Back to fillyy's Profile fillyy's Profile

Look Back is a film based on the on the one-shot web manga of the same name by Tatsuki Fujimoto. Here is why I think Look Back deserves a 10/10.

I liked the anime, Chainsaw Man, which is an adaptation of the manga of the same name by Fujimoto. I gave Chainsaw Man a 10/10 as well.

This film touches on the difficulty of maintaining your passion, friendships, and life goals at the same time. It touches on the idea that one may find it easier to abandon their passion to reconnect with friends or to reconnect with their passion and make new friends. It touches on ... the disconnect between some parents and their kids relating to ideal life goals. It touches on the idea that one's passion to achieve a goal may be unfeasible and that it may be more realistic for one to reach for a more feasible goal even if it does not align with one's own passion. I related to these concepts a lot.

The film also portrays the effect perfectionism can have on one's motivation and achievements. I felt like Fujino and Kyomoto were potentially a portrayal of Fujimoto's creativity growing up and the emotions creators go through to create art. I liked how this was incorporated in this animated film. The core takeaway from this film is the critical role of resilience in achieving success, highlighting that the path to success is rarely linear. It captures the essence that setbacks and challenges are inevitable, but it's resilience that propivates one forward. The narrative makes it clear that without resilience, success remains elusive. For those who feel they've given up, the film offers hope, suggesting there's always an opportunity to muster resilience and start anew.

Moreover, the film adeptly explores the repercussions of overgeneralisation and flawed logic. It delves into how such cognitive distortions can lead to the misattribution of blame for unfortunate events, both to oneself and to others. This theme serves as a poignant critique on how our thought processes influence our emotions. It provides viewers with insights into managing psychological distress through a more constructive mindset, encouraging a shift in perspective that fosters resilience and emotional recovery.

Time heals.

Also, THEIR SHIP NAME IS LITERALLY FUJIMOTO <3

Children of the Sea presents a story that is very metaphorical and is something that should be appreciated for its visual presentation. The quality of this anime film is rather inconsistent. I loved some scenes and was generally amazed by the effort put into the most important scenes, but other scenes just felt rushed and lazily done. The story is really metaphorical, so if you are the kind of person to turn your brain off while watching films, don't watch this film. You will be bored. However, if you are the type to analyse a film while watching it and after watching it while digesting ... the plot of the film you just watched, then this might be the film for you.

Some things are animated rather sloppily, but for the most part, the animation is pretty decent. There is a scene that goes on for quite some time that is quite hypnotic. That was the peak of the animation quality and I loved it. It's rather hard to explain the animation without going into spoilers so just sit back and let the film take you on a journey.

The soundtrack, sound effects, and voice acting are all spectacular in this film. These really complemented the animation and overall story. It's unfortunate that character development was rather poor. The film spends almost all of its time focussing on the three main characters. It pretty much doesn't develop the relationship Ruka has with her parents. Any shift with the relationships with Ruka and her parents and the relationship between her mother and father, which happens in this film, feels rather jarring since there is a lack of backstory and character development to show how they got to that point and why their relationship is unstable and changing. I wasn't invested in the supporting characters. They weren't given enough depth to have anything to care about.

I did enjoy this film and appreciated the metaphorical aspect of it. Just beware of the poor character development. Don't expect a masterpiece or anything significantly good when watching this film.

Watched at Hoyts Entertainment Quarter 15 as part of the Sydney Film Festival.

Liz and the Blue Bird is a side story to Sound! Euphonium. This anime also works well as a standalone film so you will still enjoy this anime film even if you haven't watched Sound! Euphonium. The collaboration of Naoko Yamada as a director and Reiko Yoshida as the screenwriter is a match made in heaven. They also worked together on A Silent Voice, another fantastic anime film so it is to no surprise that Liz and the Blue Bird is a great anime film. Yoshida is a fantastic screenwriter and knows how to blend in metaphors and bring the story and animation together to ... make a cohesive and beautiful anime film. It was nice to see the characters and the setting in Sound! Euphonium brought back into Liz and the Blue Bird. Liz and the Blue Bird is impressively well-written and is also guided with grace with Yamada's direction. It's a familiar yet refreshing take on Sound! Euphonium. Liz and the Blue Bird gives you the illusion of peacefulness while slowly giving you hints of a sad and heartbreaking ending that is inevitable. The film slowly becomes intentionally predictable but slowly makes its way to the ending to torture the audience and to give the audience a taste of the emotions felt by the two main characters. Sound! Euphonium. More like yuri bait! Liz and the Blue Bird does not shy away from the yuri bait and I am easily swayed by the slightest yuri bait. I love it!

