Sora no Aosa wo Shiru Hito yo

High school student Aoi Aioi lives with her elder sister, Akane, after a tragic accident took their parents away 13 years ago. Because Akane has since been taking care of her single-handedly, Aoi wants to move to Tokyo after her graduation to relieve her sister's burden and pursue a musical career, inspired by Akane's ex-boyfriend Shinnosuke "Shinno" Kanamuro. Shinno was part of a band until he left for Tokyo to become a professional guitarist after the sisters' parents passed away, and he was never to be seen again.

One afternoon, while Aoi practices her bass in a guest house, she gets startled by the 18-year-old version of Shinno from 13 years ago! As if by coincidence, the current 31-year-old Shinno also returns to the town, but he has changed drastically. There are now two Shinno's in existence, but why is the Shinno from the past present?

Sora no Aosa wo Shiru Hito yo revolves around these four individuals as they confront their inner feelings toward each other and make decisions that will affect their lives from here on out.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Aioi, Aoi Main

Wakayama, Shion Japanese

Shinno Main

Yoshizawa, Ryou Japanese

Aioi, Akane Main

Yoshioka, Riho Japanese

Kanomura, Shinnosuke Main

Yoshizawa, Ryou Japanese

Nakamura, Masatsugu Supporting

Taichi, You Japanese

Ootaki, Chika Supporting

Tanezaki, Atsumi Japanese

Abo Supporting

Yoshino, Hiroyuki Japanese

Nakamura, Masamichi Supporting

Ochiai, Fukushi Japanese

Nitobe, Dankichi Supporting

Matsudaira, Ken Japanese

Saitou, Shunsuke Producer

Odagiri, Narumi Producer

Ozaki, Noriko Producer

Shimizu, Hiroyuki Producer, Planning

Reviews

Oct 11, 2019

Sigsig

Recommended

A tale of experiencing first love for the second time, and that of losing sight of what you once dreamt of.

Firstly, the synopsis is not that accurate. This is not a story of time travel, nor did Aoi only start to fall in love upon meeting the Shinno from 13 years ago.

The movie starts with Aoi plugging in her earphones to practice her bass, drowning out all sounds. I feel that that is a nice touch. We are then gradually introduced to the other characters and how Aoi feels about them. There was also a flashback of her past which explains why the two ... sisters are living together, when Shinno suddenly appears.

Story: 10/10
There were some twists that I've never expected. At first, I thought only Aoi could see Shinno, but it turned out that everyone could see him too. They called him an Ikiryou (a spirit that is left behind when the living passes on) at the start, and I thought that that was the case too, when Aoi ran home to Akane and asked her for more details about Shinno - to which her reply was "I don't know whether he is even living or dead", which cemented my belief until minutes later when Shinnosuke appeared on the Enka stage as a guitarist.

What happens when you meet face-to-face with your past self? That was the other big twist that I did not expect. Watch it to find out!

The story built up emotions leading to that scene from the ominous cave to the landslide to the sealed guitar and to the meeting, and the tension - emotions at an all-time high was kept at that plateau for the rest of the movie. It was truly a work of art.

Art: 9/10
My first thought was that the older Nakamura looked like Poppo from AnoHana, but it turned out that they were different persons. Each scene, though ordinary somehow managed to look special while being not overtly imposing. I liked how the director transitioned from showing a dull welcoming scene to the appearance of a very flashy Nitobe, and how the camera slowly pans to the right to reveal the older Shinnosuke. That said though, while the art was great, it was not particularly outstanding hence the score.

Sound: 9/10
As I have mentioned in the introduction, the touch when earphones are plugged in and when Aoi tries to convey her feelings for the older Shinnosuke was absolutely stunning. Aoi fondly reminds me of K-On! when she plays the bass. I feel that her VA has done a good job in conveying her feelings for Shinno, like how her voice trembled when she spoke to him or that outburst when she found out what Chika has done.

Character: 8/10
Given the number of characters, it can't be helped. Although every character has some development, I feel that they could have given more depth to each of them, particularly the older Shinnosuke and exactly how did he come around. Also, the boy-crazy Chika could have been given more exposition - we never knew if she was telling the truth or not when she claimed that 'nothing happened', because we only have an idea of what's her personality like.

Enjoyment: 8/10
Overall, I enjoyed the movie enough to write such a long review about it. Even after watching the epilogue however, I am left with more questions that I had at the start and I think that this movie would have a better reception had it launched as an anime series instead.

