Shikioriori (Flavors of Youth)

The rigorous city life of China, while bustling and unforgiving, contains the everlasting memories of days past. Three stories told in three different cities, Shikioriori follows the loss of youth and the daunting realization of adulthood.

Though reality may seem ever changing, unchangeable are the short-lived moments of one's childhood days. A plentiful bowl of noodles, the beauty of family and the trials of first love endure the inevitable flow of time, as three different characters explore the strength of bonds and the warmth of cherished memories. Within the disorder of the present world, witness these quaint stories recognize the comfort of the past, and attempt to revive the neglected flavors of youth.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

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Characters & Voice Actors

Mo, Li

Main

Ootsuka, Takeo
Japanese

Ming, Xiao

Main

Ban, Taito
Japanese

Yi Lin

Main

Kotobuki, Minako
Japanese

Xiao Yu

Supporting

Hasegawa, Ikumi
Japanese

Lulu

Supporting

Shiraishi, Haruka
Japanese

Jing, Shui

Supporting

Maeda, Rena
Japanese

Steve

Supporting

Yasumoto, Hiroki
Japanese

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Staff

Inagaki, Yasutaka

Producer, Script

Tang, Yunkang

Producer

Hori, Yuuta

Producer, Script

Li, Haoling

Director, Script, Storyboard, Planning, Original Creator

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Ending Theme

"WALK" by Vickeblanka (ビッケブランカ)

Reviews

Aug 4, 2018

Kirik0h

Recommended

The tripartite anthology "Shikioriori", is deeply ingrained in Chinese culture and recent Chinese history, in particular that of China's rapid economic development during the 1990s, so it pains me to read so many reviews that seem to exhibit no awareness and no understanding of the cultural context and demographic to which this film targets.

1) Sunny Breakfast

For non-Chinese people, or those who have not grown up in Chinese-influenced societies like much of South East Asia, you may not know that food is widely recognised as the most important part of Chinese culture. That Chinese people often greet each other with "Have you eaten" and that Chinese ... parents will express their love for their children not with "I love you" but "Have you eaten/there is food" is merely one of the many culturally ingrained aspects of Chinese culture where food is often the basis for family bonding and socialising.

In "Sunny Breakfast", Xiaomin contemplates the ephemerality of people and things in life, with his most cherished experiences relating back to his favourite noodles. The whole vignette takes the form of Xiaomin's inner thoughts and soliloquising as we follow his life's journeys as we observe snippets of the memories he looks back to, as he feels his life is nothing more than a tasteless existence, that no longer has the "flavour of his youth" about which he reminisces and from which he begins to learn.

The extended metaphor and the experiences he goes through are very much those that most ordinary Chinese people that live in cities post the late 1980s when Deng Xiaoping begun the process of transformation Shanghai to the megacity it is today. For a short story, "Sunny Breakfast" does well in encapsulating the experiences many young Chinese adults will have gone through and the thought processes they felt. In the whirlwind of time, it is easy to forget the impermanence of that which one grows up with and just that alone is sufficient material for a short story like the first of Shikioriori's to explore.

2) A Little Fashion Show

This is the most straightforward and least attached to Chinese culture of the three and may be more accessible emotionally and storywise to MAL's Western base. It is a short story about cherishing those close to you and how family, as well as recognising the bilateral nature of such relationships. Perhaps the weakest of the three, its simplicity nonetheless means that its narrative is clear even if the experience of viewing it feels a bit rushed as the plot proceeds from one to the next, with little time for the nuanced introspection and characterisation we had of Xiaomin in the previous film.

I consider this to have been the weakest entry as its appeal to pathos is not particularly convincing and could have benefitted from more introspection of the sisters rather creating an antagonist, whose purpose had little value beyond advancing the plot whose message could have been achieved without so I felt it to be more shallow than the others. Luckily, being in the middle saves "Shikioriori" from giving a bad first impression or a disappointing finale.

3) Shanghai Love

Even though it's a homage to Byousoku 5 Centimeter, I think it's more of an indictment of MAL's demographic that this film is being likened to all of Shinkai's other works when really it shares very little with any of his works. That a mere story of 2 adolescents in love that faces struggle is enough for people to liken "Shanghai Love" with Byousoku 5 Centimeter is more of a testament to the lack of repertoire MAL's demographic has surrouding romance as a genre where people view romance as dating and "who ends up with whom" rather than romance as being a medium via which to explore human relationships, emotions, and growth etc. Regardless, that doesn't change the fact that it does not come close to reaching the sheer emotional profundity and character authenticity and complexity Byousoku 5 Centimeter achieved, nor the surgical precision with which Shinkai's film explored its themes.

"Shanghai Love" is more about Shanghai and Chinese culture than it is really about love. The story surrounds 3 friends who through various circumstances end up on different life paths that lead to our protagonist to ponder on his present and future, sparked by a reminder of the past. What I found impressive in this story was the way Chinese familial structure, relationships, and familial expectations are all accurately woven in the context of 1990s Shanghai which faced rapid modernisation, gentrification as well as technological development - themes that were all deftly used as metaphors in this romantic tale.

It is the longest of the three but aptly works as a conclusion to this anthology. Whereas the first focused heavily on one's past, the second on the present, this final film goes one step further using its additonal time to encompass the future and the film's ending culminates into an emotionally rewarding experience that feels like chicken soup for the soul.

