Mirai no Mirai

Not gonna lie, I want to like this movie but it did disappoint me in some ways. Let me explain:

Firstly, the art style is very reminiscent of Wolf Children and I liked it a lot. The composition of the music was top-notch as well. But this movie lacks the character development and plot that makes the movie fall short on meeting my expectations.

Let's talk about the character development, The main guy, Kun was a spoiled kid who had an attention child complex and demands a lot of attention. This is a good driving point but the way he handles the situation is honestly very ... annoying. Throwing tantrums over everything and anything is getting really sick. But what's disappointing is that even though he did see his family's past he did not change a little bit. I can't blame him. he's a kid but still... I also think that they could have done a better job at picking the voice actor for Kun. The voice in the film sounds like thaat of a 9 year old but he looks no older than 4.

Now about the plot it is lacking the essence that Wolf Children has. So damn tasteless. It's all about Kun being pissed, he throws tantrum, cries like a little bitch, sees something like he smoked blunts, then ammends relationship. But it doesn't focus on his relationship with his sister like the trailer focused. I mean the name of the film is the name of the sister but what do we get? His dog's view on life, his mom's childhood, his grandfather's past et.cet.

All in all, if you're expecting enjoyment such as Wolf Children I suggest you to turn away and watch something else like Spirited Away.

Synopsis is very misleading because Mirai is not the one coping with the arrival of his little sister (in fact he's way more pleased than real life brothers would be)... his parents are the ones trying to cope with having two kids, while not giving enough attention to a TODDLER and the husband not knowing jack shit about housework. Overall a nice movie but the entirety of the plot revolving about Mirai learning about love and family or whatever while presenting us a setting where the parents are the stressed out ones with much more to learn... well.
To be honest the start left such a ... bad taste in my mouth I thought I wouldn't enjoy the rest but it was very cute.

I was looking forward to the release of this film since I seriously love the director other works (especially Wolf Children). So it goes without saying that when I saw this film get an oscar nomination I was ready for it to be the second coming of Christ.

Well, it was far from that

I found the Story quite boring and unintersting. It felt that something that was mostly directed for small children. I think it would be more fitting for this to be a short collection of episodes, since the sections of the movie felt like that. 4/10

Now for the art, what could I possibly except? ... As usual the visuals are beutiful, even though there was some annoying cgi at some points. But it doesn't really ruin the experience since it's trippy visuals are enough for anyone to forgive the cgi. 9/10

As for the soundtrack, I was not a fan of it. I don't know why, I just thought that it could be more fitting to the film (and maybe more than just average). 4/10

The character were...boring and annoying. I don't really have anything else to say about this. I mean yes the main character is a small 4-year old child so of course it would be an annoying little shit ( like how everyone is in the age of 4) but I found nothing intersting about his character. As for every other character, I really didn't feel them. Same goes for their designs (except maybe the baby and the great-granpa, who I really liked). 5/10
p.s. dog

Now I watched this film with some friends' of mine, and it obviously made me enjoy the movie a lot. So yeah I guess if you want to watch the film watch it with friends and joke around about how the kid is probably on drugs. 8/10

Overall, if you like good animation, trippy visuals, cute children (I guess) and also liked the director's previous work, it's certain that you'll get at least a small amount of enjoyment out of it.
Though from it, I don't know if it was the high expectations I had for the movie or anything else but I found the movie just a little over average. I will probably revisit this at some point and I hope I like it more then than I did now.

It’s 2am and I have a busy day that starts early tomorrow, so - what better time than to type out a couple lines worth of notes and impulsively decide to fill it out to full review length? You’re looking at a priority mastermind.

The art is amazing, as standard for Chizu. Anyone who grew up, like me, watching Hosoda’s other works (the first Digimon Movie, The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, Summer Wars, etc) will recognise the style in a heartbeat, and appreciate the airiness and consistently clean execution with a lot of character.

Voice actors could have used some .. tweaking, or changing altogether. ... Having a child of just 2-4 as the main character would call for an extremely young-sounding voice and this one at times sounded way too grown up or cohesive. Mature? I would have loved more personality, a little less polish around the edges, but that’s just personal preference - I can totally imagine how finding someone that young to reliably read lines or want to partake at all would be a struggle. It’s not a dealbreaker at all.

My cons all kind of .. merge, I guess, into this soup of general confusion about the film’s target audience. I don’t know who is supposed to be able to relate to the main character. If you write an annoying character competently, he’s still going to be annoying. Anyone close to around his age is too young to watch this film and anyone old enough to have children his age will most likely suffer a PTSD-esque flashbacks from the amount of crying and spoiled brattiness his character exhibits. They wrote this young kid really well, and that’s the problem. It’s unappealing in that sense - especially for someone who doesn’t find children (or their behaviour) cute, at all.This instead feels like the type of film that parents would go and laugh at and be able to relate to the positions of the exasperated parents, but judging how stressful and, at times, jarring the grown-up characters’ reactions are, it’s really hard to imagine any parental figure watching this film and willingly putting themselves back into those situations in their leisure. Just feels masochistic.

