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| THIS IS AN ANIME ONLY DISCUSSION POST. DO NOT DISCUSS THE MANGA BEYOND THIS EPISODE. ---------------------------------------- So anybody else go to NYAF and catch the screening? Makoto Shinkai himself was there introducing it. A very different movie than what 5 cm/s was about. It was still a very beautifully made movie. Great visuals as always and great soundtrack by Tenmon once again. I'm very eager to see what Makoto Shinkai has up his sleeve next. |
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| Saw this at NYAF. Overall, it's great. But there's a fine fine line between complex and convoluted, and Makoto Shinkai was flirting a little too much with that line. It's his first time attempting a movie like this though, so it's understandable. 9/10. |
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| It was an excellent film, although I think for now my 5 Centimeters Per Second is still my favorite. Unlike 5 Centimeters Per Second though, I feel like this film definitely succeeded in what Shinkai wanted to do by reaching a wider audience. It felt very much like a Ghibli movie but I am glad to see it still had his touch as well. Anyways I feel like I need to see the movie again before I can get a full feel of it, but I can easily say that this is worth watching for everyone. I am glad I got the opportunity to see this at NYCC, and I look forward to owning it on dvd/bluray as soon as its released. It was also very nice to see Shinkai, he seemed like a really great guy which just makes me a fan of him even more. I hope to see him again sometime in the future, perhaps at the anime screening of his next film. |
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| The girl with Shun and Shin is voiced by Kanae Itou. The people like Shun and Shin cannot live on land for a long time, so Shun died after giving her a kiss on forehead. He sang a mysterious (final) song and Asuna heard it. Shin is more obedient to village leader in mission. while Shun is a dreamer. The sub is kind of suspicious for being in the society that is opposing the people underground, just for a simple reason. People on ground attacked the underworld, so the people hate them. Real "Ketorutoru" looks like the "tall man" in Laputa. Awww~, both like Shun. Meaning of living? |
I ♥ Two Syaorans from Tsubasa RESERVoir CHRoNiCLE and TRC!!! |
| Awesome visuals and sound...but the plot was presented in an incredibly shallow way for such mature themes covered in this anime. Nearly two hours long filled with more questions than answers. The idea would be better for use in a TV Series , not in a single feature length movie. Damn shame. 7/10 |
"There is a road in the hearts of all of us, hidden and seldom traveled, which leads to an unknown, secret place." |
| Good story, good concept, awesome visual. But, lots of flaw her and there. What happened Shinkai-san? Aw, LOLOLOLOL..... AAAAARRRGGGHHH.... (I think I'm gonna crazy) |
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kashim said: Nearly two hours long filled with more questions than answers. This. Especially the ending felt cut off. Asuna was quite the weak main character. |
| I was extremely dissapointed by this new Shinkai movie and for the first time I even had a lot of problems with it. It's not the script in itself nor the direction that were bad but I honestly fiund it very difficult to focus on a movie when most of it isn't original material and two thirds of the scenes, backgrounds, character art, visual expressions, animation and dialogue lines have already been used by another director (namely Hayao Miyazaki). Heck, some entire scenes are taken FRAME BY FRAME from Mononoke Hime (for example Ashitaka/Shin's departure from his village), others from Laputa, Shin is Ashitaka, Asuna Satsuki, Manna Mei, part of the concept coming from Nausicaä, the other from Laputa and so on. It's very difficult not to feel a cruel lack of scenaristic talent and overall imagination on the part of Shinkai,which began to be obvious in 5 centimeters but is now totally blatant and shows that despite his small experience in the animation industry, he has probably used up all his creativity and won't ever do something as good as Hoshi no Koe in the future. And taking into account that there's more plagiarism than singularity in this movie, I can't decently score it higher than 7/10 despite the obvious musical and artistic quality. |
 In every age, in every place, the deeds of men remain the same. |
| After Makoto Shinkai's previous works everyone have had very high expectations of Hoshi wo Ou Kodomo. Before watching the movie, thanks to the trailer release and short reviews, I had already knew it won't keep a nostalgic, lonely atmosphere which I really enjoyed in Byousoku 5 Centimeter and the others. I seem, however, unsatisfied when it comes to the story and plot in general. As a friend above mentioned, a plot seemed kind of shallow. Visual art, on the other hand, compensates everything that story was lacking. All the images, whether character animations, close planes or distant backgrounds are well detailed and give a pretty, hand painted look. Hoshi wo Ou Kodomo, despite its little flaws, was a real pleasure to watch, especially for an art sensitive eye. |
| Not a Shinkai fan, but I was really excited for this because it looked very different from his usual stuff. And it is. Unfortunately, it is a very boring film. The journey felt mundane and the story never came together well at all. 5/10 |
