Jun 13, 2021
I was waiting for this movie to come to theatres in Canada, but sadly, the school lockdown made that nearly impossible. Fortunately, 9anime is always there to help. From watching the trailer initially on YouTube, the overall aura I got from the trailer reminded me a lot of A Silent Voice, and after watching this movie, it definitely followed a lot of the tropes incorporated within that movie. But overall, it wasn't that similar since it didn't really talk about the issue of bullying; rather, the main similarities revolved around the issues of having a disability and learning to adapt to life with that disability.
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Sadly, I don't think this film lived up to my expectations, although I do have to say that my expectations were fairly high, especially from the high ratings on Myanimelist and IMDB. I was expecting a little bit more from this film, definitely in the story aspect of it and the character aspects. The character development was somewhat weak, and I definitely think it was due to the minimal time that the movie had. Some side characters, such as Mai, were not given enough screen time to develop, so her spoiler > confession scene came across as a little bland and abrupt, albeit fairly predictable. In addition to this, although her grandma did have a lot of screen time to develop her character, her connection to the audience was still a bit bland as well. We don't really get to know too much about her either, and she mainly served as a parental figure for Josee. Unfortunately, I believe this also made the death scene of Grandma Spoiler a bit anti-climactic. However, the film only lasts about 98 minutes, which is enough for about 4 or 5 episodes of a series, so I wasn't surprised. Regarding the rest of the character development, I think Josee and Tsuneo had some decent character development. A little generic for a main character, and a typical tsundere damsel in distress, but nothing that hinders their ability to connect with the audience. Tsuneo, as mentioned before, is a bit of a generic character, but this doesn't really damage the film in any way. He is still a somewhat relatable character at times, with the common goal of studying Spanish abroad in Mexico. I don't think I had any issues with his character, but the one thing that bothered me was how quickly his character's emotions changed after the accident that resulted in him being in a wheelchair, spoiler and how quickly his emotions were fixed afterwards (which was likely due to the rushed plot due to the short overall movie length).I think, rather than him quickly recovering from that particular incident, it would've been nice to see him trying to live the life of Josee for a bit longer. The doctors did mention that it was likely that he would end up being unable to walk for the rest of his life, so if that's the case, why not just go with that and continue the story of him learning with Josee about how people in wheelchairs do certain things? This way, they could've built upon Josee and Tsuneo's relationship a bit more, something that they also definitely needed to work on. In addition to Tsuneo's character, I found at times that Josee's tsundere personality came off as a bit annoying or unnecessary, and sometimes it felt like it ruined the mood in a few scenes which could've worked perfectly without an unnecessary "Baka" or physical attack on Tsuneo. The other problem that arose from these subpar developments was the relationship between Tsuneo and Josee. Obviously, both of these characters would end up together. However, the relationship still needed a little bit more building up to really have an emotional impact on the audience. The feel-good scenes where the characters could really connect well with each other only appeared in a few instances in the film, usually when the music started playing a lot louder. It was almost as if they wanted you to know explicitly that 'BAM, LOOK, Josee and Tsuneo together, go and ship them now.' It just didn't feel strong enough to make the audience care enough. One big problem that came in the way of developing this relationship was definitely Mai's love triangle and involvement with Josee. Mai was obviously very rude with her insults towards Josee, but it felt extremely unnecessary. We're trying to build up a relationship in only what's worth of 5 episodes in a series, so bringing in another love interest and a love triangle conflict will just convolute the plot further. It didn't add much value other than to irritate the audience a little and add some drama to make the plot appear to be more interesting. Overall, it was a bit unnecessary and mainly served as a roadblock in the relationship and character development of Josee and Tsuneo, as well as the plot development for Josee's exploration of learning to look past her disability and pursue other endeavors in life. But, in terms of Josee's life exploration, I was irritated by how quickly her conflicts were resolved. I think the beginning of the film had some excellent pacing in regards to exploring her perspective and how her disability impacted her ability to explore certain things that she enjoys in life, but once it got to the second part of the film, it really began to fall flat. The conflict seemed to be resolved fairly quickly or was brushed aside following my grandmother's death. It essentially becomes a minor subplot, overshadowed by Tsuneo's struggle to appreciate his life. I guess you could say the story is actually about Tsuneo's struggle and about his character learning to become better off, but in only 98 minutes, it would probably be better just to stick to the struggle of Josee's character. If you have already set up the perspective and this entire plot around Josee's struggles, you might as well continue on from it rather than add another conflict to solve. They could've explored Tsuneo's struggle through Josee's character and, by helping Josee's character truly see the world for how it is, he could also somehow have some sort of solution. Or, instead, if they planned on going on with the wheelchair idea, they should've just left him stuck in the wheelchair and stuff. Overall, I think the main issues with this film were the lack of proper character development, pacing, and unnecessary or rushed conflicts.
Now, what I really did like about this film was the overall message, the animation, the character designs, and the songs. Immediately, when watching this movie, you can't help but appreciate another movie dealing with the struggles of an individual with a disability. A Silent Voice is one of the only other films that deals with this issue, and I think it's fantastic that other anime movies are shedding light on this needed perspective. Also, seeing how these disabilities impact relationships and how they can come into play in some romantic relationships is something that's interesting to explore. I think it would be interesting in the future for an anime film to delve deeper into a pre-existing romantic relationship and explore how disabilities come into play for a mother or a father, and see how that impacts the children or the relationship between the parents. Studio Bones did an excellent job animating this film, in my opinion. Most of the scenes look stunning, especially the scenes with snowfall and the Christmas lights. The reflection of the light off of the skin of the characters and seeing that sort of bloom effect to add to the realism is something that I really love to see. Sometimes the animation gets noticeably rushed, like some scenes in the hospital scene, but overall, this didn't really seem to be an issue. The character design was also particularly well done. I really liked the designs of Tsuneo, Josee, and Mai. The design of Josee's character stood out to me the most. Josee has a really unique type of look, and her eyes just look stunning. I do prefer Makoto Shinkai's style of designing characters, but I think this is also fairly well done. Noticeably, Shinkai also likes to put some beautiful songs in his films, and Josee, the tiger, and the fish also do the same, using the band, Eve. Eve does an excellent job of capturing the emotions at the end of the film, and is also one of the major reasons why I wanted to watch this film so much. In fact, the music video with Ao no Waltz is probably better than the movie itself. I also forgot to mention the soundtrack, which is also very well done. The OST does a fairly good job of encapsulating the emotions of some scenes, and I do have to thank Evan Call for this. Evan did some excellent work in Violet Evergarden, and he definitely did not disappoint here.
Overall, 8/10, pretty well done. Could have been a lot better if it had more time to develop the plot and characters. This was a lovely and beautiful film, definitely more of a "feel-good" type of anime film. I didn't really shed a tear while watching this movie, so that's a bummer. I really do hope future anime films continue to explore the idea of disabilities and their impacts on the relationships and everyday lives of those impacted by them.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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