The animation by Kyoto Animation is great as always. Everything from the character designs to the musical instruments looks dazzling. Kyoto Animation is one of the best anime studios out there in terms of animation style and quality. Anime produced by Kyoto Animation just look so gorgeous. I liked how this film has a different animation style when the story swaps over to the actual story of "Liz and the Blue Bird". It is intentionally different to make it obvious to the audience that that part of the film is just a separate story yet it links to the main story in a metaphorical and slight physical way. The use of animation in this film is very creative.

The sound design and score in this film are absolutely phenomenal! I love the soothing sound of the score. The ending theme is great too! There is a contrast between Liz and the Blue Bird and Sound! Euphonium. The two main characters in Sound! Euphonium are Kumiko Oumae and Reina Kousaka who play the euphonium and trumpet respectively. They are brass instruments which are loud and bright in tone colour giving that obvious happy and energetic tone to the score in Sound! Euphonium. The main characters in Liz and the Blue Bird are Mizore Yoroizuka and Nozomi Kasaki who play the oboe and flute respectively. They are both woodwind instruments which are soft and airy in tone colour giving that peaceful and relaxing tone to the score in Liz and the Blue Bird. Sound! Euphonium focuses more on the euphonium and Oumae’s character. Oumae is an extrovert while Kousaka is an introvert. Liz and the Blue Bird focuses more on the oboe and Yoroizuka’s character. Yoroizuka is an introvert while Kasaki is an extrovert. The contrast between the instruments in the two anime and the differences that the instruments represent with the characters is one of many details in this film which I picked up on and thought it was a nice touch to this music anime film being a side story to Sound! Euphonium. Liz and the Blue Bird has a more laid back feeling compared to Sound! Euphonium and this is represented by the character development, the types of instruments being focussed on, and the score. The voice acting in this anime film is great as expected.

Liz and the Blue Bird has great character development. Since it is a side story to Sound! Euphonium, Liz and the Blue Bird already has character development backed up from the anime series and just needed to focus on side characters who were not already focussed on in the anime series. I like the contrast between this anime film and the parent anime series. There are similarities between the characters in both anime as well. The “true” main character in these two anime have different personalities but they both have friendships, or more than that, with another girl with a completely opposite personality. These two anime show relationships between two opposing personalities but contrasts with the focused main character. It’s different, yet so similar and familiar. This film has new characters that aren’t in the anime series, that being Liz and the blue bird. Their characters are symbolic of everything from the music to the relationships in this film. I like the intrinsic link between the storytelling and the events that happen in the film. I wish that the film gave more screen time to Ririka Kenzaki as she was another girl in the band that played a reed instrument and that the film would be longer as a result. This film is not very long, with a run time of 90 minutes. I wish this film was longer, but regardless, the screenplay in this film is great.

Overall, Liz and the Blue Bird is a well-written anime film that has great direction, great animation, great voice acting, a great score, and great character development. It was enjoyable to watch and it’s nice to see Yamada and Yoshida collaborating together on another anime film. Kyoto Animation has been pumping out great anime. It was nice to see the universe in Sound! Euphonium once again in a reimagined story with a different feel. Check this one out, especially if you have watched Sound! Euphonium.

Princess Mononoke is a fantasy anime film directed and written by Hayao Miyazaki. Miyazaki is a master at directing and writing animated films and I can understand why Princess Mononoke is many people's favourite Studio Ghibli film. This film presents a straightforward story that is engaging and beautiful. Miyazaki is really creative with his scripts and brings it to life in his animated films. It is truly remarkable!

The animation is clearly the best aspect of this film. This film was released more than 20 years ago yet the animation is spectacular, even to today's standards! Each frame, like most Japanese animation, is each hand-drawn separately ... and it's surprising how much effort they put into this film to make the animation look both beautiful and flow well especially during the action sequences. I also love the animated scenery, especially the forest. It's stunning and has an immersive feel to it. The animation is beautiful. Studio Ghibli knows how to animate their films. It is sad that nowadays, especially Western-animated films, animated films are now heavily computer-assisted so animated movements in those films look unnatural and take less effort than animating it by hand. It takes away the creative integrity of animation and it is why watching a film like Princess Mononoke is such a blessing and such an eye-opener.