| Well, I'm kind of a habitual cynic but this work is undoubtedly awesome, and kept me intrigued all the way to the end. |
| Huge Shinkai fan. Seemed like he wanted to make a Ghibli film. Just no. His best > any Ghibli. |
逃げちゃ駄目だ。 |
| What a bore! It's amazing how much effort, energy and budget you can put into a movie and everything goes to waste because they forgot the bread and butter of storytelling: dramaturgy. With all that "borrowing" from Ghibli it's supprising they managed to do even worse in terms of luke-warm stories. There's absolutly nothing remarkable happening and even the gorgeous visuals completly lose their effect in such abundance. |
| Méh, méh, méh. Art and Visual is excellent, but only this. All animals and gods that appear in this film seem to be a tribute to the Ghibli films. They all came from a Ghibli movie. Similarly to recent Ghibli films, it is very simplistic. A boredom. |
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| I wasn't disappointed. It was nice to see Shinkai try something different from what we've seen of him before, and it certainly did have a Ghibli adventure feel over it. The visuals were simply spectacular, as was expected, the music fit the movie nicely and the story was more than decent. It had flaws but it was still very enjoyable. |
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| I agree with Zammyfighter above; it's obvious this film was a new direction for Makoto Shinkai so it's a bit unfair to automatically put it down for being "not as good as [...]". Personally, I really enjoyed it. I go crazy over awing animation and art so that definitely made me happy. Every step of the characters' journey was interesting, although I do think some parts didn't stitch well together. The settings and characters were creative to an extent, since it's obvious they are so similar to many of the Ghibli films. Even so, I loved traveling through and seeing each part of the underground world -especially the moment right before they enter the breathable water. The ending for the most part was the reason I wasn't able to give this movie a 10. It seemed much too simple and like "Well that's that!" but knowing this director, I didn't have any high expectations for a fulfilling ending. |
p r o f i l e 👀 |
Zammyfighter said: You guys expect him to make another freaken romance story? I don't see anyone stating that. This is realy just you trivialising other people's opinions. |
| the movie itself was in fact pretty average, but in any case it shouldn't be compared to any of Shinkai's other previous works. as people have stated, this is new territory for him, and it's rather evident. i still like it more than Promised Place, however. the messages did seem very Shinkai-ish, too. also, was I the only one who thought of Distant Star when they first mentioned Agharta? |
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| i thought the art was breathtaking as for the story it wasn't good but it wasn't bad either though the ending could have been a little better the guy just ended up losing his eyesight O_0 it also felt as the sensei had more of a story, than asuna the main character |
Potatoboy27Dec 4, 2011 12:54 PM
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| Another romance story would be nice, but that's really not the point. I'm a fan of drama in general, but I am open to any other genree if the title is good. This one was watchable, but nothing more, with only visuals standing out. |
An interesting snapshot of the amount of detail Shinkai Makoto puts into his works. The newspaper replicates today's looks of The New York Times, dated May 17, 1963, which really was a Friday as the paper says. I don't think they used that layout in the 1960s though. If you're watching the Blu-ray version, you can even read the weather report for that day. However, there was no war declaration recorded on that date. The scenes of Morisaki's unit instead are usually types of scenes depicted in World War I and II films. The map on the paper is also one of Europe, and there was no direct conflict there in the 1960s. If you're curious about Agartha, read its Wikipedia entry. |
| Speaking of dates, we see dates on the blackboard in the school a few times. Apparently Asuna is saved from the monster on the bridge on Thursday July 12th. Morisaki is introduced to the class on Saturday July 14th, and his lesson on Kojiki Mythology is on Monday August 18th. From Morisaki's photos of the Quetzal Coatl, we see that the year is 1975. Seems they messed up a little, though: July 12th 1975 was a Saturday! (June 12th, however, was a Thursday.) |
| It was nice but a bit well, mediocre in the end. The guy losing his eyesight was obviously just put in there to make it more dramatic since it was pointless and felt like that "God" or whatever it was was just picking on him. "ah, you want to see your wife? Np but you didn't say for how long so Imma take yo Isight the moment she get back yo!" |
