May 29, 2022
The story of this anime centers around a severely disabled boy, Dai-chan, who is physically impaired, can't speak, and has the intelligence of a toddler. While that isn't exactly what I'd call an interesting character, the movie does a good job of portraying how people react to and deal with Dai-chan and disabled people in general.
Dai-chan has two younger sisters. One of them, Mai, acts as his older sister since she looks after him a lot. She goes through various struggles such as initially feeling embarrassed by her brother when he and other disabled children visit her school, or being burdened by him while she's
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doing her homework. I enjoyed seeing how she dealt with those hurdles and grew as a character.
Taking care of a disabled child is never easy, especially when the father has a full-time job and the mother has to do household chores. The anime also does a great job at showcasing the struggles (but also the joys!) of raising a disabled child, which I won't go into more detail about due to potential spoilers.
As you'd expect, there are also various people (both children and adults) who make fun of or stigmatize disabled people. In some cases, especially when it comes to some of Mai's classmates, that could have been done in a less stereotypical way, but on the other hand, those classmates also have their own problems and backstories, which makes their behavior a bit more understandable.
Besides Dai-chan, the "disabled main character", there is also a disabled side character, a girl in a wheelchair who can speak (though only with a lot of effort) and write. She would have been a more interesting disabled main character imho since I generally prefer characters whose weaknesses and strengths are somewhat balanced. In the end, it's the characters around Dai-chan who carry the movie.
The animation is decent for a movie from 2007. The characters were realistically drawn and there were some nice background shots.
The music was uplifting and perfectly underlined the emotions the characters felt.
If you like realistic settings and enjoy watching family-centered shows, then this movie may be worth a try.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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