The sound mixing and just the overall use of sound in this film are spectacular. These are masterfully done from the sound effects to the score. The score is great sets the mood of the scenes. I love the score and the individual songs that were implemented in this film. It was pleasing to listen to and worked well with the scenes in this film. There was also a scene which had no sound for several seconds which contrasted with the constant voice acting, sound effects and score being played over the animation. This silence was great as it makes you pay more attention to what was on the screen at the time and it also makes the scenes with sound greatly appreciable. You'll never know the importance and significance of something until it is removed. The sound effects help create an engaging and immersive anime film. The sound design is fantastic. The voice acting is great across the board. The voice actors really helped bring the characters alive and were able to express the characters' emotions in a convincing manner. This film uses sound to maintain and express and engaging story effectively.

There are many characters in this film and this is a minor issue I had with this film. Almost all the characters play supporting roles in this film and I thought there were far too many to keep track of. A lot of scenes with the supporting characters just felt brushed off. Despite this, I thought the character development with the two main characters was done superbly. Miyazaki really fleshed out these two characters and made you care for them. Miyazaki also made the few antagonists in this film have a genuine motive that was understandable which the audience can get behind yet still overall root for the protagonists. This effectively created conflict in the film and made for some engaging scenes.

Overall, I really enjoyed Princess Mononoke. I love Miyazaki's works and Studio Ghibli. Studio Ghibli has a lot of great anime under their belt and Miyazaki is one of the best, if not the best, anime director/writer to exist. We don't deserve to have these great films, but Miyazaki delivers us with fantastic anime films made with creative integrity and the end result shows the great effort it takes to make these anime films. Spirited Away is still my favourite Studio Ghibli film, but that's not to say that Princess Mononoke isn't a great film. Princess Mononoke is a great film that is beautifully animated and has a fantastic score and sound design.

The Cat Returns is a charming film about a girl who saves a cat and is led to a cat-kingdom as a result of saving the cat. The story is quite charming but it is undoubtedly rushed as it has a short runtime. This short runtime, however, does have its advantages. This is a film whose target audience is kids. Kids would love this film and this film is also perfect for the impatient.

The animation is good but simplistic for Studio Ghibli's standards. Regardless, this is still a good effort from Studio Ghibli and it's nice to see this spin-off of Whisper of the Heart. ...

Chizuru Ikewaki does a fantastic job as the voice of Haru Yoshioka. She elevates her character and makes her character more charming.

This may not be Studio Ghibli's best film, but it is still a good effort that has been produced by Studio Ghibli and the overall result of this film being made is that it is charming and the short runtime is perfect for kids. It's a good story with a good ending that is suitable for kids and that people of all ages can enjoy. You don't need to see Whisper of the Heart to watch this film. The Cat Returns is a spinoff and has an enjoyable standalone story.

Night Is Short, Walk on Girl is an anime film directed by Masaaki Yuasa and it is very good. The story may be confusing to some but it does portray the fun and freeness of youth through the imagery of the relativity of time. It has some humour in it to make this anime enjoyable. Yuasa is a fantastic director and he has once again shown his talent in this film.

The animation is something that is kind of Yuasa's trademark. A lot of anime nowadays is starting to look the same and doesn't have much that is unique about their animation. Yuasa's films have a ... unique animation style to them from the character designs to the animation sets/backgrounds and I like the style and its uniqueness.

Kana Hanazawa is a great seiyuu and voices the protagonist wonderfully. She is one of the best, if not the best, seiyuus voicing anime characters. The soundtrack is also great and sets the tone of scenes in this anime film.

The characters are quite relatable in this film and the story plays around and explores the characters' emotions in a stylistic way through the imagery and metaphors of human emotion.

This film can get quite silly at times but the silly tone does fit in with the flow of the story. This is an enjoyable anime and another well-made anime that Yuasa has put under his belt.

Penguin Highway is an anime film about a boy who is mature for his age but still has some things to learn as a growing boy. He is a genius kid who finds great interest in researching new and bizarre phenomena. The film is structured quite well and uses a lot of metaphors through the animation and storytelling to represent the coming-of-age of his character. This film does have a bloated run-time of about two hours and it compromised some of my enjoyment. The dialogue is poorly written and attempts at humour in the film don't quite cut it. I do appreciate the representation of ... the mystery behind the penguins and the phenomena as a metaphor to discovery, exploration, and learning. This film is good to analyse as it presents metaphors in an effective way to tell a story.

