Yousei Florence

A gentle and talented boy named Michael played beautiful music on his oboe, and his greatest love was to play for and tend to the flowers in the greenhouse at the school of music where he attended. Unfortunately, his gardening made him constantly late for orchestra practice and resulted in his dismissal from the school. When Michael fell asleep that same night, he was awakened by a dainty Flower Fairy named Florence, who would take him on an enchanted journey to a land where flowers came alive, treble notes were mischievous, and adventure beckoned. There, he would soon come to realize that his love of flowers and desire to become a great musician could go hand-in-hand and help him to become focused in life and discover himself.

(Source: Wikipedia)

Michael Main

Ichimura, Masachika Japanese

Florence Main

Mariya, Tomoko Japanese

Treble Supporting

Nakajima, Miyuki Japanese

Laura Supporting

Takami, Chika Japanese

Narrator Supporting

Professor Lo Note Supporting

Kobayashi, Asei Japanese

Hata, Masami Director

Hirokawa, Shuuichi Episode Director

Noguchi, Yoshiaki Episode Director

van Beethoven, Ludwig Music

Reviews

May 18, 2010

Mr_Panda

Recommended

~Mr. Panda's VCR of Doom: #6~


English-speaking members of MAL might recall this feature movie as "Journey Through Fairyland." The movie feature by Sanrio (the makers of Unico and Ringing Bell) was their last animated movie until just a few years ago. It tells the story of a faltering music student (Michael) who spends more time with the flowers in the greenhouse than with the orchestra. After being kicked-out, a fairy named Florence comes out of one of the flowers and takes him to visit fairyland. There he finds both love and his muse.

The story is a bit simplistic, and is utterly ... predictable to anyone that has seen Fern Gully (and upon critical examination, I now realize where they got their inspiration. bonus points for inspiring an American movie). Being a children's movie--if a bit sophisticated for the very young--this is not very surprising. I would actually have scored the movie higher in this regard if it wasn't painfully anti-climactic. Apparently children weren't meant to notice this needless drawing-out of the film; and in retrospect I in fact did not notice as a child.

The way I see it, the art in most portions of the movie is excellent. Obviously they ripped several pages right out of Disney's Fantasia, but there are enough added visuals of their own to overcome the similarities. For once I have to actually bemoan the fact that the VHS version is the only version around for America--thus much of the visuals are muted by the degraded quality of the tape over time. The art is amazingly trippy by the time they get to Fairyland, and we are even greeted by an all-too-familiar face as a cameo (which I will save as a bonus for those of you that watch it). The viewer is bombarded with music-related visuals and swarsm of fairies--to say nothing of the gigantic monster near the end.

Yet again we must come to grips with the Fantasia playbook. With one exception; the movie soundtrack consists of classical music. This is quite likely by design, as the feel of the movie is that of getting kids to like the genre. The songs are well-chosen, at least. They settle quite nicely with the animation and even the corny introduction song (the only piece of discernibly original music in the movie) is not too difficult to sit through.

The English dub is the only viable copy around, so there's not much I can compare it to. The script isn't very elaborate, and the voice actors perform their lines on about par with other VHS-release animated movies of the time.

There are a grand total of five characters with lines/purpose of any note. All of them seem to be standard stock characters, from the tragic heroine Florence to the troublemaker Treble. Shallow characters are a notorious occurrence in children's movies, and this one is no exception. The movie was not designed with character development in mind, and there's really no other way to put it.

My recent rewatching of Florence reminded me that (quite often) childhood movies are better in our memory than in actuality. Florence is actually a rather charming piece, and despite its flaws I enjoyed the viewing. It really is a kid's movie though, and thus I cannot easily recommend it to the average MAL user unless you are a connoisseur, looking for a classical music anime, or have a younger (12 or under) associate to watch with you.

On the bright side, I would consider Flroence to be a very nice alternative to Disney's Fantasia. Don't get me wrong, I love the movie. However, Florence provides both a single plot and a continual stream of actual animation. Really, happen to know from experience that the introductions by Deems Taylor were not enthrawling for younger audiences. To put it another way, Florence is the very young's Fantasia.

I don't expect anyone to seek this movie out; espeacily given that the VHS-only release continues to see price-gouging on ebay. However, if you do happen to get the oppertunity to view or own Yousei Florence, I encourage you to keep it as an animated treasure. At the very least, you can pass it off on your kids who will, I think, enjoy it more than we adult otaku ever could.

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Reviewer’s Rating: 7

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Aug 10, 2015

SnotPockets

Recommended

Yousei Florence or The Journey to Fairyland is an enchanting and colourful experience. It is, or I believe it to be, an abstract depiction of Michael's thought process at a cross road during his life.

Michael, the main protagonist, is a kind-hearted character who enjoys gardening but has passion for music too. This film feels like a slow discovery of his forgotten feelings for music and a compassionate departure from horticulture. The premise is interesting and is brought to life in a fantasy setting with the use of colour and music to give off a fairy tale vibe.

I particularly liked that mostly everything was referring ... to Michael's decision, it felt like everything had a purpose. From the character designs to the way they were animated. For example, the MokiMoki were all liquid-like substances which represents how lazy musicians go with the flow due to properties of liquid. Although the visual connotations were intriguing, I was entranced by the wonderful tunes that blended in with each scene and mood.

However, the editing was unnatural due to some scene transitions. The Fairyland section was nice but the real world setting appeared to be of minimal interest: characters shown for no reason, the area felt too quiet (perhaps due to fairy-like aspect of Michael's life) and some peculiar lifestyles (living in a greenhouse). Also, the story played out in a typical fashion albeit tailored for kids.