--Final Thoughts--

Shikioriori is a Chinese production made for Chinese, or at the very least, Eastern audiences. Its audiovisuals are strong owing to its production committee and brevity but nothing exceptional. But crucially, it takes advantage of the time it has to provide a reflective and heartfelt piece about the transience of life, youth and on grasping the future, in a context that is often very ingrained within modern Chinese society. However, these themes are universal and I think audiences from all over the world can relate to the problems and feelings our protagonists hold, in a succinct package that can be digested separately in 3 parts, if you feel you don't want to commit to something long.

I think for a lot of mainland Chinese millenials in their twenties, there is something even greater to pontificate upon and extract from Shikioriori, a film that I personally thoroughly enjoyed, and captured me in its reminiscent and phantasmagorical atmosphere.

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Nov 6, 2018

LegendAqua

Mixed Feelings

Shikioriori or Flavours of Youth reaches out to Chinese and by extension Asian youths but ohh boy does has that tinge of pretentiousness in the mundanity as it's biggest obstacle.

Shikioriori is made up of 3 short stories spanning 25 minutes each to make this "movie", "Rice Noodles, "A Little Fashion Show" and "Shanghai Love" all of them covering different perspectives of the changing times of being a Chinese youth through differing aspects of their lives, be it noodles, fashion and sibling bonds and friendship.

Rice Noodles - "You know what...his inner monologue about noodles melds oddly well with Ramen Daisuki Koizumi-san..they need to get together ... sometime". Rice Noodles follows Xiao Ming who grew up with rice noodles all his life. His tale is mostly consisting of his many flavours of noodles he had in his lifetime and how the changing of noodles from handmade to manufactured and processed is different and "doesn't taste the same". The change of rice noodles over his youth is telling of the Chinese before and after with how the noodles change with the times but still that Xiao Ming as an adult will always find his homemade rice noodles if he looks close enough.

A Little Fashion Show - "Sibling Love and Overworking". A Little Fashion show follows Li Yin a rising fashion model and an older sister to Lu Lu and her wanting to strive to have both of having a good job and making her younger sister happy. This tale is VERY obvious what the message is as LA said the first statements of this section and that is of Chinese's overworking ethnics (and by extension Asian work ethnics) and how doing too much will achieve nothing and this is easily manifested to Li Yin and her struggles of juggling of being a family member and older sister and her staying at the top.

Shanghai Love - "Your Name.....Lite". A love story spanning years. This tale follows Li Mo finding an old cassette of his childhood friend Xiao Yu which begins his reminisce of his youth and finding Xiao Yu. LA will get straight to the point with this one, it's the best of the three stories if not taking cues from Your Name, the similarities are there, friends through a link, now as adults they try to find each other, heck their character designs even look similar to Mitsuha and Taki. Anyways there is another layer to this love story and the more obvious one is of Xiao Yu's strict family and this links and affects to their love story, yes it's extremely cliche by this point of the "strict family" but it's predictable what happens as well, even if the message of Shanghai Love is showing the differing family values affects your life to compare Xiao Yu's strict family and the mess it causes with Xiao Yu wanting freedom with how Li Mo having that freedom becomes restricted from his friends and as an adult becomes jaded and disillusioned to get his goal that he's forgotten over the years.

Shikioriori's animation was done by CoMix Wave Films and if this studio sounds familiar they also did Your Name, Garden of Words and 5cm per Second (another words, alot of Makoto Shinkai works) and Shikioriori is no different with having the hallmarks of Your Name and Garden of Words for animation from the character designs, beautiful backgrounding and huge attention to detail, though Makoto Shinkai doesn't have his foot in this movie, Takayo Nishimura a key animator in Your Name and Animation Director of 5cm per Second makes sense to the animation quality. Nonetheless if there is a high point to Shikioriori then it's the animation.

Shikioriori for LA falls under the pretentiousness when it's trying to convey it's messages (maybe the exception to Shanghai Love but nonetheless). LA "gets" this is targeted towards a Chinese and Asian audience with all the struggles they go through on a daily basis but there are still many ways of at least making it seem genuine and LA just didn't see it especially from Rice Noodles. Shikioriori for the most part does it part of showing it's stories and the struggles of it's characters but making it's messages one blatant, two long winded and forced and finally three cliched in it's mundanity then you lose LA and with the exception of Shanghai Love, Rice Noodles and A Little Fashion Show shows these in spades one way or another.

With all that being said, Shikioriori is not a terrible interpretation of Chinese youths as it's messages of "changing times, sibling love and family values and freedom" was done to some good degree and LA isn't ignoring that as even blatant the messages comes out, the messages follow through each story nicely and solidifying it's themes. However it needed to do better in it's execution and maybe it's premise at times to make Shikioriori a bit more genuine in it's delivery, instead of the cliched plots and characters in giving us what we typically expected.

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Aug 4, 2018

Zerity

Not Recommended

As I was sitting down and scrolling through kissanime new anime additions something caught my eye, like a a really pretty bowl of noodles in a fish shop. That would obviously be this movie. Obviously.

Throughout watching the first part of the movie there was a lot of thoughts swirling in my mind. Why is there only narration? Why does this sink look better then the entire movie? Why aren't there more noodles? To many questions were going through my mind. One minute the dude is eating noodles and looking at this pretty girl next second were at his grandma's death bed and I'm like ...

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