Overall verdict: 8/10

Reviewer’s Rating: 8

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Dec 26, 2019

ContactGamer

Mixed Feelings

Just writing my review right after watching this movie.

THERE MAY BE SPOILERS BELOW, BE WARNED!!! (Almost Spoiler-free)

Story: 4/10
The story is really confusing at the start until that red-haired character showed up later in the movie. Just imagine the same person meeting each other but they are in different timelines. (This is some time travelling stuff) The main point of the story is falling in love with the same person who you had relationship with before. Personally, I don't really like the story so that's the main reason why I gave it a 4.

Art: 9/10
Art is exceptionally good in this movie. On par with Your Name ... and Weathering with You. People who likes anime with good art should try to watch this movie.

Sound: 7/10
Sound is somewhat good to me and gets a decent score from me easily.
I won't get into this because I don't critique music well.

Character: 6/10
Character development is pretty okay. All the characters are pretty interesting to watch, especially the red haired guy. I won't get into this because I only know the character for only 1 hour+ and may have to rewatch this sometime.

Enjoyment: 4/10
If I don't enjoy the story, I also won't get to enjoy the movie. Trust me, some decent Korean dramas have way better plot than this.

Overall: 5/10
I will cut it short.
- If you like good art anime, this movie you should give it a try.
- If you like good plot anime, avoid this movie.
- If both, I recommend avoid.

Reviewer’s Rating: 5

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Jun 10, 2020

phiraeth

Not Recommended

Mari Okada / Tatsuyuki Nagai. A match made in heaven. One of my favorite pairings in all of anime. I don't know a single thing I've disliked made by the combination of the two of them, and Mari Okada specifically is one of my all-time favorite writers.

I had such high expectations for this movie...which perhaps was the mistake I made, because boy was it such a disappointment. I should have expected this from Cloverworks, who did Bunny Girl Senpai along with the movie which clearly wasn't movie quality, much like this. Ultimately, I feel as though "Her Blue Sky" would have worked much better as ... a 1-cour series and it honestly does seem like it was cut down to a movie due to budget constraints, although obviously that's just speculation.

Story: 4/10
There is absolutely nothing original about this story. That doesn't mean it's bad, it just... well, like someone else said, exists. It wasn't really confusing to follow at all, but the main issue was that too many characters were included, too many things were going on, and the focus was spread out far too much for a less-than-2-hour movie. Half the time it felt like a slice-of-life story, a quarter of the time it felt like a supernatural mystery, and the other quarter felt like a romantic drama. Not all even in any specific order; interspersed throughout, which led to a distinct lack of atmosphere and connection to the characters.

There were too many random shots of people playing music, scenery, and nothing plot-related that it felt like they were trying to find things to fill the time which is just super confusing to me because the story that they were trying to tell in the first place felt rushed as it was.

The lack of cohesiveness in tone and atmosphere throughout the story really led to me feeling absolutely nothing during the climax of the movie, what was supposed to be the most emotional point - and then, the story just abruptly ended.

I guess it was trying to tell the story of not giving up on your dreams and realizing that even after time, what your heart most desires can come true - but that was just one subplot for one or two of the characters. What was it trying to convey to us - what was the story for the protagonist? What did she get out of it? When you can't even figure out what the plot was about in relation to the main character of the damn story... I don't know what to say. It felt like we were following around a protagonist and yet nothing in the story was actually meant to be about her and she was just a device used to serve the story of the two other mains.

I don't even know what I'm trying to say at this point, other than the story felt almost non-existent, that things were just happening just for the sake of happening. It wasn't bad, it just wasn't good, and it failed at creating an atmosphere where I cared about what was happening or felt drawn-in.

Again, I really feel as if it would have worked better focusing entirely on only the main characters, cutting out the side characters, and making it entirely character-driven with no other real events occurring. The way the plot was, in order for it to feel realistically developed, the story definitely needed way more time than what was granted for the movie.

Basically, the plot had potential and failed mainly because there wasn't enough time to adequately tell the story they were trying to tell.

Art/Animation: 4/10

There are definitely some beautiful still shots here. Extremely realistic, and full of life, a sharp contrast to the plot. Sadly, like the premise of the movie, the art is fool's gold. I'm almost positive that at least half the shots in this movie, if not more, were photographs passed through filters made to seem like they were drawn or painted when really they were just pictures taken. There's just too much detail, too much distinct lettering and small items in the background shots for them to have been all drawn.

