Taneyamagahara no Yoru

I don't think I could do justice to this movie the way ridojiri's review did, so I'll keep it brief and impressionistic.

I totally fell in love with the simplicity of Taneyamagahara no Yoru, the genre "slice of life" barely has any meaning to me anymore in a monotonous deluge of school-themed SoL series, but this movie actually did seem like a true slice of life, a sliver from evening until dawn with a complete view of life including drifting in and out of lucidity, in and out of dream. It totally immersed me in that regional culture, and the choices in the art direction ... really made me hone in on the voice acting and the casual drawl of the regional dialect, which enhanced that aspect immeasurably for me. It seems not so much to straddle some dichotomy of rough-hewn practical engagement with reality and a drifting through dreams so much as it seems to present them as a cohesive and integrated whole. Anything more I might say ridojiri said better than I could.

I don't know why I felt compelled to write a review for this, I usually just rate things. It just...affected me more deeply than I thought it would? Like, I'm STILL smiling. It's a relaxing, engrossing work of art and I have no doubt that I'll be returning to this over the years when I want to unwind with something that's in no hurry to be itself as it unfolds. Truly amazing voice acting and soundtrack, great sound overall actually.