After almost a year of avoiding any kind of spoilers and resisting the temptation of asking my friends on their thoughts on this critically acclaimed film in full detail, I finally got the opportunity to watch "Kimi no Na wa." a few months ago when the Blu-ray came out in all of its 1080p glory.
And, well, let's start with the good stuff first.
(Anyway, there's a TL;DR in the end if you're too lazy to read everything)
Art - 10
Do I even need to explain myself here? The art and animation in this movie was gorgeous. Every shot, every background image, the character movement. It was beautifully
...
rendered and executed. I found my eyes sticking to our television because of how pretty all the colors went and blended with each other. Some of the shots looked so realistic that I had to make sure if I was watching an anime or not.
Really though, most of the frame in this film can serve as a good wallpaper. That's when you just know how amazing the art is. Props to Makoto Shinkai for giving us an extremely memorable cinematic experience.
Sound - 10
God, I totally LOVE the soundtrack for this movie. No, not just the more popular ones like Nandemonaiya, or Zen Zen Zen se, but every track in the OST album. In fact, the only other reason why I really wanted to watch this movie (aside from its great popularity) is because I heard all of its OST from my friend's phone. The dramatic instrumentals which consist of pianos and other stringed instruments (Kataware Doki being my favorite) just made a huge impact on me as someone who also plays piano and a bit of violin on the side. But, honestly, all the instrumentals are really good to listen to.
RADWIMPS was the perfect choice for the tracks with vocals. I honestly can't imagine any other band singing Sparkle or Yume Tourou.
When I heard these songs playing in the movie, it just made me feel happy. They fit so well, especially when you know the meaning of the lyrics. They resonated so well with the scenes that it just makes you feel a mix of emotions that you can't explain.
And here I am a year later, listening to this same OST on repeat while writing this review. You know, just to give you an idea of how much I love the music in this film (as if I didn't make that clear enough).
Story - 7
...okay.
This is where things start to get a little, uh, rocky.
Although I thought the end was wrapped up pretty nicely, the whole story in general was a bit lacking in my opinion. To give you all a basic summary, this is how the story goes:
Mitsuha and Taki are both teenagers living completely different lives in completely different locations in Japan. Mitsuha is a country girl who lives near the mountains, while Taki is your typical city boy. One day, they, for some reason, have the ability to switch bodies at random times when they wake up first thing in the morning. As time goes on, they decide that they want to meet each other. And, well, there are twists along the way.
Nothing new, honestly. Although, the twists did do a good job of surprising me, but that's where it ends. The ending also left me with a bittersweet feeling.
Characters - 6
Now, the constant problem with films is that they usually don't have enough time to flesh out characters to make them memorable enough to the viewers so they won't forget their names after their scene is up.
Kimi no Na wa has that same problem.
Alright, I challenge you to give me a name of a character from this film that's not Taki or Mitsuha.
Yeah, that's what I thought.
Granted, the main focus of this film is that its primary focus is solely on our two main protagonists. However, the film manages to fail fleshing out the characters of these two main leads that they become quite one dimensional.
Little spoiler, but that one scene where Taki finds out about Mitsuha's past was a little underwhelming. It felt to me like it was just put there to make the audience know more about Mitsuha in a span of a few minutes. Spoiler alert, it doesn't work that way. But, hey, at least the art in that scene was beautiful.
Just who is Mitsuha? Just who is Taki? Does Taki even have a backstory to back up and justify his own actions in the film?
I may have missed something while watching this, but I don't think I got clear answers to these questions at all.
Personal enjoyment - 8
Despite all of these flaws, I still enjoyed watching this film. Although, it was more because of the soundtrack and art rather than the characters and the actual plot.
Does this film deserve the praise it's getting? Well, yeah. But how about the massive popularity it has achieved? We may have differing opinions, but I don't think even Makoto Shinkai expected this film to reach this level of popularity.
Overall, I give this an 8 out of 10. Great film if you want to watch something with amazing animation.
TL;DR
+ Amazing soundtrack
+ Just as amazing art and animation
+ A great cinematic experience
+ Great to watch if you just want to watch any random movie
+ The twists were pretty surprising
- The movie fails to flesh out the characters despite only having their primary focus on two of them, making them feel one-dimensional
- Story isn't anything new, really
Oct 17, 2017
Kimi no Na wa.
(Anime)
add
After almost a year of avoiding any kind of spoilers and resisting the temptation of asking my friends on their thoughts on this critically acclaimed film in full detail, I finally got the opportunity to watch "Kimi no Na wa." a few months ago when the Blu-ray came out in all of its 1080p glory.
And, well, let's start with the good stuff first. (Anyway, there's a TL;DR in the end if you're too lazy to read everything) Art - 10 Do I even need to explain myself here? The art and animation in this movie was gorgeous. Every shot, every background image, the character movement. It was beautifully ... Jul 24, 2017
Gabriel DropOut
(Anime)
add
While I was looking for anime to binge watch for my summer break, I stumbled upon this show. When I first read the synopsis, I didn't expect much at all. It only looked like a comedy anime that revolved around cute girls doing cute things. However, I ended up watching Gabriel Dropout anyway since I had nothing else to do. That was a decision I don't regret making.
Story - 6 Well, the thing is, there is no actual story. In the first episode, we are to introduced to the main character, Gabriel, who is graduating to become a full-fledged angel, and is apparently the top angel ... Jul 23, 2017
(ONLY 4 EPISODES HAVE BEEN RELEASED AS OF THE TIME I'M WRITING THIS. RATING WILL MOST LIKELY CHANGE TOWARDS THE END OF THE SHOW.)
Having read the manga, it's needless to say that I was totally hyped when an anime for Kakegurui was announced to be in the works. I still remember getting so excited for episode 1 that I ended up waiting all night just to watch it. Of course, there were still doubts on the back of my mind. What if this adaptation turns out to be disappointing? But the thing was, I didn't even need to worry about that stuff, because this adaptation ... |