| All Shinkai's features to date were basically dealing with the same very topic - lovers separated from each other by something. In Hoshi no Koe it was distance and time, in Promised Place it was a coma and, well, the world, and in 5 cm it was distance and time again, and other love interests (in case of Kanae). Heck, even She and her Cat can be seen as a story of love separated by species difference, but that's probably stretching it too much ;) Though I've admired Shinkai, and 5 cm is one of my all-time favorites, well... the moment I realized that, my opinion about him dropped significantly, as showing the same topic in different settings again and again is not an evidence of great creative potential. As such, I had my hopes high when I heard that his newest film will probably something different. And it is, which is very good. The visuals are instantly recognizable as Shinkai, which is a good thing, because... well, personally I think nobody else can top him in that field ATM. The setting and the story, however, are much more like Ghibli, like many of you already stated. Well, while it'd certainly be nicer to see something completely original rather than an obvious Ghibli inspiration (I wouldn't go as far as to dub it plagiarism, though), it's very nice to see something different from Shinkai. It's his first attempt, and it can be seen, but I have my hopes even higher for his next film. It certainly can't top 5 cm as Shinkai's best work, much less it can top Ghibli's masterpieces like Spirited Away or Nausicaa. But I actually enjoyed it, it's something around 8.5/10 in my book (gosh, I really need to recalibrate my rating scale...), and it's very promising as for Shinkai's next works. Well... Think about it that way: Ghibli story with Shinkai visuals? Who wouldn't like that? ;) |
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| I actually liked it a lot. not so good as Ghibli but still very good. Loved the animation and story^.^ |
ワンダーランド花 ♥ |
| I don't like the fact that it wanted(?) so much to be a Ghibli. I don't like Ghibli in the first place (nor fantasy) but other than that I miss the "normal" problems of the Shinkai movies. No, I doesn't have to be a romance; but something more down to earth would be better imo. tl;dr = I like Shinkai; so I want a Shinkai'ish movie. Not this. It's okay if you liked it, it doesn't seems bad, but it didn't catch my interest so I dropped it. |
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stAtic91 said: I wasn't disappointed. It was nice to see Shinkai try something different from what we've seen of him before, and it certainly did have a Ghibli adventure feel over it. The visuals were simply spectacular, as was expected, the music fit the movie nicely and the story was more than decent. It had flaws but it was still very enjoyable. This. I was thinking when Makoto Shinkai was going to try a different approach to his movies. Convoluted and Ghibli-like it may be, but I'm satisfied with how it went, and how it ended. |
| That was a great movie :D And I loved Asuna`s voice, Ika Musume :D |
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| To be honest, I quite liked this. 5 cm is very overrated. To me it felt like an extended Voices of the distant star except without any of the things that made it interesting. The Place Promised in Our Early Days showed me what this man could really do. It was a decent movie but in it I saw the potential of this man's style. Now this movie was a step in new territory which to be honest was a good move. His two people being separated stories were getting tiresome.What I saw was a very solid movie. It's only faults are the uninspired music, Gilbi similarities and it was a bit too long. However I will say that this movie did what no Gilbi movie ever accomplished. It provided a satisfying conclusion. Very single Gilbi movie gave that "To be continued" impression but this movie had a clear "the end" all over that ending. I give it an 8/10. It would be a 9 if those character designs were changed. Shinkai here's an idea for your new movie. The last war of mankind. It's prefect for you. Action, drama and hard-hitting visuals. Need it now. |
 "I always take life with a grain of salt, ...plus a slice of lemon, ...and a shot of tequila." |
| I think that the film really isn't comparable to a Ghibli film on a deeper level, because while Ghibli films generally tend to be about the environment or coming of age or finding love, Shinkai's films are all about loss, and this one is no exception. In that way, Shinkai has created a picture that I believe is distinctly unique from a typical Ghibli film. Really, the only similarity to say... Princess Mononoke for example, is the presence of nature gods. I think that it's more comparable to Laputa, but even then, that's only in the sense that it has a Verne-esque adventure tale going on. Note that I say VERNE-esque, meaning that it could be said that both Laputa and HwOK are derivative of Verne's work. As for my own personal thoughts on the movie... Well, I thought it was wonderful. Not only does it represent a (Positive, I think) change in direction for Shinkai, but it also has quite a lot of emotional depth, and perfectly illustrates truths about loss in a way that I feel only Shinkai can. Anyway, that's all. =] |
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| I watched the whole of 5cm per second and actually didn't enjoy it,found it boring to be frank but I loved this film so I guess it depends of what type of taste you have,for me the fantasy setting made it easy for me to get sucked into the story but I guess this film only captures the minority of people. |
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| Well... I love the first 30 minutes of the movie. indeed, I love "slice of life" animes <3 it's a good movie, with much flaws and exaggerations, but still good 8/10 |
