Wonderful Days

Set in 2142, Wonderful Days depicts a world that has been nearly destroyed by environmental pollution. Human life as we know it is almost extinct, and only a few were able to pull through the collapse of Earth's ecosystem. In order to deal with the chaos, a city named Ecoban was created. The city uses the very pollution that caused the disaster as an energy source.

However, although the initial plan was successful to an extent, it didn't just create a new source of energy, but also an elite group of people. This prestigious faction believes that they are above the system, and are not willing to accept survivors from outside the city unless they are put to work as laborers.

Among the people living in the wasteland outside Ecoban is a young man named Shua. He leads a very difficult life, but tries to make the most of it through the love that he feels for his childhood friend Jay. Unfortunately, Jay may be more interested in her security commander Cade than in Shua, and thus a love triangle is formed. Not only does Shua have to deal with the heartbreak, but he must also find a new way to survive in the crumbles left from the once-beautiful planet Earth.

Shua Main

Yamadera, Kouichi Japanese

Jay Main

Sanada, Asami Japanese

Cade Main

Moe Supporting

Kim, Moon-saeng Director

Pannetier, Jean-Marc Script, ADR Director

Yamaga, Hiroyuki Executive Producer

Reviews

Sep 10, 2023

ThatDarnIrishMan

Recommended

If you are someone who highly values style in an anime, especially in regards to lighting of scenes and the general soundtrack, you'd likely get more from this movie than I did. I also want to make the disclosure that the DVD I found for this only had EN dub and no subtitles available, so certain issues might be addressed better in the JP original or EN sub.

The movie is set in a dystopian world where pollution savaged the Earth and to allow humans to survive, "ancestors" designed a living city but barred the majority of survivors from entering it, leading to many thousands of ... deaths except for those that were allowed to come in to work as slaves, named "builders". It's not an overly complicated story but unfortunately that's the extent of the story we get about the world. The city doesn't have much character or life about it, ironic for a "living" city. You might picture something similar to the great living city of Blame! but unfortunately its nothing similar and only serves as a generic set piece a few times with nothing really unique about it.

The builders outside of the city also struggle to have an identity, especially when the push was for them to be allowed into the city, but they aren't allowed in and instead have to live out in the wasteland, which was what they joined up to be builders to avoid. Since we learn so little about the world outside the 3 main characters, it never drew me in and I had to go check to see if there was source material this was cut down from but it seems to be a wholly original work.

Overall lore aside, the current issue is that the city seems to be dying and a rebel citizen is trying to cause it to detonate in an "energy release" which we are told will kill most of the citizens of the city. This is very briefly mentioned and then hand-waved away, which does make it quite hard to relate to the rebels who are rather suddenly revealed to be the heroes of the tale. The main character Jay is part of the security team for the city along with a potential love interest Kade who is the commander of security. They form a love triangle with Shua, the rebel who infiltrated the city.

Outside of being romantically interested in each other, the three main characters are pretty empty. Jay in particular is worst affected by this because she seems to have very little agency, instead just following Shua from place to place, changing allegiances seemingly on the drop of a hat because she met a boy she had a crush on over a decade before. Kade's main purpose is just to be the other side of the love triangle. He has little motivation outside of having feelings for Jay, so much so he's willing to backstab people in hopes of her loving him. Shua has the most character but is also the weakest, because the character is a fairly generic anime protagonist. He's very capable at everything he does, wins fights fairly easily, is brooding and talks about dying constantly but makes sure to show that he likes helping orphans.

Action sequences in the movie are surprisingly weak but that's mainly due to how one-sided the fights usually go, with the rebels quite easily gunning down the nameless soldiers. This includes an invasion of the city at the end of the film which goes so easily with only about 7 rebels, I have no idea how the city has kept control over the builders for so long when they claim to have a 100 to 1 advantage in numbers. The gore effects and the animation in the combat can be quite appealing to look at, especially the bar fight and the final confrontation but its rarely exciting or surprising. Probably the worst part is a long sequence of a character entering the city at the end through a glider they specifically built for the mission, seemingly being the only thing stopping them from launching earlier, but after finally making it in, he just bumps into the other rebels who drove their car in without issue. It made the entire glider storyline pointless outside of pretty heavy handed symbolism.

The soundtrack was great for the most part even if there was one part of the final fight where I felt that the soft, uplifting, nearly operatic music didn't work during a large gunfight.

The CGI animation does look dated but the overall production value and presentation of the movie is still great today. It's going to be a weird comparison, but a lot of the character design reminded me of the Dead Space animated movies, particularly the first one.

Despite the short comings, I'd recommend it for a watch. The story and characters are pretty weak and a few performances in the EN dub are pretty weak but the feeling of the world and the animation quality does make up for a lot of the shortcomings.

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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May 23, 2024

Thorkin1013

Mixed Feelings

Impressive visuals and intersting premise, but poorly written

Despite having both outstanding visuals, for the year it came out in, and an interesting premise of a dystopian future distraught with inequality within the social class, the movie suffers from poor paced sequences that aren't strung well together to tell a coherent story.

Moreover, some of the events felt forced, especially between some of the leading characters (Jay, Shua and cade) with a love triangle that seems to be forcibly inserted into the film to evoke a 'moving experience'. Other problems include poorly fleshed out characters, and a major one being the lack of exploration on ... the environmental themes, particularly that of 'pollution'; initially made as one of the driving factors of unbalance presented within this fictional world.

On the other hand, some of the OST's were quite pleasant to listen to throughout the run. Overall, this film was rather disappointing considering the high-budget made into it's production with the help of Samsung. Phenomenal visuals, but weak story, themes and characters.

5/10

Reviewer’s Rating: 5

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Jun 1, 2010

Tini

Not Recommended

I actually had to watch this bad movie twice because I wanted to be sure of what I’m writing, and the first time I watched it I had some trouble to understand the plot since I fell asleep. I’m so disappointed in this movie

The reviews were really positive, the plot seemed really interesting and the cover of the anime looked awesome.

It was also recommended with the Final fantasy advent children which I really like. I’m sorry to say that I really can’t find what’s similar with these two. And I think that the person who recomended Final fantasy advent children with this anime, needs to ... rewatch Final fantasy advent children.

Anyway, the characters were really flat and didn’t feel realistic at all. The art is decent, but not very good. Actually when I think of it, the only part in the movie that I enjoyed was when Jay and Shua were fighting, and that scene lasted for less than a minute.

Reviewer’s Rating: 3

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