Back to Magixi's Profile Magixi's Profile

Maquia is the directorial debut of Okada, Mari, who has written series like Anohana and Nagi no Asukara. Maquia is very different from those two yet also similar. All three shows are very emotional, yet Maquia strays away from the typical melodrama used in the other two, and portrays a more family oriented story rather than friendship and love. Unfortunately, this film could have been so much better.

Characters and Story: The story of this movie should honestly be a series. Too many plot points were squished into the tiny time slot of a movie without being able to fully flesh out every aspect. Many plot ... points felt rushed over and, in the end, made half the movie feel very forgettable. The main societal conflict especially felt in the end lacking in relevancy due to a lack of development. So much was unclear and all over the place that it left a bad taste in my mouth despite my love for many other aspects of the movie.

Being a fantasy movie, there was just not enough time dedicated to fleshing out the world and society. When you bring me to another world I want to feel immersed in the world. In this aspect Maquia falls far short of expectation. Don't get me wrong, as for the world, Okada has amazing ideas, I just feel like she didn't give her own idea the justice it deserved in this case. Thiis could easily have been a 10/10 story.

The parts where the story does shine Is when it focuses on Maquia specifically, as she tries to be a good mother. The relationship between Maquia and Ariel is heart wrenching, I do however still wish that the pace was slown down during some of the development scenes, and again I believe this would have worked much better as a series rather than a movie. In terms of characters, other than Maquia and Ariel, every other character seemed to be left behind.

Okada knows how to hit the emotions just right. Even if you found a hundred flaws in the progression of the story, somehow you will still end up in tears by the end of the movie.

Sound: The music is beautiful. Many of the emotional impact this show has is greatly enhanced by its beautiful soundtrack, and I cannot tell you how many times I listened to the main theme of Maquia.

Art and Animation: The movie looks amazing for the most part. I could be nitpicky here, but overall, I don’t have many complaints. I still wish that it was a series and feel that the high-quality art and animation is not enough to justify this being a movie and not a series.

In the end Maquia is a good film, that could have been an Amazing series. More time needed to be given to flesh out the characters, world, and conflict but the ideas themselves were great.

Liz to Aoi Tori or Liz and the bluebird is an animated film by the same director of A Silent Voice, and in my opinion is the best animated film of 2018. Liz and the bluebird tells the story of two girls in a music club, as they sort through love, friendship, and future goals. This film is beautiful, from its art its music, and its amazing directing that takes it to another level.

Story and Characters: Just a warning, this is a slow-paced film, if you don’t want a slow-paced film, you should probably not watch this film. In my opinion this pace is perfect ... and creates a very melancholic feel. The story itself isn’t all that much and is fairly simple in concept, but where this movie shines is in its execution. Every single dialogue hits and the director uses silence perfectly.

The story switches between characters from a book to characters in the music club and parallels their stories. This is done so creatively and two quarters through the film, it creates a form of plot twist in its subversion of expectation as to how the two stories parallel each other. The paralleling stories help the audience understand the characters and their motives better despite it not being explicitly said, and while Mizore’s feeling are obvious, it helps give more depth to Nozomi’s feelings.

Many may not like the way that the movie end, and may feel that the story is not finished. I, however, feel as if everything that needed to be stated was stated and everything beyond that is open to interpretation.

The two characters perfectly complement each other, from Nozomi’s lighthearted nature, to Mizore’s more reclusive nature. This contrast leads to the main conflict between each other, but also creates a great character dynamic between each other. Each character has little fidgets or expressions (I don’t know if those are the right words) that really add to the character and make them super realistically and even develop how the character feels. One example of this is how Mizore plays with her hair whenever she thinks about Nozomi. These little expressions in the animation of the character add so much to tone and feel of the show and give so much more depth to the characters.

Art and Animation: The art and animation is just beautiful. I especially admired the coloring book style for the side story from the book that they play reference. The animation does have some flaws in its composition, especially when it comes to when they are playing the instruments and the instruments don’t line up exactly with the characters. I wouldn’t say this takes away from the film at all. The show uses a lot of scenery shots that for several seconds move away from the characters and maybe show a window or the fish tank. This slows down the pace and adds a large amount of silence to scenes to help create the tone they need, and rather than taking away from the beauty of the scenes really enhances them.

Sound: This is where the movie shines. The sound and sound directing are amazing. From the music, to where the movie decides to add silence. There is a scene where they are just playing the piece for several minutes and it absolutely breathtaking. The ost throughout even when they are not playing the instruments is amazing. I can’t really say much more than that.

Overall Liz to Aoi Tori is an Amazing and beautiful film. If you want a slow paced melancholic movie with amazing dialogues, beautiful scene compositions, and breathtaking music, this is the movie for you.

Your family is not something you can change, you are born with your mother, father, and possibly siblings, and are forced to interact with them for much of your life. Sometimes you may hate these people, but there comes a time when you must accept them for all their flaws because no one will ever replace them. Mamoru has a very distinct style when it comes to his stories and directing, and once again he has amazed me. Just a warning if you do not like Mamoru’s other works, you will probably not like this movie, and if you get annoyed easily to a point ... of critique due to selfish bratty children you will not like this movie.

Story and Character: This is a very character driven story. The characters portrayed during this movie are very well fleshed out and realistic. Mamoru has some magic when it comes to his characters. They all have flaws, and as the story progresses often learn to overcome or accept these flaws. The story has two main focuses. The first focuses on Kun as he accepts his place in the family and grows to love his family and its history. The other side of the story is that of his parents, who learn to balance their lives as parents with their work lives and learn to accept that they are not perfect.