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| I thought was a good movie, it had great visuals and sound. It felt boring at times, but the visuals kept me watching it. I liked the first half of the movie, but that other half is what kind of turned me off. It took off towards the God mumbo-jumbo, which wasn't rationally explained. I really wanted to know who the father of Manna was since he was human from the top. I also wanted to know how Asano's father died, I mean, where did he get the crystal? Maybe he also visited the world under? :o Left me with a lot questions like this. Even things about Morisaki, I know his wife was sick, but what was her illness? Considering Morisaki and Shin were main characters, they should have put more time into their story. I also thought the story behind the Shin and Shun brothers should have been explained a bit more, especially when Shun the reason why Asuna went into the world under. I dunno, it felt like they tried to compress a series into a 2-hour movie by taking out some of the important stuff. 7/10 |
"You need chaos in your soul to give birth to a dancing star." -Friedrich Nietzsche | Last.fm  |
| I have not seen 5cm per second yet, I'm saving that for a rainy day, so I can't really compare it. But I can say I really enjoyed this film. It was slow and gave you time to soak in all of the color. It had some slice of life, some action, some comedy and some romance. Nothing was completely wrong with it, but aside fromm the art nothing was special. Cons: I hated the main male lead Morisaki, they killed off the only decent character Shun 15 minutes in and the main female character Asuna was a bit of a blob. Asuna was the perfect class rep, raised herself and still found time for adventures and was furnishing a secret second home - unbelievable to me. 8/10 for being a well rounded movie with nice art |
| Wow, this film took my breath away. so very beautiful. i am very interested in owning it now. ;D gahhh it made me cry and honestly i did feel it was strongly tied too all the ghibli movies seabiscuit stated but this one...idk i kind of liked better then them all. call me crazy but it was pure greatness in my eyes. |
| I really like the action, the scenery, the setting, the sound, but not entirely the character, the story, the whatever To be frankly it's 9/10! calls me stupid but i'm awed and it's makes me smile |
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| The art and sound was astounding as always... The story was really lacking though. Of course, by a story lacking in depth, I'm comparing this with other Makoto Shinkai films as well as Ghibli films. There's many more anime out there that simply don't have a plot. The film stands up for itself, and it would receive my heartful praise if anyone other than Makoto Shinkai was in charge. However, compared to the best animes out there, there's something missing. |
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| Amazing art as expected from Shinkai's work, but the plot wasn't all too great. 5 Centimeters Per Second is still my favourite piece of work from Shinkai. |
| Gorgeous art! It does greatly resemble a Ghibili film plot-wise, but that isn't a failure, imo, and it's not on purpose. This just happens to be an archetypal plot. For something so wrapped up in myth I expected no less. I wasn't a huge fan of 5cm Per Second and I appreciated the style of this film. Those who wanted a more complete narrative maybe missed the point. Unlike a Ghibli, this was much more slice-of-life. It was the journey itself which was interesting, and really the "point" of the movie. I don't think we're meant to find a message; instead we're to relate to the questions that arise and immerse ourselves in the other perspectives. I understood Asuna's feelings completely. Perhaps they're hard for other people to understand? She distanced herself from people on purpose because that's what she felt she was supposed to do, to be able to take care of herself. She was even building her own place. But then she met Shun and for the first time someone took care of her and showed her a kindness that she was unaccustomed to. Her devotion to his memory sprung out of that, as well as her desire to repay him for that kindness. Her journey was never about coming to terms with his death. It was about learning how to allow herself to be helped by others, to be comforted by them, cared for by them, and so on. Actually, it's this alternative character study that really caught my attention in this. It's rare to see such atypical heroes and heroines. It was also interesting to see whom I thought was to be the main antagonist to turn out to be not an antagonist at all. Shinkai displayed a deep understanding of psychology with this. For me, the only flaw in this movie was the brief sideplot with Manna. I was left wanting more. I care little about the identity of her father, but did wonder what her significance was, if any. Shinkai seemed to have included her just to drive home to whole "defiled" thing. Oh well. |
| <---made of awesome! |
| Piece of Art... One of the best anime movie i've seen in my life. It completely took me into another world. 10/10 Mimi <3 |
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| I finally found time to sit down and fully enjoy the movie! It was quite the stunning movie. Like pretty much everyone else, I had to compare it to 5cmps. The only area that this movie faltered was less bone-chilling piano pieces. The backgrounds were amazing and the characters were lovely. I especially loved how small children were drawn; they look so pinchable. I just wanted to pick Manna up and hug her to death. The premise of bringing back the dead was an intriguing one and am glad that Shinkai worked around it. All in all, another masterpiece albeit having not my favorite type of romance. I look forward to his future work once again. |
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