This will be my first review of popular anime movies that are currently showing in cinemas.
My daily anime review for currently airing shows will officially start tomorrow after a lot of delays ;)
(Please keep in mind that my reviews are Christian reviews so I will be refraining from using explicit words so I would not offend other religious people)
1. Uchiage Hanabi (Fireworks)
Plot: (Will contain some spoilers)
Uchiage Hanabi tells the story of a group of 14,15-year-olds children who are seeking the truth, whether the shape of the earth fireworks are spherical or flat. The plot takes an interesting turn as the main female protagonist finds a magical ball that allows the male protagonist to change the world line divergence which they exist in, completely changing some events in the past, the present and the mirai. The male protagonist has Reading Steiner a special power that allows him to remember past memories of previous timeline, a cliche ability he developed shortly after his first "moshimo". The rest will be revealed as you watch the movie.
The overall plot is decent as there were some aspects that weren't explained properly. In one scene we see the father of the female protagonist possessing the magical time ball and nothing else was shown to the audience to explain the origin of this ball and why it has the power to change a timeline. There was a lack of character development as not much information is known to why the female protagonist has an interest in the male protagonist and the other side characters. This leads to a lack of connection between the "cartoon" characters and us as the audience. Also, there was that Disney sing a long scene on the train (Pretty trippy).
Therefore, I rate this plot 6.792/10
Characters:
Nazuna Oikawa
Senjyogahara Nazuna is a 100% original and uniquely designed character, also the female protagonist in this movie. She is a somewhat well-designed character and her physique is absolutely stunning (Got to give some credit to Shaft for that one :P), making her a pretty solid character overall. Though there is a lack of character development from her throughout the movie.
Norimichi Shimada
He was a pretty boring and quite generic character, making him pretty forgettable as I forgot his name soon after the movie was finished. Nothing interesting that can be seen from him even as the main protagonist. As previously stated above, he lacks a lot of character development over time which made him a pretty stale character.
The supporting characters in this movie were minuscule as I show no sign of interest towards them at all. They all are pretty average and boring, some of them didn't even need to be part of this movie (the teacher).
I give the character designs a 6/10
Sounds:
The sounds quality are commendable though they could be better. The VAs were satisfactory, nothing special aside from the fact that the two main protagonists were voiced by famous actor/actress rather than actual anime VA.
What infuriated me was that the music video they use towards promoting the movie on served as the background soundtrack of the rolling credits. (Holy cr*p, just how can this movie get even worse!?!) It is pretty upsetting to see that a pretty wonderful music video gone to waste by serving such a minor purpose in the movie.
With the reasonings above, I rate the sounds from Uchiage Hanabi a solid 5/7
Animation:
I was terribly disappointed with the animation as some scenes were obviously have been shown to be CGI'd instead of drawn. Scenes such as the stairs in the school and the bike riding were rendered pretty badly with CGI, even I would prefer Ajin over this... Though CGI was included as it speeds up the production of the movie but the normal animation is still prefered, even if it takes more time.
The rest of the animations were acceptable as it was consistent and beautiful in my opinion (especially the firework scenes, that's thumbs up to Shaft ;P).
I give the animation an 4/5
Conclusion:
I really disliked how the final scenes turned out as I thought it could have been more in-depth, showing more chemistry between the two main protagonists.
Furthermore, Shaft insults the audience's intelligence by pulling a very
Ś̴͍̻̯̤̲̫͈͓͚ ̶̢̯̻̜̤̫̣̪͕̙͠U͉̤̘̺̪̕ ̵͇͓͎̥͔́Ŕ̶̹͍̦̤͇̞̣̠̜ ̬̮̀͟͝R̵̩̰͉̣̱̪ ̷̳̟͓̞̮͢Ḙ̟̼̬͉̰̱̥ ̱̹A̶̢͏͓̦͉͚̪ ̢̲͈͔͕͍̝͕L̛̮͉̩̣conclusion to tie up everything at the end of the movie. Even though I watched quite a lot of Rick and Morty, my IQ levels weren't high enough to be able to comprehend this horrible ending as it done quite poorly.
H*ck, this frustrated me quite a lot as it was quite unsatisfying to see an asspull ending after wasting 100 minutes of my valuable time watching it. It made me want to fr*ck myself ;(.
I was highly anticipated for the movie, came in watching it with really high expectations which were later shot down. In the end, Uchiage Hanabi was a really big letdown to me (same goes for me towards my parents) with how it turned out at the end.
Hopefully, Shaft will create a proper and better conclusion in the future.
My Opinion:
Putting my satirical jokes aside, Uchiage Hanabi was still fairly enjoyable as the Shaft did an exceptional job at animating it.
If you like anime movies with stunning visuals, amazing characters and intricate plot then I recommend Kimi no Na Wa if you haven't watched it already. It is better and as it was directed by Makoto Shinkai, a well-reputated director for his many incredible pieces of work.
Overall, I give Uchiage Hanabi a final score of 6.6712/10 (Which I rounded up to a 7)
Stay tuned for my seasonal anime review tomorrow!!!
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