Blue Giant

"I'll keep this short and sweet. The movie was amazing. The music and visuals during the performances were stunning, and the characters and story were compelling. The only thing keeping me from giving it a 10 was the CGI segments. I'm not the biggest animation critic, but the CG took me out of some scenes completely—though there were moments where it blended well. I’m not sure if they used it for accuracy or to save money, but I’d much prefer slightly inaccurate playing over a distracting CGI presence. Even if accuracy was the goal, I feel they could have taken a 'Kids on the Slope' ... approach and used rotoscoping instead.

How tf you make three relatable musician characters holy shit.

Inserting Dai with the "There will always be a child prodigy leagues better than you" while also putting Yukinori in a "There will always be a raw talent spitting at your years of hardwork" is CRAZY WORK. And don't get me started with Tamada because holy shit you rarely see drummer character depicted like Tamada. It's a common stereotype in anime and manga for a drummer to be energetic, very outgoing, and skillful. I mean, sure, Tamada was introduced being goofy, but the rest of the film? As a struggling rhythm player it's so fucking tear-jerking ... and relatable af to see him lost like ACTUALLY LOST IT mid performance, regretting his life choices afterward, then proceed locking himself out, practicing just cause of a passive-aggresive comment by the child prodigy. He really went from asking Yukinori how many mistakes did he make then finally making it, and by making I don't mean performing at SoBlue but rather the old guy that's been keeping up with him since the beginning is WHAT I WANT IN LIFE. There are lots of common musical stereotypes, behavior, struggles and all of them being so fucking intimate and realistic.

I also love how it depicts getting "chills" from listening to live music performance because often times in anime, chills are depicted by bunch of zigzags running up through the characters body in a goofy way, yet Blue Giant depicts a more realistic representation of it.

This movie spoils you even when it doesn’t seem able to afford to. I never want to be that guy who complains about cgi in anime, most of the times I think these claims are pretty unfounded and I understand the necessity in cutting corners here and there, but this is a little different. Blue Giant will give you chills, it’s music will take you on a journey and some dynamic colorful visual will make you forget about everything else for a moment, but then it cuts to some passable cgi characters that seem uncanny. Maybe KyoAni’s Sound! Euphonium has spoiled me in this area, ... but I truly think a version of this movie without cgi could have elevated this to the next level. Alas I know enough about the industry to know that the hard working animators probably wanted that too.

Overall it’s a great movie with fun characters and a simple but engaging plot. Don’t let the visuals stop you from watching this, because there is a lot to offer here, even within the visuals some scenes are truly breathtaking.