Kun’s side of the story is probably the more off-putting aspect, as he is very much an unlikable character. Realistically however, what four-year old character is likeable. I felt that his character, in all his selfishness, was amazingly portrayed. Mamoru really understands what it is like to portray a child of that age and portrays the chaos both in Kun’s mind and the chaos Kun’s four-year-old nature creates around him for his parents.

The portrayal of the parents is very heartfelt. They are not perfect parents yet are trying to be the best they can be. Balancing their work with their parenthood, they often question if they are doing a good job or if they are doing the right thing. Many times, they have no idea what they are doing, can sometimes be forgetful, but is clear that they want the best for their children.

The story itself was very creatively done. The story is structured with many times skips each where Kun is faced with some form of inner turmoil and overcomes this obstacle after characters from his future appear to aid him, or he is sent back to his family’s past and interacts with them. This allows the character to constantly feel like he is progressing and allows new characters and settings to constantly be introduced despite the character never technically leaving the house creating a fresh tone with every shift. The exact nature of these shifts is up to your own interpretation, whether it is just within Kun’s mind as he attempts to sort through various emotions, or if it is actually a supernatural occurrence.

Art and Animation: The art is much like that of other Mamoru movies. He has a very distinct style when it comes to character designs to a point where you know what you are watching one of his films immediately. The setting design was truly amazing. The design of the house was amazingly weird and allowed for many scenes to be directed in creative ways. The artwork for each transition as Kun goes into the past, or the setting around him changes was also breathtaking. The animation was quite nice and fluid.

Soundtrack: The soundtrack was good and really added to the feel of the story. It is not a soundtrack that I would listen to on my own time, but it wasn’t necessary for it to be. The ending and opening theme were extremely satisfying.

This may not be the best of Mamoru’s works, but if you are a fan of his other movies, you should definitely check this out.

(no spoiler review) I had high expectations going into this anime, a mafia type anime, with an 8.3 on MAL. Unfortunately, to sum this anime up, it is a badly written story with a high production value. I honestly can’t understand why many seem to be praising this as a masterpiece.

I will start with the positives. As I said earlier the production of this anime is amazing. The art and backgrounds really capture the New York setting and really add to the feel of the show. Also, I don’t know why this stood out to me, but I absolutely loved the clothing designs. Along ... with this the OST is beautiful, sometimes the pieces they played really added to the feel the show was trying to capture, and even made some scenes. In terms of openings and endings, the first opening was stuck in my head the entire show, and the ending themes really gave the last scene of each episode an amazing feel as it often played over a scene instead of cutting into a nending animation. The fight scenes are the thing that kept me watching. Both the Arthur fight and the climax fight especially. Honestly the best episode of this anime was the last episode, It was so beautifully directed.
That is about the extent to the praise I am going to give this series. Unfortunately, with all the great things going for this anime in its production the story and characters were absolutely garbage.

Characters: How is it possible for a show to be given 24 episodes and not have any character development beyond surface level. I will focus on the villains first because every single villain (and there are a lot of them) are essentially the same. They either want to gain power through banana fish, rape ashes, or both. There are even some that are given literally no character motivation at all, they are just randomly introduced into the plot to be another pawn used to progress the story. Along with this, not a single villain has a backstory. No villain is given the faintest of character arc at all. Every villain exists in the plot just as a tool of the author to torture Ash and suck sympathy from the audience. The entire story is pretty much Ash getting tortured to trick the audience into feeling sympathy as unfortunately for us Ash is also very poorly developed.
For the sake of time I will only focus on Ash, Eiji, and Shorter, the starting trio. Ash’s character is a kid who was tortured as a kid, raped several hundred of times, is good at killing things, and there is nothing else interesting about him. His only motivation is to protect Eiji. Which I guess can be an okay character motivation if Eiji’s presence in this anime was justified at all. In the end the only point of Eiji’s character is to be Ash’s motivation. Eiji is literally the least interesting character in this entire show. His presence in the show is so blatantly forced, why is he even there in the first place? He despite being one of the main characters has literally no backstory. We know that he has a sister that he mentioned once, he had a sports accident and is good at pole vaulting, which both become irrelevant after one episode, and he may or may not miss Japan. That is the extent of his character. He might as well just be Ash’s body pillow.
Shorter is another character who got no development and is the character who probably would have had the most interesting arc and could have had an amazing backstory. I would have loved to see more about his past and his motivations. Some interactions between him and the rest of the Chinese gang to build on their relationship and add to how important he was to him. Maybe a backstory to how he met Ash, or some more of how he got involved in the gangs in the first place. Maybe add something about him and his sister who we see twice and then forget about.
Whenever a character dies, gets hurt, or anything happens, I feel absolutely nothing. The writing gives me absolutely zero reason to care to any extent.
On a side note, why are there literally no female characters other than maybe two or three that are relevant for like two seconds and then vanish.

Story: The story is, as I said earlier, pretty much irrelevant. It can be summed up as Eiji is caught or threatened, Ash goes to save him, Ash ends up tortured or raped, they enter a momentary time of safety, Eiji gets caught or threatened again, and this loop continued for the entire show. Nothing interesting happens. There are no plot twists, no mysteries, no suspenseful sequences, everything is just blatantly given to the viewer. This show is so mindless yet acts like it has an original plot. Nothing about this show is original and it adds nothing the genre, everything this show does has been done before and done much better, generations even before the manga. I honestly just wish that such a good production was given to a better written story and characters.