Birthday Wonderland

This movie makes me very conflicted, I want to like this movie, and I do, but there's no doubt in my mind that there's a lot of flaws holding it back.

Overall: 6

TLDR: Did this movie make me laugh? Definitely, and fairly often, actually. Did it make me roll my eyes? Quite often on that count as well, haha. But most importantly, did I enjoy my movie going experience? I would say yes, and I think I can recommend it without too many reservations.

Character: 7

I want to begin with this category because it definitely feels like the writers wanted this film to be a character driven ... bildungsroman. There are a lot of likable characters present (in particular, I really like the main duo of Akane and Chii, and also momma Midori, although admittedly, her role in the movie is pretty negligible), but the issue with all of them is that they feel one dimensional. Even the main protagonist, Akane, feels a bit flat. The movie is supposed to be a coming of age story about her growing up and taking initiative in her own life, and we see her transformation in the end, but it feels largely unearned. This is in large part due to the plot device of the momentum anchor, which I absolutely HATE. I won’t go into too much detail here to avoid spoilers, but everything about the anchor makes me roll my eyes, especially when it’s brought up again near the end of the movie. The other gripe I have is that the alchemist and Pipo feel like they exist only to spout exposition or move the story along, and are largely under-utilized. Overall, there was a lot of potential here but it falls short of creating super memorable characters.

Visuals: 9

I found out about this movie, and ultimately watched it, because I’m a huge fan of Ilya Kushinov, the artist behind all of the visual designs. This movie is without a doubt gorgeous. Due to the quality of the visuals, there are some obvious drops in framerate or moments where a still frame is held for just a tad bit long, but I’m more than ready to forgive the movie on that count because, unfortunately, we don’t live in a perfect world where studios have infinite time and money to pour into each project. There’s a lot of great color imagery as well, aligning the themes of the story with the visual experience. This movie very clearly takes heavy inspiration from Studio Ghibli’s takes on fantasy and worldbuilding. It doesn’t achieve the same levels of believability in my opinion, but the victorian-esque fantasy world that is constructed is still quite lovely. The one thing that disappoints me is that unlike Miyazaki’s works, it doesn’t perfectly attach the elements of fantasy with the message that the movie is trying to tell. I was fortunate enough to go to a viewing of the movie where Kushinov flew in all the way from Japan to talk about his work on the film and some of his thoughts regarding the process, and I was simply blown away (RIP my wallet after I bought all his artbooks and a print). For me, the art is the one distinguishing aspect of the movie, and had the fidelity not been what it is, I would have trouble recommending this movie.

Story: 5

While the story isn’t strictly bad, it feels very rushed and haphazard in organization. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that a lot had been left on the cutting room floor in order to make deadlines. While I enjoyed watching the movie to indulge in the excellent visuals and delightful fantasy elements, the story was hard for me to care about or be engaged with. The quest to restore rain to this ailing land through the drop rain ceremony is very much a MacGuffin, and even upon its resolution feels uninteresting at best. I wish there were more scenes showing how the country and its people were suffering from the lack of rain, rather than the excessive number of moments spent showing cute sheep (which I admit are undoubtedly adorable) or fleshing out the subplot about the knitting competition (which ultimately feels tacked on and unimportant). I mean, come on, the land is gorgeous, green, and lush, and it doesn’t look like it’s in need of a single drop of water. There was also a dark, depressing, London-like city that was meant to showcase the suffering and hardship, but again, it’s not aptly developed or effectively implemented. I would love to see what the studio could achieve by telling this story in the form of a show, rather than a movie. There, you could take full episodes to truly explore the world or show Akane helping the people, rather than forcing everything onto a linear track that slowly progresses towards a predictable conclusion.

Sound: 7

It’s been two weeks since I’ve seen this movie, and admittedly the sounds aren’t the freshest memories in my mind, but maybe to some extent that means there wasn’t anything particularly memorable for me to recount. That said, I think that in the quieter moments of the movie where the sound design really comes through and pulls you into the world. There are a couple songs that did stick with me, but none of it really stands out as the highlight of the movie. This is kinda cheating, but I also really liked the cover of “The Show” by Milet in the end credits.

Enjoyment: 6

I think this is one of those movies that in the moment, you can really enjoy while watching it, but as you reflect on it as a whole, it comes apart bit by bit. I do want to point out a couple of the strengths here, however. Overall, the comedy was effective and generously meted out, albeit usually as one-liners or simplistics jokes. In particular, I thought the visual comedy was done very well. If I haven’t gushed enough about the art in my visuals section, I just wanted to point out how beautiful the movie is again, haha. It is, in my opinion, the film’s single biggest strength. Where it falls apart for me is that I wish the movie had done more showing and less telling. The movie equips the audience with two characters that simply explain every foreign object or fantastical detail instead of letting the audience process the information on screen for themselves. Ironically, many of the plot elements also feel under explained or lacking of a clear and consistent line of logic. I think this movie could be a great family experience, but reading subtitles will likely be challenging for kids.