But it looks visually stunning! Because it looks realistic!...because it's actually real images that aren't drawn. Because nothing in the backgrounds were actually moving, i.e. the backgrounds were all just stills, it leads to even more credence in my theory. In Shinkai's films, all of the backgrounds are alive. Here, the backgrounds are just static. The only things really animated at all in this are the characters, which are drawn very inconsistently throughout the movie with such a clear discrepancy in detail between them and the backgrounds, that they feel jarring and clash with the backgrounds. Even if all the backgrounds *were* hand-drawn or painted, the design of the characters style clashes stylistically with them.

There are shots with characters' faces not even attempted to be drawn-in because they're at somewhat of a distance away - yet inexcusable for a movie to not have faces drawn in because it was 100% possible for them to have accurately been drawn-in. There are shots with characters off-model with little-to-no detail in their clothing.

Why would the studio go the extra mile for beautifully-hand-drawn, ultra-realistic backgrounds yet drop the ball hard on character art? I don't know. I don't think they would have, but I'm not going to through out baseless accusations that a lot of the backgrounds were photographs; only state my personal suspicions that they were.

Sound: 6/10

Sound design was fine. The instrumentation was cool - meaning the actual instruments that were played by the characters in the movie. The soundtrack did not stand out in the least - not a single track was memorable for me. The voice acting was probably the strongest part of the sound. It's hard to go wrong on sound and at least the music choice was fitting.

Character: 3/10

The protagonist felt like a plot device for a story being told about the side main characters. The movie clearly wasn't about her yet it tried to make the emotional climax about her and it failed miserably because I felt nothing for her because the story wasn't focused on her. She felt very one-dimensional, I personally saw zero development in her character throughout the entire film, and she didn't gain anything from the events that took place in the film. Further, some of her actions felt groundless - mainly including her personal feelings towards one of the other characters - which I am attributing to the lack of time to properly show development. It felt like her particular feelings towards the character went from 0-100 in no time at all without any real interaction between the two. How she specifically acted towards that character - after 3-4 scenes with that character, practically no time at all - felt unbelievable and unrealistic.

Regarding the other characters, the other two mains - I don't really get how their feelings for one another occurred either, especially considering how the one character was behaving and his attitude for most of the first half of the movie. Furthermore, I just don't get how over a span of 13 years apart, things could have realistically developed again. Lots of things change over 13 years, what ended up happening just felt forced yet again because there wasn't enough time for adequate development.

As for the side characters, they're important enough to have screentime and lines, yet not important enough for anything they say to really have any impact on the story. Like, they were there, yet they played no role in the story other than being there. They had lines and moments, yet none of what they did impacted the development of the story or even how the main characters acted.

I didn't see the purpose of a lot of characters and the narrative could have been much tighter had the movie focused solely on the main characters.

Enjoyment: 5/10

I wasn't bored enough to drop the movie, it had my entire attention throughout, yet I felt absolutely nothing for it or any of the other characters. I enjoy things the most that pull me into the world through worldbuilding and development, both of which "Her Blue Sky" did not succeed at properly doing.

I think I would have enjoyed this movie a lot more had it been an entire series. There was simply too much going on and not enough focus to have me connected to the story even though I was never actually bored.

For this reason I give "Her Blue Sky" a 4.5/10, the definition of mediocrity for me. Good premise, just not fit for a movie.

Reviewer’s Rating: 4

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	Poll: Sora no Aosa wo Shiru Hito yo Episode 1 Discussion ( 1 2 ) Sigsig - Oct 11, 2019	76 replies	by DixusTomate »» Oct 28, 9:10 PM
	After 5 years this has finally been licensed and dubbed! Yui_Suzumiya69 - Oct 9	4 replies	by aDamas_46 »» Oct 11, 3:39 AM
	Still waiting after 3 years.. Yui_Suzumiya69 - Mar 19, 2022	5 replies	by frack »» Oct 6, 7:08 AM
	[Spoiler] Did the MC end up with someone, and logistics question JessysAnime - Jun 17, 2020	12 replies	by Aru_Kun07 »» Aug 9, 10:27 AM
	I think the song was 'ad-libbed' in the movie KikatoRyuui - Nov 6, 2022	0 replies	by KikatoRyuui »» Nov 6, 2022 6:50 PM