Of the movies made by ex-Ghibli staff after it went on production hiatus, this was heavily overshadowed by Ponoc's Mary and the Witches Flower the previous year, with likely only a fraction of the production and marketing budget of that movie - but despite these constraints Director Kitaro Kosaka and the Madhouse team delivered a real gem.
While the story premise is fairly straightforward, Director Kosaka and Scriptwriter Reiko Yoshida wring the most out of it - emotionally engaging, very endearing and quirky characters, remains relatively restrained on the fantasy aspects, explores the heavy topic of grief but very much holds off on the melodrama and
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Apr 5, 2025
Yaneura no Rudger
(Anime)
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Visuals generally good, if a bit over-busy at times although is more distinct in it's style than Mary and the Witches flower and a stronger movie overall. The script is the movie's major weak point as it was fairly predictable and meandered around with a lot of tiresome exposition, although the starker sequences through the backalleys worked a lot better, and it did a good job overall of representing a British city.
Most of the characters and especially the villain were fairly generic and uninteresting, although his sidekick is probably the movie's most striking and interesting character. Bonus point for the IKEA shark cameo. 
Apr 4, 2025
Kimi no Iro
(Anime)
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Looks absolutely gorgeous with vibrant visuals and catchy music, and while the plot is very low-stakes and somewhat meandering the characters are all very endearing. The movie has a strangely aimless vibe, although this seems to at least be partially the intention, with the style of introducing and side-lining plot-points that would otherwise be interesting to follow almost being in the 'feature-not-a-bug' category for a Yamada work now...life can be messy, and that's OK!
In summary: A very pleasant movie to watch, and could easily watch it again, although does not scale the heights of Yamada's previous couple of movies. The 'Planets' song is a banger. 
Apr 4, 2025
Good animation, backgrounds and music although some significant rewriting from the manga and a subsequent lack of depth with both characters and themes, as well as a short runtime really held this back as an adaptation - can only assume this was for the intended TV audience.
A bolder choice on the artistic style could also have benefited the work immensely, as so rigidly following the Ghibli aesthetic essentially abandons the more eerie style and atmosphere of the manga with it's abstracted, just out of sight (or not looked at) horrors. The artstyle of the 'Pigtails' short, another Machiko Kyō manga adaptation, would be an example ... 
Feb 3, 2024
Kimitachi wa Dou Ikiru ka
(Anime)
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Firstly, the movie looks absolutely gorgeous with incredible background art and animation creating some haunting and memorable imagery, it's very calming and relaxing to look at in the first part of the movie in particular to the extent I started dropping off to sleep. Second, more fantastic part of the movie was a series of set pieces which while impressive to look at there is something that just felt "off".
Characters were not engaging, main character just seemed to have 2 looks - stoic angry and stoic determined, the Heron was not much of a character at all, and many of the rest felt kinda ... 
Apr 24, 2023
Suzume no Tojimari
(Anime)
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It's an enjoyable popcorn-flick, enjoyed it a lot more than more than the visually gorgeous but muddled Weathering With You, although less than Your Name - or any of Shinkai's previous works.
While the backgrounds are as gorgeous as always, the Character acting/animation is noticeably more generic than Your Name, and character design and writing are similarly generic - Suzume's design and overall character reminds me a lot of the protagonist from Roujin Z (a positive!), Souta a dark-haired Howl (this is played with well in the early section of the film, less so later on), although rest of characters are cut+paste from any generic anime, ... 
Oct 11, 2022
Violet Evergarden Movie
(Anime)
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although I had my doubts about the reintroduction of Gilbert - it having been given away in the movie's promotional material - I'd say this was done in the best way it could have been and provides closure to the story which it probably did need vs an overly ambiguous ending along with Daisy's journey for an 'after story' vs time-skip montages.
Legacy as well as Progress and Change appear to be themes of the movie, with Clara's letters to Ann having a cross-generational benefit to both Daisy and her parents, Yuris's thumbs-up gesture being adopted on the island, the postoffice museum examples of the former ... 
Jun 28, 2022
Shigatsu wa Kimi no Uso
(Anime)
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Watched it because it was so highly rated, but it was really hard to watch all the way through.
Looks fantastic, sounds fantastic, but let down by extremely poor pacing and badly timed comedy. After a strong first few episodes, the series started to drag and it was a real slog to get through the middle section of episodes to the very well staged but rather predictable conclusion. Art style and animation are, for the most part, all extremely good as is unsurprisingly the music. That's the good. The bad: Direction from episode to episode seems disjointed, pacing all over the place and just did not seem to ... 
Jun 28, 2022
Tsuki ga Kirei
(Anime)
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Wonderful little series, very sweet and full of charm and likeable characters, No-one is mean, everyone has their strengths and flaws and pulling off a romantic drama with two introverted leads is some achievement.
Art style is distinctive and very easy on the eye, even if the animation itself is somewhat uneven in quality throughout the series, and when the CGI extras appear at certain points in the story then they are really jarring to look at. Sound design and sparing use of music are terrific throughout, as is extremely strong storyboarding and shot composition, although a reliance on framing and nonverbal cues lead to missing key ... 
Jun 28, 2022
Heike Monogatari
(Anime)
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There are some powerful visuals and moments throughout, but there is a noticeable dropoff after the first few episodes, and it quickly becomes a narrative and tonal mess in the middle section in particular before recovering somewhat in the last couple of episodes.
This is only partially explained by the show's assumed knowledge of the events depicted, which in any case could be covered by an hour or two of familiarization, as the narrative becomes bogged down by repeated exposition that goes nowhere and seemingly irrelevant side plots along with poor characterization work with little in the way of nuance or narrative tension developed. What is great ... |