The animation is decent for the most part. There are moments of extremely fast motion and travel that are depicted in this film which ends up being poorly animated. The animation in these select few scenes felt lazy and sloppily animated. The animation still deserves some praise.

The soundtrack is quite good. I liked the transition from the introduction to the opening theme. The songs used throughout this film fit the scenes' moods and added a sense of joy. I love the ending theme as the credits roll after a satisfying ending.

The characters were written and developed well in this anime film. The sense of the boy's determination and excitement of further developing his research is portrayed well. Some of the characters' actions felt a little forced but there was one scene where there was a conversation with the boy and his sister which tied up to the ending and connected all the dots. This film doesn't fully explain itself until the very end but it is satisfying to see the films ending scene nonetheless.

To be honest, there were moments that I didn't enjoy watching but I did enjoy the ending quite a bit. The lead up to the ending wasn't enjoyable and this film takes its time to fully explain itself. The humour in this film along with a lot of the dialogue didn't feel like it quite fit in the film which impacted my overall enjoyment of this film.

I'm not sure if I would recommend this anime to anyone but I do have to say that it's an anime film that has a lot of metaphors and imagery that can be analysed and interpreted differently to discover a completely different and beautiful meaning behind its message of growing up, the reality behind maturity, and overall life events that occur when maturing and growing up. You might like this anime film if you like interesting coming-of-age tales.

Tokyo Godfathers is a comedy-drama anime film about three homeless friends who find an abandoned baby as they were rummaging through trash and this is a great set-up which leads to an effective payoff which is also immensely hilarious. This is a film which feels quite fast-paced, but there are moments when this film does slow down and it allows for in-depth character development with the three main characters. This film heavily relies on coincidence to progress the plot but this is not necessarily a problem as it uses it as a core theme to convey the miracles and happiness that Christmas gives. The story ... also has a bit of mystery to it which makes the film enticing to watch and helps with the flow of this film. This film is well-written and blends everything in an organised and clever manner.

The animation in this film is spectacular. I like the dark colour palette that this film goes for as it complements the dark side of this film and the dark essence that the audience feels when watching this. This is perfectly contrasted with the witty humour that gives this film a slight dark-comedy vibe.

The voice acting in this anime film was also great. The voice acting cast conveyed the emotion of the characters in a believable way and this allows those who watch this anime film to get invested in the characters through their emotional hardships. The soundtrack blends well with the coincidental plot progressions that this film has. The soundtrack also adds tension to suspensful scenes and it is effective at doing so.

Character development was done incredibly well in this film. This film was well-written and the film shines an empathetic light on these otherwise homeless characters. They managed to have characters who are viewed as "dirty" and "scum" as human beings with emotions like everyone else that others can sympathise with. In terms of the story, it is quite fast paced. However, it does slow down at points in order to develop the characters and understand their emotions in order for the audience to feel invested in these characters and to sympathise with them. The character development in this film is one of its strong points.

This is a film that many will find enjoyable to watch, especially those who like comedy films. It features a great story that is heavily sprinkled with humour and guided by the well-written characters, the incredible work the voice acting cast put to portray they believable emotions of the characters aiding the depthness of the characters' development, and the theme of "coincidence".

Kimi no Suizou wo Tabetai, also known by the English title "I want to eat your pancreas", is a drama anime film with tragedy. It is about an outgoing girl who has a pancreatic illness which she has not told anyone except her family that she has this illness. A boy from her class stumbles upon her diary that she left in the hospital and she comes back to fetch the diary only to realise that he read it so she ends up telling him about her illness. Due to this secret knowledge of theirs that none of their classmates know about, they start to ... grow closer. Sakura Yamauchi, the girl with the pancreatic illness, notices that the boy is a bookworm and does not talk with anyone and does not have any friends so she feels she has some sort of duty to become friends with him and change him for the better. This all sounds good on paper, but it falls short due to the way this film was structured along with other things that this review will touch on. Some scenes felt out of place and did not add much too the film's main story.

The animation of this film was quite disappointing. It seems that this anime film didn't have much of a budget and a lot of the animation was quite lazy. This film was very much heavy in dialogue to make up for the still shots of animation that had a pan effect on the cinematography showing several still animated shots in one after another that conveyed the character's activities rather than animating their movements. This made the movie tell the story verbally rather than showing it to us and it felt very lazy. Due to this sequence of several still shots throughout the film, it felt very rushed in terms of pacing as it was evident they were trying to squeeze as much as they could into this film.

