. Eventually, as with all bad sci-fi shows, it turns out into this weird primordial soup of just too many different sci-fi concepts. It tried too hard and honestly just fell really flat on its face. The writing is boring, art is static and not even Japanese voice acting could save this show.
Story - 3
Prepare yourself for a
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cringefest of the most idiotic characters spouting the cheesiest lines about teamwork and friendship. I actually feel embarassed that I had to listen to it more than how the VA's must have felt reading it. I think from a conceptual perspective, the story wasn't too bad, but the execution (mainly the dialogue) was just pitiful. You could have actually hired a highschooler to write the script for you and it would have turned out better.
Art - 1
If you're someone with a brain, you might notice how incredibly static and non-moving everything is in the show. If you're thinking that's bad, it's actually worse, because not only is everything static, everything looks like it's made out of MS Paint and the animators just fill-colored every scene. Actually even saying that would be too kind for this show because someone who used fill-color would actually have time to put things like proper shading and good color tones to at least make things look decent. I wouldn't be surprised if you told me this was drawn by amateurs, in fact I would be more surprised if it wasn't the case.
Sound - 4
I wasn't really paying attention to the music that well but nothing really stood out to me as a good theme or even remotely exciting. At the very least it has music so I guess it's better than nothing...
Character - 3
The characters are generic and bland. Essentially every character is some literary plot device to be used and thrown away. That's all characters are in this show, overused napkins to cover up the messy plot the writers of this show came up with. And unfortunately they don't even do a good job of cleaning up, the show still turns out to be a steaming hot pile of stinking trash.
Enjoyment - 5
The story is a child's creation of a teenage highschool drama set in space. The art is a lazy attempt to pass off half-worked drawings as decent animation. The characters are plot devices which have no other purpose in the show aside from existing to continue the story. Everything is just so wrong that it's a miracle this even exists.
But as weird as it sounds the show being this bad is probably the one thing it has going for it. Kanata no Astra is like that one fat kid everyone can bully or make fun of. People love talking trash, and I'm no exception. It's that show that people can discuss and criticize with others and oddly enough, you can because it's one of the more popular anime airing this season. And I guess it's because despite being terrible, it does have unique parts of its story which are cliche, but not too common in relation to other airing anime. Being the only one of its genre airing also gives it an edge in popularity strangely enough.
In the end I guess even a show as terrible as Kanata no Astra is preferred over watching an overgeneric isekai.
Overall - 4
Would not recommend, EVER! But if they ever make a sequel, I hope it's as bad as the first one!
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
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Jul 1, 2019
This series has been airing since early October all the way until the end of June. That's roughly 8 months and eight months is a long time. If there's one thing this series does poorly, it's consistency. Sometimes the series really picks up and you can't wait to watch the next episode, other times watching paint dry would be more exciting.
Story - 7
This is a really long series so I won't go into much detail about the story as it isn't worth my time to write a summary as there would be too much details and things that would need to be discussed to
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fully explain the story. Instead I'll just write my two cents of things I thought while watching the series, from beginning to end.
The story starts out really boring. You wouldn't expect the story that would unfold if you didn't know anything about the source. On top of an subpar looking animation I would guess most people would immediately drop this after watching the first episode. For me, the story doesn't pick up or become interesting in the slightest until about 10 episodes in and that's a lot of episodes to watch.
Afterwards the story gets really interesting but it has a lot of fights and battles between characters which aren't really that important to the story so if you're not a fan of those then you'll probably still find the show boring. A lot of people consider them filler but they're not exactly filler since there's at least some story as to why they're fighting. This goes on and continues repeatitively basically until the final episodes of the show.
Art - 5
The art is probably what drives most people away from the show. It isn't terrible but you can't exactly say it's unique or stands out from other series. As well as some scenes using 3D CGI, some people will stay away solely for that reason.
Sound - 6
The sound isn't bad but gets kind of repeatitive when the soundtrack doesn't change much throughout the 36 episodes. Other than that it's actually quite fitting for a show called karakuri circus, it has a circus-like vibe to it if there is such a thing.
Character - 6
If there's one character that really stands out, it's Masaru. Here's one character I never expected to like at all. He starts out as a really wimpy kid, almost annoying even and by the end of the series suddenly he turns out to be just the best character in the show. But I guess it's natural since he is kind of the main character, I'm just impressed how much character development he got throughout the show.
Other characters are also in their own way interesting, especially Faceless, but I won't go into too much detail about them since I feel it would be spoiling too much.
Enjoyment - 7
I really enjoyed the series but even I have to admit that the animation and sound isn't really great of quality. The story is probably its best aspect but just having a good story isn't always enough to make an enjoyable show.
