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I have not watched or heard of "Sora yori mo Tooi Basho", previous to the marketing associated with "Goodbye Don Glees!" so this is an independent review free from bias or existing knowledge between the potential similarities of the two Madhouse productions.

This movie had a few great comedic parts, pretty darn amusing. The booming music when Drop and Toto pretended to be hot ladies to impress Rouma's classmates. Rouma struggling to scramble over the dirt hill in front of the police and if you squint, you'd see that Drop pulls him up right before they turn around. Spraying the "bear" hairspray into all of their ... eyes instead of the bear in question, with the hairspray causing their hair to stiffen into a temporary comical shock. Amazing animation and art. Especially Drop's scooter scenes, forests, and waterfalls. Shame that the actual characters were drawn simplistically compared to the backdrops, although that could be a charm in someone else's criteria.

I'd say that one of the high points of the movie was the overarching elements of youth, regrets, and the theme of friendship.《The people accompanying who I wanted to see me accomplish this at 15.》Picking up that call for Drop, Toto and Rouma calling Drop by mistake from Toto's bad handwriting... Ironically, doctors have a stereotype of illegible script that sometimes ends in blunders with distributing the wrong medicines to patients. Which brings me to the next example. Toto's biggest conflict is his doubt of truly wanting to become a doctor in the future as per his father's suggestions, despite being brought up to study all his life. What kind of guy brings his exam cram book in his backpack trekking up a gigantic mountain covered in sweat and dirt, it being his first time reported missing? The same guy who ends up burning it in the fire for added tinder with a half-hearted smile on his face. Successor or not, he lets go a bit of his uptight and scornful attitude after fighting with Drop due to Rouma's hurt over calling the "Don Glees" adventures as tacky and snotting his brains out regretting those words. None of these three are popular among their contemporaries, I'd go as far as to say that they are all each other's only friends. Rouma is picked on, Toto seems a loner, and Drop doesn't attend school. The short time they spend together, from a duo to a trio, was so significant that they breakdown at the end and wreck the whole secret base apart into flames.
No Drop? No Don Glees.

The best ending song possible was picked to suit "Goodbye, Don Glees!". It seems written or commissioned for the movie itself from the lyrics... Would have been a better impact if a short visual sequence played in the credits of their lives rolling on with blooming from the sun hitting the view, but them riding their juvenile bicycles trying to catch up to Drop who rides first out of the screen was meaningful as well. I wonder why there was so much English. The majority of the songs with vocals were sung in English, including "Twinkling Little Star". Don Glees is "Don't Glee"... That... A'ight...

The trailer I saw a while ago made me believe it'd be a full fantasy movie, somewhat like a rag-tag team of goofers accidentally getting transported into another world. While fantasy is one of the tags, and there's a few questionable bits like how bears weren't supposed to live on the mountain, can't really be sure which parts in particular were actually fantastical or not. Speaking on that note, much of the movie does not rely on blatant exposition to tell a story. Similar to how the two original duo are led to explore outside of both of their comfort zones beyond their small countryside town and Tokyo because of a variable factor, I think the movie was purposefully left so open. Rouma coming from Tokyo, Toto wanting Rouma to come along back to Tokyo, none of them going to Tokyo... winding up in Iceland. Anyways. At least while I was watching it, you get clues here and there that Drop was bound to die. Rouma feeling as though they should take Drop back down the mountain because he was worried that there might be something wrong with him. Beside him, Toto arguing that he would not mildly say "Then, let's go home!", because Drop wanted to do something that would satisfy him even if he died right now. 'It is better to see this until the end.' Type. Drop continuously being shown as this smiling little shit bathed in sunlight and repeating his jealousy of the two having a long pre-existing friendship was suspicious enough. As if he knew of his mortality, that he could not apply himself in his lifetime to attain it. It's a good thing I didn't enjoy his character so it didn't hit me a smidge when it happened (lol). But we're not told of how. My assumption is a terminal disease or some sort of illness (?). Or a vehicular accident. The news came abruptly. Maybe the manga reveals it.

Overall, bittersweet coming-of-age film of three misfitted kids searching. My final score is 8, mitigated from a 7 in owe to the familiar rural setting, atmosphere, and animation. I was not absorbed by the story. With the movie being on the shorter side at about an hour and a half of run-time yet still foregoing fine details, viewers who dislike free thought endings and abstract ideas will most likely find the movie insufficient. There's hefty dialogue accompanied by the adventure, the adventuring taking a backseat for long talks and flashbacks.