The soundtrack was not memorable and the opening theme was just shoved into the film in a distracting and "pushy" way. The voice actors did a good job though. No real complaints in that department.

Character development was okay. It could have been a lot better. I liked how they symbolised the unwillingness of opening up doors for friendship with the rejection of taking gum when offered by a classmate. I thought that added a nice little metaphorical touch to the anime film. Where this film lacks though is the reasoning with the actions of the cast in this film. I could not get fully emotionally invested in the relationship between the two main characters as their attitudes and emotions seemed to have a convenient "light switch" wherever it was convenient for the plot to do so. Yamauchi's best friend was a character in this film which was included just to add unnecessary drama to this anime film which could have been a bittersweet tale with more character development on the main characters' relationship but it decided to be more of a rivalry with attention and dictatorship of who Yamauchi should be friends with or the reasons as to why the other characters do not open up to the introverted boy.

I still found some enjoyment watching it as there were sweet moments that occurred in this anime film. It's just a shame that it was tainted by the poorly written aspects of this anime film.

I found this anime to be similar to another anime called Your Lie in April, particularly with the motivations, actions and relationships that are conveyed in both anime. I would suggest watching Your Lie in April instead of this if you have the patience of watching an anime series rather than a film. I cannot recommend this anime unless you find deep enjoyment watching growing friendships within characters that is interlaced with tragedy.

If you do end up watching this anime film, stay to the end of the film as there is a post-credit scene which does make the film a little bit better and adds a better conclusion to the ending before the credits roll.

Mirai, also known as Mirai no Mirai, is an animated film directed by Mamoru Hosoda. He has directed other notably well-received anime films such as Wolf Children, The Boy and the Beast, and The Girl Who Leapt Through Time. Mirai is about a boy named Kun who unexpectedly goes back in time on different occasions to meet his relatives from different eras. This film makes a wholesome and heartwarming statement -- that family shapes who we are and are the primary reason why we exist and we should be thankful and loving towards our family members, even in the toughest of times. This film shows ... that family is an integral part of what makes a certain individual’s personality and that family is an important part of society. We can learn how to behave and how to grow up through socialisation. Hosoda accurately portrayed a misbehaving young boy and the struggles of raising up multiple children. This film is beautiful in the way that it teaches Kun to grow up and not to misbehave through experiencing his relatives’ past and future. This fantasy element was so gorgeous to look at on the screen and it was a pleasure to absorb the positive joy it emits.

The animation by Studio Chizu is familiar and meets the standards that they have demonstrated in the past. The character designs of some of the characters resemble characters from previous films Hosoda has directed which creates a familiar yet inviting environment for this fantasy-adventure film. I absolutely admired the opening shot where it's an animated shot of an angled top-down view of households and the surrounding roads. The streets and the houses were very well animated and were quite captivating.

The soundtrack is quite good. I liked the opening theme, "Mirai no Theme" by Tatsuro Yamashita, and the ending theme, "Uta no Kisha" by Tatsuro Yamashita. Both the opening and ending theme fit the anime quite well and set the mood for this feel-good anime. The voice acting is superb, especially by Moka Kamishiraishi who voices Kun. Kamishiraishi absolutely nails the voice acting of a young boy who is upset that his parents are not giving him as much attention since they had their second child, Mirai.

Character development was done well as the film explores the family tree through time-travelling. The film gives each character a moment to shine and give a sense of purpose to progress the plot and send out the overall message of the film. This film is great for all ages, but it has a very important message that might help kids get through life -- the message being that life can be hard at times and sometimes you aren’t always the centre of attention, but continue loving your family as they are very important and an integral part of shaping your personality and how you will grow up to be in the future. Having close relationships with your family members is important and you must always keep them close, by your side so they can help you and assist you in many ways throughout your life. You can’t do things alone!

This is the first film that made me tear up out of overwhelming happiness. It just made me so happy. Other films have made me cry because they are sad in nature but this one was a tear-jerker because of the joy that it put on the screen and the fantastic plot-device of seeing the adventure through Kun's point of view.

I enjoyed this film and this film had a clean and concise ending, unlike some of Hosoda's other works. The start may have been slightly convoluted, but it explains itself and resolves everything in the end to a satisfying conclusion.

I watched this at the Sydney Film Festival (SFF) on the 17th of June at The State Theatre which was the second screening of the movie at the SFF and I highly recommend that you go check this film out when it gets released in your area.