Ranked #1206

Wonderful Days (Korean)

At first I was afraid this was going to be like Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within - a big let down, but I was pleasantly surprised by this high quality Korean animated feature.

Like both the Final Fantasy installments, which this is so reminiscent of, Wonderful Days takes place in a post-apocalyptic world where a group of humans are fighting for a better tomorrow - their wonderful days. One can tell that the plot is not a major aspect of the movie; there is very little background on the present events and little or no clarification of what is what. But that's not important.

The characters, too, are unexplored and their personalities have little significance. There is no motivation for their actions and random switches in beliefs. It's like a mega chameleon fest, where none of them know what their true colours are. Poor character development. But then again they're not important.

What drives this anime, and the reason why I give it an 8 after all it's shortcomings, is the absolutely brilliant animation and sound. To really enjoy this, you need to watch a good quality version of the movie. The cell-shading/CG artwork was fantastic and played its part perfectly in describing the darkness of post apocalyptic earth. I never thought cinematography was important for anime, but by god was it well done. Some of the "shots" coupled with some excellent music brought out the emotion which the 1-D characters could not provide. It is like watching Monet paint. Maybe that's a bit too much, but you get the idea.

If you're planning on watching this, don't go in expecting something extraordinary, it's nothing brilliant. But it was certainly enjoyable, if not interesting to see what the Korean animation industry is capable of. It's a very promising step... read more

I came across this movie while i was looking through some animes that were on sale. As it only was like 4$ I thought I’d buy it. I didn’t really expect anything from it, since it was Korean and all, but I was pleasantly surprised..

[5]Story: The story had potential, and had this been a series with at least 12 episodes I think it would have been really good. But as it stands we only have a movie and the 1.5 hours of playtime is not nearly enough to explore the desolated world we are introduced to in ‘Wonderful Days’. If you want to know the premise of the show, just read the Synopsis here on MAL, no need for me to go through it here. There really isn’t anything more to say about the plot. If you liked the premise you should have no problem watching the show and enjoying it for its other aspects, just don’t expect anything more than the premise..

[9]Art: The art is probably the very best thing about this movie, and this is what makes those 1.5 hours of your life worth the watch. It’s especially the backgrounds that amazes me and I think only Makoto Shinkai has done better (of the animes I’ve seen this far). The backgrounds are dark and depressing in tone and they seem very realistic. I don’t know about you, but I’ve always been a sucker for flashy technology stuff, and this movie is no let down on that department. Flashy computers, elevators and whatnot, everything beautifully animated. Had to use my “drool-bucket” again. The thing that kept this movie from getting a 10 here is the characters. The thing with the characters is that they have a much brighter tone to them than the backgrounds, so they don’t really match up, if you know what I mean. Animations and all were fluid, so no problems there. This may be my personal taste though, and its nothing major anyway, but just thought I’d mention it.

[7]Sound: The sound is pretty good, but I’ve heard better. The sound is better than average, but it was only enough to get it up to a 7. I can’t say much about the voice acting really since I watched it in Korean. It just felt very different from Japaneese, and I don’t think I can give a very good opinion about it so I’ll just leave it untouched. I’ll just say though that the voice acting wasn’t disturbing or anything like that, so I guess I can say it wasn’t bad at least.

[6] Characters: The characters were much like the story, unexplored. Again I think it’s because of time constraints. Even though the characters doesn’t have any real development you can understand why they are doing what they are doing and so on. This score would have been lower would it not have been for the side characters which I think have some good personalitys that fit the setting of the anime and are appropriate to where the characters live (Ecoban/outside).

[7] Enjoyment: I enjoyed this movie quite a bit and I think it was well-worth my time. It’s a shame that such a good storyline was destroyed by time constraints though. All in all this was a pleasant surprise to see what the Koreans can do. If you just need something new, relatively short and artistically awesome, then watch this, you won’t be disappointed.
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An absolutely stunning film!

Although not a new concept, the story line of an ecologically devastated earth, Elite overlords, and scavenging workers is brought wonderfully to life. I would love to see this taken up as a series, which would allow much more development of the characters. There is a relationship between Jay & Cade which doesn’t really get touched on until near the end, when it becomes clear that they are more than just friends. This begs the question of her relationship with Shua. Apparently, he left the city whilst still a small boy, and hasn’t been back for 10 years, yet she recognises him instantly. I can’t really say any more without real plot spoiling.

The graphics and art work are superb! The backgrounds are claimed to be CGI, (Wiki says that they are just processed to look like CG). The characters are traditional animations, and there is some live action rendering as well. The overall look is great.

Inside Ecoban we are treated to sweeping panoramas of a vast city complex, with beautiful landscaping and soaring architecture. The Delos Core is portrayed as a technological marvel, with anti gravity lifts and holographic computer memory storage, as big as a small city itself.

Outside the city is a landscape of shanty towns, shrouded in perpetual fog, or lashed by the incessant rain.

The digger characters are a bit flat and stereotyped, but fit the story line well. Arrogant, hot headed punks, brutish thugs, loud mouthed show-offs, they form the typical cannon fodder of any rebellion. They all come good in the end. I was a bit disappointed that there weren’t any real attempts to show the impact of the disaster on those outside Ecoban. Other than a few blind children, there aren’t real obvious genetic variations.

Don’t let my grumps put you off! This is a great film, and well worth an hour and a half of your time! read more

Damn. I am so disappointed that I didn't like this.

Story (3) + Character (3)
Just to clarify this: I think the story is a really good idea. But it could have been carried out so much better. I kept on being unable to connect with the different groups and characters, and found myself not really being interested in them. The dialogue is flat and impersonal, and little is done to personify the main characters in any other ways. I am not feeling any sympathy (or any other feelings for that matter) toward the diggers nor the Ecoban people, simply because I don't feel like I know them or what their lives are like.
Now, I have seen several action driven films where the actions scenes by far make up for the lack of character. Wonderful Days is not one of these. Most of the scenes (with a few exceptions) seem to go on for way too long, because there is hardly any content in them. Again – it’s all flat and lifeless.
I think that ultimately the plot could have worked really well if it had been given more time to be explored, developed and personified – either in a longer movie or in a series.

Art (9)
Not much to say here really. It is just wonderful, breathtaking and inventive. I’d recommend the film to people just for the graphics. Even the very obvious difference in animation between people and backgrounds/objects work really well for some reason I can’t figure out.

Sound (6)
The film music is good and somewhat inventive. However, I feel that any effect gained by the good music is lost due to the slowness and lack of believability in the scenes.
I was only able to get a hold of the English dubbed version. Most of the voices work well, but some of the actors are not really that great.

Enjoyment (4)
I found myself being bored and hoping that the next scene would be better. Because I so desperately wanted the film to work – unfortunately the first scene was the best as far as I’m concerned.

In the long run I feel like Wonderful Days is just like one of those pretty girls that think that because they have the looks, no one will notice the lack of personality.
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