Despite some peculiar references to Hello Kitty among others, though I don't know why, it was a beautiful experience for a 1.5hr film. It felt like a dream due to the contrasting of the two worlds and it was worth a watch. If not for the story and themes at least watch it for the cohesion between music and animation.

Reviewer’s Rating: 7

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Nov 26, 2021

Firechick12012

Recommended

Sanrio is well known for marketing their cute characters like Hello Kitty, My Melody, Batz Maru, and so on. But back in the seventies and eighties, they actually made very ambitious original movies that were considerably darker in tone than the image the company is known to project. Ringing Bell, Nutcracker Fantasy, the Unico movies, Sea Prince and the Fire Child, and the subject of this review, A Journey Through Fairyland, also known as Fairy Florence. I'm going to refer to it by its Japanese title, as the English one is too long to say. After finishing Sea Prince, Sanrio tagged Masami Hata to direct ... another original movie, and he was more than happy to take up the task. Unfortunately, he wound up getting too ambitious with Fairy Florence for his own good. The film took four years to produce, and it cost a lot of money to make, so much so that it basically caused Sanrio Films to shut down. Fairy Florence wound up being a bomb at the box office and there was no way it could make back the money put into its production. It didn't help that around that time, Sanrio wanted to move away from making big budget original movies and move into merchandising characters such as Hello Kitty for all they were worth. These are very likely the reasons why it's the most obscure film in Sanrio's movie catalog. But why did it fail to gather an audience?

The story is a fairly simple one. Michael is a young boy attending a prestigious music academy. He's under a lot of pressure to succeed, as his late parents were famous musicians, but he can't seem to play his oboe during orchestra practice. He spends most of his days at the local greenhouse, caring for the flowers as if they were his children. But he's often late to class and ill-practiced, unwittingly becoming the class clown as a result. The teacher tries to be patient, but after one incident too many, Michael is kicked out of school. Crushed by this outcome, he goes to the greenhouse one last time...and meets a beautiful flower fairy named Florence, who reaches out to him and invites him to the magical Land of Flowers, where they can live in escapist harmony. But they have to find a way to get there without Treble, the mischievous sprite, and his gang of lazy musical blobs, the Mokomoko. But Treble winds up becoming the least of their problems.

I first discovered the movie through an old article on Anime News Network, as I did other anime that I've come to like, but it wasn't until Discotek Media released it on DVD in 2017 when it came back into print. I immediately bought the set as soon as I was able. One thing Fairy Florence absolutely has going for it is the animation, which is simply incredible, especially by 1985 standards. Animated with one cel per frame, which is considered a very massive undertaking that not even Disney or Ghibli does. Every movement is smooth and lifelike, and the visuals absolutely burst with color. It's like it came straight out of the 1940s, which is apt considering Hata was a huge fan of Disney's Fantasia. The giant bug monsters near the end are especially well animated and visceral. Visually and musically, Fairy Florence is very Fantasia-inspired, with segments dedicated to characters dancing across the screen in musical montages with very impressionistic direction. You'd be forgiven for thinking this was a direct spin-off of Fantasia. The soundtrack mainly consists of famous pieces of classical music used to set the mood, atmosphere, and feel of the various adventures Michael experiences in the magical lands Treble and Florence take him through. One thing I appreciate about the movie is that it displays the names and composers of the various pieces used throughout the movie for anyone who isn't familiar with them, which is definitely a plus for me, as I've never heard of Offenbach's stuff, or singular pieces like Rimsky-Korsakov's Flight of the Bumblebee, or Johannes Brahms' Hungarian Dance. Of course, composer Naozumi Yamamoto sprinkles in his own BGMs as well. The soundtrack is an absolute joy, and every piece of music used here works to the movie's advantage.

However, pretty animation and a gorgeous soundtrack can't exactly hide the fact that the movie's story and characters are...rather trite and juvenile. The entire story is just Michael being whisked away into a magical land consisting of long scenes where flowers twirl, fairies dance across the screen, musical notes fly all over the place, and so on. The basic plotline is pretty thin, and Michael and Florence are rather bland as characters. Michael's just a kid who does go through decent development, but said development is pretty predictable for characters like him, and Florence is just an overly sweet, idealized woman who loves Michael just because and does everything solely for him. Treble is pretty okay, as he's just a mischievous sprite and probably the personification of Michael's love for music. Personally though, I think the movie works better if you imagine Treble and Florence being anthropomorphized personifications of his interests competing for his attention, and the worlds they create being metaphors for his differing passions. The musical sequences themselves mostly look pretty but don't further the story much, though one could argue that the story and characters were never meant to be the focal point of the film. Oh, and the English dub, while technically okay, is kind of heavy on hammy and melodramatic acting, name changes, and unneeded narration.

So basically, Fairy Florence is just a gigantic love letter to Fantasia, putting more emphasis on the animation and music than the story and characters, and I can understand why Hata wanted to go hog wild with it and make this his personal magnum opus, even if it meant Sanrio couldn't make more movies like this ever again. Sadly, audiences didn't appreciate his efforts for this movie and it didn't make its money back at the box office. Not only that, movies like this one just can't be made in this day and age anymore, and it's a pity, because Fairy Florence showcases Japanese animation at its absolute zenith and was clearly made with a lot of love and passion that you don't see in modern anime. Of course, now it's more widely available thanks to Discotek rescuing it from obscurity. Basically, Fairy Florence is an avant-garde family art film that, while nothing to write home about in the story department, is visual poetry personified, and even if it may not be one of Sanrio's best films, I do think it deserves more love than it got, especially if you're an animation fan in general.

Reviewer’s Rating: 8

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