Conclusion:

I’ve actually never written a review before, but I thought this might be helpful for those deciding on whether or not to see the film, since I was lucky enough to catch an early showing. I hope my thoughts are helpful to at least a couple of people. I watched this movie in a double anime feature night, during which I watched Weathering With You right after I finished this film and heard the artists thoughts on the process, and the juxtaposition of the two movies really made me wonder what this movie could have been. I think that despite the missed opportunities and unfulfilled potential, the movie still has solid enough legs to stand on. I genuinely enjoyed the experience, and I would say that it’s worth watching at least once.

Two words: cat balls

Okay, now for the more serious overview:

It's unfortunate that a film with such nice animation has such cliché, boring, and weird writing. The animation is good for what it is, and that's that. The world building makes no sense, the characters are surface level **at best,** it has weird flashback character cuts, it has no idea how to hold tension or pacing, the gags are dumb, the protag is a Mary Sue that suddenly gets better when she needs to, AHHHHHHHH. You can't even appreciate the animation really because of how stupid the movie is.

I saw another negative review, ... claiming that this movie has good elements, but has a poorly written villain and is hurt most by being a propaganda against poor people (or those who come from the slums, seen as bad, etc.). That is giving the movie too much credit. This thing is a complete mess that has no idea what it is doing. To call it propaganda would imply it has a coherent plot.

Do not watch this. Colossal waste of 2 hours.

2 / 10

I really wanted to enjoy this movie but I feel like the movie is rushed with lack of detail, explanation within character relationships, and seems a bit cheesy within the storyline. it's just BAM this happens and that, and you just go along for the ride slowly piecing things together.

I absolutely ADORE Ilya Kuvshinov art which you can spy throughout the film and honestly I expected more quality rather than some season 2 of a good show budget.

I skipped through and it felt a little painful to watch considering it seemed they threw things in to see if it'd work out ://

Hello everyone this my personal simple review about Birthday Wonderland
! and also my first one

the movie was nice and i want share my experience with it :

Story :

the movie have mid level in story not too deep or so basic story the starter was really nice to introduce the characters and the world of this movie and interested me to explore this phantasy world and many cities and cultures and different life styles , didn't give me much i want in mid and End but it's ok , for me i will give the Story : 6 ... / 10

Art :

the colors was so good and art design and everything was so pretty
there is some animation drops in little frames wasn't enough but everything else was a great really , for me Art : 9/10

Sound:
the music and OST was Fair at least not horrible but not to much there so for me Sound : 6/10

Character :

for me i was so interested in some character especially the mom and the Alchemist guy about there past life , but we have at least fair character and story about them i won't talk to much about them so no spoilers for me Characters : 6/10

Enjoyment :

i enjoy so much in this movie and it really good to watch with family and kids explore colorful world , so for me it take in enjoy section : 8/10


Overall :

the movie was at good level 7/10 .

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Sorry about my bad Eng i wish i get to explain my feeling about this movies in clear way and thanks for reading <3

This is my First review ever on Anime List net this movie is so underated!
honestly i really enjoyed this movie so much and i dont care about the story at all but it makes me roll my eyes to the visuals.

Art:
The art is so beautiful and so the visual it really rolls my eyes during the river scence or whatever.

Character:
I like the characters but theres no backstory for them and i wanna know more overall the character design is good

Story:
The story is like a straight forward yep everyone is hating it cause its feels meh but honeslty i dont care about the story ... all i cared about the art and the characters

Sound:
The Sounds on this movies is dam beautiful even the ending song and waiting for it to end

Overall:
Great and Beautiful movie for family to watch honeslt im watching it alone and i regret it. i wanted really to show this to my family to enjoy it. theres funny scence that makes me laugh anyways. if anyone reading for this long for my review thank you if you disagree with me something feel free to roast me

Okay, lemme write honest review about this anime movie. First of all, I put my expectation too high for this movie because I love Illya's art and the trailer of this movie was quite promising but it turns out the full movie is disappointing.

Story: 3
The main idea of isekai-ed to the magical world like typical ghibli movies but the real conflict is not well written, the motive of the villain is not clear and this movie is lack of explanation and i'm sorry to say this.. it was quite boring.

Art: 8
The only one that shines in this movie was the great art style, but some ... 3D CGI effects seems quite awkward though.

Sound: 5
The sound in this movie seems awkward too, they're talking it's too quiet, so i need to raise up the volume to 100% but on the contrary the BGM is so damn loud so i need to decrease my speaker volume.

Character: 3
The characterization of this movie is poor, lack of decent explanations motives and so meh.

Enjoyment: 5
Well, the only thing that i can enjoy was the beauty of the character design and the world environment it's truly wonderful, whereas the story line is pure disappointment.

Overall: 6/10

This had a good base written well not that really great but I like the drawings because its just unique, I think also it not really matters if the story is not just great as long as it has the benefits you acquire then its good...I just like this anime because of its scenery and the conflict is just simple no problem bout that, the characters are just fine, sounding also great, story well Its just a bit tiny missing piece of written-that's what they say, well in anyway I just like it..
The thing about why I like this anime its because of the ... art not really about the story..just that.