Overall - 6
Definitely better than I originally thought of how it was going to turn out. More people would probably be watching this if the first 10 or so episodes weren't so dry, but then again they were necessary to setup the next few episodes or so.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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Jul 1, 2019
Let me tell you first off, tokyo movie theaters are not cheap!!! $20 for a ticket are you insane?! I'd better be getting my money's worth if I'm paying that much. Like this movie better change my life.
Next I want to let you know that I've never read the source, or heard of this title before watching this movie. So this review is my impression of the movie watching it blind.
Story - 4
SPOILER ALERT
It actually started off really great in my opinion. The premise of a boy who was raised in the wild is not something entirely new but still very interesting. And it
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was going so well until somewhere halfway through the movie... UNIVERSE, COSMOS, GALAXY... Like WTF was I watching? I'm sorry for all the people who liked this movie but it just felt totally random to me in terms of the story. I can't actually imagine how you make any sense of what I just watched. I feel like they literally let a 5 year old write the story and you might think I'm joking but that's really how it is. Sure the animation is great but the story...
Art - 10
I don't think anyone can argue how breathtakingly amazing the art was. Watching this movie is like watching an animated version of the big book of marine life encyclopedia. Definitely watch this movie if you want to learn how to draw any fish. If nothing else, this is definitely one of the "best animated" movies (not to be mistaken with best "animated movies")
Sound - 9
Is the rubber band an instrument?
Kaijuu no Kodomo would say: Yes, yes it is!
Mysterious, eerie, a sense of wonder and excitement. Wonderfully orchestrated and beautifully directed. Who doesn't love this kind of music? One thing's for sure: they definitely spared no expense in the sound and animation budget.
Character - 5
The designs are really nice and unique. There's a lot of mystery with how the characters were introduced which I think is fine in itself. Unfortunately, the story is just so weird that it's hard to make sense of anything the characters are thinking, if they are thinking anything. You can't tell what the hell is going on and there's barely any explanation either.
Enjoyment - 4
As someone who's never read the source or remotely heard of the title before watching this I felt like a fish out of water (pun intended). Maybe they cut a lot of material from the source. Maybe the writing is just bad. Maybe maybe maybe... From my perspective, the story is just weird. At the very least, I enjoyed the animation.
Overall - 6
I would definitely recommend it, even just for the beautiful animation. But definitely not for anyone who's looking for any coherent story or emotional impact.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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Jul 1, 2019
I wasn't really expecting much before watching this movie, mainly because I saw the trailer and I thought it was going to be some sappy love story which I've honestly seen my fair share but I'm really glad I actually watched it.
Story - 9
SPOILER ALERT
The story focuses on Mukaimizu Hinako and how she learns to "find her wave". It's about how people need to keep moving forward and learn to stand on their own even through the hardships. There's a lot of symbolism in the movie between riding a wave and the life of a person. The story also touches on motivation, as Hinako struggles
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with finding the strength to move on after the death of her boyfriend.
Art - 8
People will probably recognize the art style from the recent devilman series as its made by the same studio. The style, as with all their works, is simple but unique. But I particularly like this style because it gives something that can't be imitated by 3D CGI or live acting. It's a bit hard to explain but the style exaggerates certain things like when eating or doing actions, certain body parts may be way out of proportion than they should, and this exaggeration is something which you can only produce because your medium is 2D. Being a smaller studio, they obviously can't produce gorgeous backdrops or super intense action scenes but they've certainly proved that there's more to animation than just that, and you can convey so much even with simple animation.
Sound - 9
If you haven't heard of Oshima Michiru before it's about time you have. This woman is a living legend of a composer. The main reason I watched this movie actually was because I saw her name in the trailer. She produces a lot of background music for japanese anime or dramas. Usually they're orchestral, most of the time they have this nostalgic kind of vibe like the ET theme. In this movie however, most of the music is lighthearted and uplifting and it really helps in setting the mood and conveying the expressions of the characters. It's nothing extravagant but still really good.
Character - 7
There aren't many characters as this is a movie, so there isn't much time for introduction or development. But there are 4 main characters, each with different hair colors so the audience can tell them apart easily haha. No one really stands out as a really cool/unique character but the main focus of the movie is the story so as far as interaction between characters go, the dialogue was really good and nothing really felt that awkward or out of place to hear.
Enjoyment - 8
Really enjoyable. Probably something I would have enjoyed watching with my girlfriend if I had one :( This movie is about love, but it's also about coping loss and motivation so I think it appeals to a lot of whoever's watching this.
Overall - 8
The story is surprisingly good. Love stories usually struggle in any genre because it's so hard to relate to something I believe the majority of the population struggles in (especially anime otaku haha) but what makes this good is it also tackles other things besides love and it manages to do all this and make the story simple and easy to understand for the audience to follow. I like simple, simple is best. It's fun, refreshing and enjoyable to watch.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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