Ranked #1609

Giniro no Kami no Agito

Like some bastard child of Akira and Princess Mononoke, Origin is one of the strangest movies I've seen in a while...

STORY - Origin's (I'm going with the English title because it's easier) central theme is the age old man versus nature. What I found particularly interesting though, is the semi-lack of advanced technology and the steampunk-like environment of the movie's present day, even if the conflict was initially caused by the usual advanced bio-experimentation we're all used to. Further intriguing is the fact that the audience is not automatically expected to side with nature in this movie (as is usually the case); because the people of the post-apocalyptic world are essentially dependent on the mercy of the quasi-intelligent forest, it seems almost as if nature is oppressing humanity. The main idea might still be that humans and nature should strive to co-exist peacefully, but Origin certainly breaks out of mold for this one.

It's also worth noting that technology gives way to something like fantasy in this movie, thus straying out of genre lines. The powers that are granted to Agito are fantastical, and yet remniscent of those given to Tetsuo in Akira (that's so strange), except that they came from a "natural" source -- it's just that nature's been mutated by technology. Makes for a strange roundabout, but interesting, yes?

CHARACTER - Admittedly, I wasn't too ataken with any of the characters in Origin, but I'm more inclined to attribute that to my tendancy to be critical of characters in general rather than the idea that the characters were bad, because they really weren't. They just weren't phenomenal. Agito was an good character with steady development throughout the movie that allowed him to mature into a hero. He had questions, doubts, and uncertainties, but the dedication and ambition to overcome them all. My only real quip is the general goodness of his character and the spotlessness of his morality -- it's just way too easy to make characters like that. Toola was a more interesting character because of that; since she was from the past where technology reigned supreme, she had to struggle with deciding whether she wanted to preserve the status quo or return to what she was familiar with. Conflict is good.

It was also refreshing to see that there wasn't just one character who happened to survive the major disaster. When Toola was first discovered, alone in suspended animation, I was groaning. Japan seems to really like putting girls in boxes, just waiting to be discovered. It was great then, to see that Shunack had been discovered in a similar manner. Of course, the fact that both of these survivors happened to have been important in the past (or at least, had a relation to someone important in the past) is conviniently coincidental, but some realistic sacrifices always have to be made for the sake of story, hm?

ARTSTYLE & ANIMATION - Origin was a really visually pleasing movie filled with superbly detailed backgrounds and smooth animated sequences. I was especially impressed with how the forest and forest creatures were handled -- details in how water was rendered and how things moved was just awesome. The machinery and pieces of technology also looked great, contrasting well with the more modest environment. Once again, I find that the beauty of the artwork and animation of a movie is one of its strongest points.

MUSIC - Nothing amazing, but still good. You know, the average goodness.

VOICE ACTING - I saw this movie dubbed (because the person I saw it with didn't feel like reading subtitles at the time). It was pretty good, as seems to have been the case for most movie dubs in the last few years. Toola's voice was a bit annoying, but many young, female characters seem to be that way, whether in Japanese or English.

OVERALL - I enjoyed Origin. It surprised me in many ways, which is always a refreshing thing. The story explored a popular theme in an interesting new way, and though the characters could have been a bit more dynamic, they played their parts well enough. And the animation is just gorgeous. If you're a fan of the technology/humanity versus nature stuff, I would definitely check this out.
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This review tries hard to not spoil anything, but you might probably want to postpone reading everything after the introductory paragraph to not get any wrong impressions.

The introductory paragraph goes here. After reading the synopsys, you would probably think this movie was something for Studio Ghibli to create. And the truth is, it's not only obviously inspired by Miyazaki's [early] works, it feels more like the creators were moved by Castle in the Sky, Nausicaa, and Princess Mononoke so much they tried their best to recreate their story and some of the characters here. Which was a decision that both made the movie as good as it was, and ironically, hurt it the most.

The similarities are in fact so intense they are almost archtypal. We have a brave and self-defying main character, a confrontation between natural and industrial civilisation (with the usual "embrace the nature" underlying theme), and all the other themes seen commonly in such movies. It doesn't make it bad or uninteresting, but the glaring unoriginality and certain lack of proper explanation for many events that didn't quite made sense (up to the point when it leads me to believe the screenplay writer was so obsessed with some aspects of the storyline they decided to postpone the elaboration of the others until it was too late to elaborate anything) make me drop the score mark. It's good and fun to watch, but not anything we haven't seen before — more precisely, it contains zero original ideas, and it's good for the creators that they used good enough ideas to borrow.

To move on to the better aspects of the movie, let's say the animation is brilliant — and it really is. I would love to see a little more detail in character design, but the rest was very good: the landscapes were richly colored, the machinery was fluidly animated, and everything generally was a big treat for the eyes — especially in high definition version, which is the one I recommend to watch. To put it shortly, everything was made right and up to date — no complaints here.

Sound work was alright, but nothing to write home about. It blended well with the events and represented them fine, but wasn't otherwise memorable.

Character development is nearly nonexistant here, mainly because the characters themselves are so bland and uninspired. For that exact reason, and in order not to spoil anything, I will omit any further comments on that part. Let's just say I was really disappointed with them.

Overall, I don't remember any moments that really touched me or made me care a lot about the characters, but I can't say it wasn't enjoyable to watch it, either. As a whole, I regard this movie as a more-or-less worthy watch if you like Ghibli movies and would like to see similar stuff…
Or maybe you should rather watch the actual Ghibli movies instead? read more