Aki no Kanade

This movie is as sweet as it is short. Sadly, we don't get more than about 20 minutes to get to know our main character, Aki, and her story growing up. The story starts showing us how her life has turned out as a professional drummer, and then jumps back to show us how she was introduced to, and came to love, the art. We follow her life from this point and watch her as she grows up.

It's a cute personal story, focused heavily around the points where drumming has affected her life. I think the main point that can be taken from Aki no ... Kanade is to follow your dream and work hard to make something you love a reality, and not stopping at the first hindrance. It doesn't offer too much else really; it's charming, it's comfy and it's worth the 20 minutes it takes to watch.

As arbitrary as number-ratings are, MAL has them, so I will use them.
Story 7 - Art 8 - Sound 8 - Character 8 - Enjoyment 8. None of which I feel like I need to justify with an explanation. They're set with the show's length in mind - They did good for the time they had, as I think the show would've held up quite well if dragged out for the usual 12 episodes instead of 1. Overall 8.

Story 9/10. Pretty decent for a short movie. Was expecting this movie to be longer but I guess there's no need. The cover for this movie speaks for itself, there's a lot of challenges and doubts faced for Miyagawa; while there's also the same girl who's ambitious and is proud of her work. This story encompasses a lot of cultural art into it, kind of hard to find a movie who literally focuses "on a girl who wants to be a professional drummer."

Art 10/10. What's there not to like about it, the characters were drawn beautifully, each one had a unique style, even the ... father who mugs a lot.

Sound 9/10. As mentioned, it brings a lot of cultural background in traditional drumming. You also got that soothing tune as well. Pretty decent, but that's it.

Character 8/10. You can see a lot of character development within this short movie, you can see their ambitions, their challenges, their doubts, their roles, their inspiration; but there's still some stuff missing. But then again, it's a short movie.

Overall 10/10. Pretty enjoyable, had a lot of ingenuity in it, maybe it would have been better if it was a longer movie. But as mentioned, pretty decent for a short movie, encompasses a lot of cultural/traditional aspects within this movie; has the character developments and roles, a lot of emotional aspects tied around the main character, art and sounds were decent. Okay I guess.

Story: 8
Art: 7
Sound: 7
Character: 8
Enjoyment: 8
Overall: 6

Yeah that may be confusing, 3 out of the five categories are 8of 10 and the other three are 7 out of 10 but overall it's 6/10? Well that's because Aki no Kanade ruined its ending. Basically this pro drummer in Tokyo goes back to her hometown to revive a drum festival, most of the episode is a flashback to her old drumming days as a child and that's fine, actually I liked the flashback and it really made me like her as well. But the thing is that after she gets to her hometown, instead of building up ... and making the characters go through some sort of hardship to revive the festival, it literally just happens. And also there are some unresolved issues; this one guy who has had a crush on her for like four years straight and her father who didn't like her to be a drummer but just randomly comest ot the festival, their relationship was broken from the day her father had told her that drumming was useless and he never came to any of her performances, and not once did they show her and her father reconciling, instead they just skip it completely. Look, I know this was a competition entry of sorts and was only allowed to be 23 mins long, but with a few tweaks here and there it could have easily gotten an 8/10 from me whilst sticking to the given time limit.

All I can say is, if this was turned into a 12 ep anime, with its potential, it could have been great.