Umibe no Étranger

Shun Hashimoto is an openly gay aspiring novelist living in Okinawa who was abandoned by his parents after coming out to them. Mio Chibana is a reserved, orphaned high school student, often found spending his time by the sea. One day, the two meet on the beach, and Shun is instantly captivated by Mio. The days fly by as they slowly begin to grow closer until Mio suddenly announces that he has to leave for the mainland.

Three years pass before a 20-year-old Mio returns to Okinawa to confess his love to Shun. However, in those three years, Shun's life has changed. Will he be able to accept Mio's feelings and make such a commitment?

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Chibana, Mio Main

Matsuoka, Yoshitsugu Japanese

Hashimoto, Shun Main

Murata, Taishi Japanese

Eri Supporting

Itou, Kanae Japanese

Suzu Supporting

Nakaya, Sayaka Japanese

Sakurako Supporting

Shimamura, Yuu Japanese

Oba-chan Supporting

Satou, Hana Japanese

Mio's Mother Supporting

Inagawa, Eri Japanese

Shun's Dad Supporting

Sakaki, Kousuke Japanese

Mimi Mama Supporting

Tachibana, Tatsumaru Japanese

Shun's Mom Supporting

Takeuchi, Emiko Japanese

Herek, Samantha Assistant Producer

Oohashi, Akiyo Director, Storyboard, Screenplay

Fujita, Akiko Sound Director

MONO NO AWARE Theme Song Performance

Reviews

Feb 28, 2021

martwica

Recommended

//may contain some light spoilers

Umibe no Étranger is so much more to me than just another BL story. It kinda reminds me od Doukyuusei, with its storyline and characters and showing the more sweet and realistic depiction od same-sex love. As a LGBT person myself, I love stories surrounding these topics but it's so hard for me to find an anime that would satisfy me. Mostly, because most yaoi/BL stories are overly sexualized and show same-sex attraction as a fetish. L' Étranger is different in that case. It's good to hear the word 'gay' being used in the show and see a character identyfying as ... such. Sure, Mio still follows the 'I'm in love with a person, not their gender' trope but from what I've understood from the manga sequel, he's still unable to have sex and fall in love with a girl so he might have some identity issues. Besides, there are people who are bisexual with a strong preference for the opposite gender but they still feel same-sex attraction. I'm not against that, what has always annoyes me is the fact that it's been overused in BL stories.

The relationship between Mio and Shun is very real written. It feels real, there are no big fireworks and their dillemas are actually relatable for me. The whole story is not centered around sex and we can actually see their daily struggles with life. Shun's high school life was well depicted and I wish we could see more of it. There is no stereotypical seme/uke dynamic between these two. They're both equals in their relationship.

The movie was quite short and I wish it was at least 90 minutes instead of an hour. The art was beautiful, they really brought the climate from the manga to the big screen. The colours were vivid, the background were detailed. The voice acting was amazing and their voices sounded just like I imagined them in the manga.

The thing with L'Étranger is that it's actually a very simple story. But I feel like we need more stories like this or Doukyuusei with LGBT characters. It's so refreshing for me to actually enjoy a simple romance between two guys, no fetishization, no characters dying. Just a pure story about love. I really recommed it to anyone who's looking for this kind of story. Trust me, it's definitely worth that hour of your time.

Reviewer’s Rating: 9

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Dec 31, 2021

abystoma2

Mixed Feelings

BL is a genre with very, very low standards. I’d say that the only genre that’s worse off in that regard may be shows for kids, and even that is debatable. So, once in a blue moon a BL anime that isn’t utterly terrible is released, and just by the virtue of not being completely garbage it gets praised as the best thing ever. And to be fair, in comparison with most of other similar works, it’s pretty good. In comparison to regular anime though… that’s a different matter.

First, the good part. The visuals are gorgeous. This movie is very nice to look at, and ... especially the backgrounds are aesthetically pleasing. In this aspect, the production value is high, which is the opposite of average BL product. To give credit when it’s due, I have no complains about this part. Maybe the only downside being that this is the only interesting thing about the whole movie. It almost tempt me to give it a higher score, but unfortunately rest of it is still dragging the enjoyment down.

The story is… chaotic. It feels like watching a digest of a series you have never seen. The characters are poorly introduced, it’s riddled with confusing cuts that seem to just skip over huge portions of would-be story, and has timeskips without warning that make it even more confusing. We are given no reason as to why should we care about the characters at all – unless of course you are a fujoshi, in which case the usual procedure would be to get hyped about boy’s love and disregard everything else, no further characterisation is required. Ultimately the story, or at least what I could catch from it, adds up to about an average shounen-ai plotline about dude liking a dude while some people are not fully okay with that. Nothing groundbreaking. I have not read the original work yet, so I don’t know if it too is as rushed as the movie, but guessing based on the fact that it is only one volume long, the adaptation probably didn’t left out much things.

There is one part where the story finally stays at one place for a longer time and finally starts giving out a bit more coherent storytelling and even a somehow interesting source of conflict which again tempted me to at least give this a 6/10, alas it makes up only about fifth of the runtime and the movie still feels like a very long trailer than an actual movie.

As hinted at the start, this is actually very good for its genre, but that is really saying more about the awful state of the genre than the quality of this movie. It is nice that it’s not so creepy and rapey as “classics" such as Sekaiichi Hatsukoi or Loveless. It’s nice it has animation that doesn’t look like a deviantart user was made to be in charge of the storyboard. But, that doesn’t make it great, that just means it passed the mark of not being terrible. Still, for fans of the genre I would recommend it. For others – well, as I mentioned, at least it looks

Reviewer’s Rating: 5

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Mar 3, 2021

delta5

Not Recommended

Why am I giving such a low score to a movie that so many people love? It's pretty simple: If you have't already read the source material this whole thing is going to be incoherent. Very little is fleshed out or explained, there's a huge time skip, and no relationships are defined at all. I'm syre that this is satisfying fan service for those who read the series, but if you're judging it as a stand-alone anime project it fails completely.

The animation is nice enough and everything else is of good quality, but I can't recommend this if you're anime only like me. It's just ... a bunch of random scenes strung together. It's not a real story.

Reviewer’s Rating: 4

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	Poll: Umibe no Étranger Episode 1 Discussion ( 1 2 ) FuMomo-kun - Mar 6, 2021	76 replies	by Emanbg »» Sep 4, 8:24 AM
	Idk about you but I NEED A SECOUND MOVIE LukeLippo - May 7, 2021	8 replies	by passing_through »» Dec 13, 2023 10:07 AM
	Why is this rated PG-13 if it has an explicit sex scene? kari-ya - Sep 7, 2021	18 replies	by Puppytay »» Aug 14, 2023 9:12 AM
	I have a big doubt about Sakurako flashback :O orlianime93 - Apr 11, 2022	8 replies	by gulgamgug »» Jun 23, 2022 10:27 PM
	Happy birthday chibana Mio Sekainobaka - Dec 24, 2021	1 replies	by cnsqwerty »» Dec 27, 2021 9:25 PM