As a sidenote, though I appreciate that the father’s inattentiveness and the mother’s somewhat flippant / aggressive nature is later addressed (somewhat), I feel like the former didn’t get much in the way of development at all, and the latter came off as overly snappy in their petty arguments with little justification. I understand that just having given birth is a stressful time, and of course I’d rather prefer an accurate portrayal of home life than a sterilised, cookie-cutter perfect family that is often the case in other shows - but this happened more than once and it made the mother character feel unlikeable to me, personally. The main character had the same problem, but he had the excuse of being a toddler.

Overall, it was good to cross this off my list, and the core concept is a heartwarming chance to peer into the legacies and histories of a character’s extended family. I did cry a number of times - but that’s because I’m hyper-emotional when consuming media, and the subject of family remains a soft spot for me, it seems. I probably won’t watch it again or recommend it, but it was a good way to kill time. Watch it if you’re a Hosoda/Chizu fan, like kids, or if the subject of familial dynamics really gets you. Otherwise .. still give it a go. If the crying and selfishness gets to you, come join me in the realm of staying 100000 feet away from babies at all times. Forever.

Little Kun is excited that he will be having a new baby sister soon but when he discovers his parents doting on the baby he becomes jealous. One day while playing in the garden, something magical happens. Kun discovers their family dog Yukko taking human form and his sister Mirai travelling back from the future. Ever since then, Kun finds himself taking trips back to the past and meeting his older family members. With every trip little Kun grows up just that little bit more.

Mamoru Hisoda's movies had always had great art and this time we seem to see more use of 3D. Unfortunately the ... voice acting feels really out-of-place, especially with young Kun's voice sounding like an older woman even though it's common for females to play the voice of young males. I find this ruined the movie quite a bit because of how often Kun ends up crying and shouting all the time. The rest of the characters aren't any better also lack enthusiasm that you'd usually hear from Anime and sound flat most of the time.

TokiKake is one of my most favourite movies but the other Hisoda movies weren't so good so wasn't sure how good this would be. There's the odd bit of humour and it feels like a family movie showing how important it is to have family members supporting each other with a touch of magic - very much a "you are not alone" kind of familiar Japanese theme. It has its good moments.

This is not a family movie, there is no warmth or heart in this. The ending felt brittle. The story focused more on his weak family bond rather than on his relationship with his sister, which felt like false advertising.

I really liked the art, the backgrounds were so beautiful; although the CGI made it look like a sims game sometimes. I watched the dubbed version and the 4 year old sounded oddly mature for his age. I'm sure its just the post-pubescent voice.

The situations that Kun were placed in were actually very well written for a terrible family. His mother lashed out constantly without repercussions ... and his father was weak (he had to get a manly lesson from his other dad). His entire family, even the sister, placed the blame of Kun's freak outs on himself even though he was in a very vulnerable spot (becoming the forgotten child, having the parents divide the love between him and his sister) at a vulnerable age. It's no wonder he grew up to be edgy and sad-looking (and probably in one of those isekai anime).

I think it would've been more satisfying had the parents given some time to apologize to Kun for making him feel so terrible and trying harder to love the children equally; or having the sister help him through this difficult time throughout the entirety of the movie. It felt like all of the scenes where he travels in the garden were just snippets from a series carelessly strung together.

What struck me was when the mother threatened to take his toys away when he didn't want to stop playing which led Kun to try to take away what was precious from her (aka Mirai). In the end, he feels like he belongs with the family because he basically doesn't want to be not a part of it (cliched leaves home, finds it to be rough out there, wants to go home routine). It's obvious that this family doesn't have anything holding them together other than blood, food and shelter.

Overall, the parents learned nothing and the children learned nothing.

Mirai is a pretty picture that's marvelously animated and sharply directed (I love the long shots where time passes just off screen, as if the house were this timeless constant), but the end product just doesn't come together. It feels like there are two stories here - one, of Kun learning to be less of an annoying little shit, and the other, of the magic of learning your place in your family tree and coming to understand where you come from. Unfortunately, these plots don't work in tandem or feel like they really play into each other; we just start with the A plot and ... then eventually the B plot just takes over. Since the story is essentially a series of vignettes, the movie has a real herky jerky sense of pacing that doesn't help matters.

I don't want to bitch about our main character being an annoying brat, since he's a toddler and that is the point, but as an adult viewer (and Mirai certainly doesn't feel geared towards the tykes) I don't know how much I'm really supposed to get from his personal journey of learning, "Hey, maybe I shouldn't cry ALL the time."

So much of Mirai is nice in theory but its unfortunate narrative decisions kept me from ever getting invested in any of the proceedings. I'm also a little put off by how damn hard the movie tries to be whimsical; it's more transparent than cellophane in its intentions to woo you. But hey, it's purty, so that's nice.

I understand slice of life shows means you're getting a slow, slow anime with not much, if anything, of a story to offer.

I understand.

This though? Please, some substance would be nice.

It's pretty, I'll give it that. It can be soothing and sometimes, very few of the times mind you, but sometimes you do find yourself in the state of mind the film was planning to achieve. A bit in awe of how time passes, how each person lived their lifes how they saw fit and how it'll all disappear and be forgotten as new people and stories are brought to life.

Unfortunately I mostly spent this ... movie being bored out of my mind, and the modern architecture the house offered wasn't enough to make it go away.

Could this be my fault because I'm just not receptive to these kind of genres? For sure, I could wave it off as so, but I do think it truly did fall flat.