Now, I wouldn't say I am anything of a avid fan of gory, horror themed, strange and overall weird indie manga. I don't go out of my way. Of course, I've read some here and there and it often leaves a bugs-crawling-on-my-spine feeling. They all lay a certain type of impression on the reader. Which is exactly what happened here for most of the short stories. I'm sure Furuya who illustrated the panels himself for himself also had a wild experience, seeing as he chose to draw the young girls in Emi-chan specifically finding it hard to stomach. I found this purely by chance and ... I was intrigued. Thus, I tried my best to not let myself be easily swayed by the scenes, cough, the scenes...

The amount of nudity is prevalent throughout the collection, at first I was disturbed by this but you do get used to it after a while (or maybe you never do). On top of this is a heavy serving of bodies being disassembled, torn apart, pretty much in any shape or form with a grotesque art style to match it. This art style is truly very nice, he leaves no detail, often going out of his way to make something so hideous and frightening that you could almost believe that it'll pop out at you. Though the regular humans rather than the monsters and giant mismatched humanoids were more scary in my opinion. It's true; it's hard to delve into the story. So much symbolism and meaning, yet there is no meaning at all to be found. At least plotwise, it is lacking.

-If you haven't read Garden, don't read below this unless you want to be spoiled!-

Except for The Book Of The Moon, that was truly different from the rest and I was initially cautious for the page count. At the end of it all, I was sad that it only had that amount of pages. It took 8 months to finish that one in particular, I could see why it could! There was obvious planning done behind it and it was coherent, meaning I did not have to wrack my brain to find out what he meant by this or that. The only thing I could actually point out as the only unsatisfactory part of TBOTM was the part where Rita thanked Adel by um, yeah, providing services... I wasn't expecting that from this one however I'll get moving along, nothing to be too surprised about! If this was published by itself as a stand-alone, I would buy it in a flash and be happy about what I now had in my hands - a masterpiece. It reminded me of the book, The City Of Ember in which the inhabitants of a underground city realize that they have been underground for more than two hundred years and escape to the world above by way of boat. Is it sad that I'd like to see what happens for Adel? I am truly invested in his experiences in the real world, after all he was just a clueless homunculus who worked blindly for the philosopher without knowing anything and heck, he didn't know what juggling was! There isn't much innocent than this that it could get... Other than a baby.

I initially gave it a 9 immediately after reading it all, seemingly not regretful of my choice until having a second thought.

I had picked up the two available volumes of this manga and another manga. I had high expectations for the other and medium to high expectations for this one, as I do love my idol shoujo genre but this had a older aged woman in business clothing on one of the covers so I pre-judged it. Boy, was I blown out of the water. I hadn't really been reading manga recently at all, so reading every page was like a fresh and crisp page. It was glorious.

This manga is about a 31-year-old woman, and hence the title which I find pretty witty although slightly peculiar. ... "31, I dream," Haha! Get it?

Chikage used to be the class president and a beautiful girl. This woman feels unsatisfied with her life after graduating from high school and having a job in a workplace, she thinks that she has missed her chance to be something greater. After she meets her now successful, good looking high school crush (Haru, who vice-versa once loved her) at a reunion, she spills these confessions of lost opportunities to a previously introverted classmate friend of hers from years back. This friend gives her a way to turn back her body into that of her previous 15-year-old body by a mysterious medicine.

Art: 9, I sincerely love Arina Tanemura's art style for sure. One of my favorites. It's jampacked with glittery, cute backgrounds and it's always consistent that way I know how to easily tell off the bat that it's her work. The big eyes may scare people off, there's also the fact that many of her characters appear similar or a splitting image to her other characters in different mangas.

Character: 8, now the reason I am giving it a 8 is because this seems like there's not enough characters to play around with and it's a bit of a closed dimension as of now. You have three potential love interests, the two younger ones and the older friend who gave her the medicine. Chikage as an MC is easily likable, honest, and refreshing.

Story: 9, unique somewhat. The concept for a older woman turning into a younger girl that is. But if you're a bit experienced in reading or watching shoujo (specifically idol) then you will find that some of the situations that are happening in this manga aren't exactly new and have been done before. If you don't mind that and simply let go and enjoy, that's no problem.

Enjoyment: 9.

Overall: 8, even I find it weird that I'm giving rather high rankings for this barely known and only three chaptered (as far as scanlations go) manga. I don't even know what I'm doing right now.