Kamiarizuki no Kodomo

Tell me you've heard this premise before: A child mourns the loss of their parent, and mysterious events make them into a magical chosen one who is tasked to save the world or fulfill some magical mission. A pretty cliche premise, right? Stuff like that is pretty common in kids' shows and movies. However, I have the philosophy that every single plot has already been done before, but as long as you make good, believable characters that drive the story and put care and effort into what you create, you can create whatever the hell you want. Child of Kamiari Month, a new anime movie ... that just dropped on Netflix, is no different, as it does use some pretty stock cliches throughout its entire premise...but having seen it myself, I also found it to be pretty charming and sweet. I mean, yeah, Kamiari Month probably isn't going to make a blip on anyone's radar, but I would wholly recommend this to anyone who wants to get their kids into anime for the first time.

12-year-old Kanna Hayama is still reeling from her mother's death a year ago, and because of this, she's lost her passion for running, something she really connected with her mother over. One day, when putting on her mother's amulet, time stops all around her, and she finds herself seeing spirits, including a cute bunny spirit named Shiro. It turns out her mother was an Idaten, or the God of Footracing, and the Idaten are tasked with collecting offerings called chiso from various Gods inhabiting shrines all over the town of Izumo and taking them to one particular shrine as part of the Gods' divine banquet only held once a year. Now that Kanna's mother is gone, Kanna winds up inheriting the position, and it's up to her to gather the chiso and take it to the Izumo shrine by the end of the day. But it's not going to be easy, what with a demon named Yasha trying to steal the chiso, and Kanna's own mixed feelings about running getting in the way.

So yeah, not exactly an original premise, but the thing that makes Child of Kamiari Month's premise stand out from other movies with similar story beats is its very heavy focus on Shintoism. For the uninitiated, Shinto is a nature-based religion or belief indigenous to Japan, and it's the belief that spirits and gods inhabit every form of organic or inorganic life, from plants to the objects we use in every day life. Child of Kamiari Month is very much steeped in Shintoism, from its overall themes to its entire plot revolving around nature spirits and demons, a divine festival, and heavy usage of shrines and torii gates as plot points. In essence, it's a very Japanese movie, containing a lot of concepts and ideas that would probably go over people's heads if they don't already know about them. I only know about them through watching anime over a decade, and through studying a little bit of Shintoism in college for my Japanese studies. So in terms of standing out from all the other kids movies with this same premise, I think Kamiari Month manages to succeed on this front.

The animation was done by LIDEN FILMS, and their pedigree is...not exactly the best. While they've made some great things, a lot of the decisions they make in terms of animating stuff aren't always the best, and they've put out some...controversial stuff such as the modern Berserk anime, the very poorly animated Farewell My Dear Cramer, the short anime Aiura, which has great animation but everything else about it sucks, and the currently very divisive Tokyo Revengers adaptation. Thankfully, Child of Kamiari Month has proven to be one of their better endeavors, as the animation is smooth and colorful, the backgrounds are detailed, the character designs are on point, and I didn't notice any animation goofs or off-model characters, though Kanna's overall design can take some getting used to. I don't have much to say on the soundtrack, as it wasn't very memorable. It does its job, and the songs were well sung, but again, I barely paid much attention to them.

The characters here are...alright. They're not exactly the most original or the most three-dimensional, and if you've seen movies with a similar premise before, you're going to be familiar with the archetypes that they adhere to, like the main character grieving her dead parent, the angry adversary who wants to challenge the main character but becomes her friend later, and the cute animal advisor. I found Kanna's overall development to be alright, and she does grow over the course of the movie. Since the movie only focuses on Kanna, Yasha, and Shiro, none of the minor characters who appear get much in the way of development, so they wind up coming across as little more than one-note plot devices. To be honest, I kind of wish this movie had been longer so we could have seen more of the main trio and how they bonded over the course of the film, or even show more of the minor characters such as Kanna's father, or showing how Kanna's mother dealt with being the Idaten. But I think the movie did okay with its main trio, and I genuinely enjoyed following them throughout the movie.

My only real gripes with the movie is that it leaves a lot of unanswered questions, all of them pertaining to Kanna's mother. How did she become an Idaten, and why? When did she stop being the Idaten, or did she even stop being an Idaten to begin with? If Kanna's mother is technically a god, how did she manage to shack up with a human and have a child? Yeah, the movie leaves a lot of questions about Kanna's mother unanswered. Plus, for people looking for something more original, you're not going to find anything here, as Kamiari Month is pretty predictable, rehashing a lot of the same story beats and character progression as many other stories tackling the same overall premise. Honestly, though? I personally like it for what it is, as it's a nice little kids movie about overcoming grief, spiritualism, and holding onto your passions. This would probably make for a pretty nice movie to show to your kids if you want to get them into anime for the first time, and it helps that it's widely available on Netflix, so anyone who has a subscription can watch it legally. The English dub is pretty stellar as well, and they actually cast a child as the main character, which makes Kanna sound much more authentic.

Not exactly the most original movie out there, but Child of Kamiari Month is a fairly charming, heartfelt film that respects its target audience, so give it a look if you want something wholesome and sweet.

To be honest, I did not expect this to be a 10/10 nor to even pass the 5/10, but after watching this, I had to write review:

The story is not at all original, and we could even call it a trap to get us all to convert to the religion mentioned in the anime. But I will focus on the major point of focus in the story:

Loss of innocence. (Yes this is going to sound like an english lesson)

What marvellously worked is when the movie transmitted feelings you are going to feel them; When the atmosphere is bright, the music follows and you feel ... joy. Then, the atmosphere darkens and you become scared. You feel what the character sees and I still don't know how they managed to do that.

By the end of the movie I had a bunch of feelings bundled up together, and upon hearing the sentence "You don't have to run anymore" and follows, I shed a tear, as though everything got released at once

I connected a lot with this anime for some reason, it might not be the same case for you (no my mom is not dead).

The bad part is obvious, it's not an anime focused on its story, so the story is really mediocre.

The growing up of the main character Kanna was executed well, and the twists and lies were very well made. I love Spirited Away, and Kamiarizuki no Kodomo did as good when it comes to theme and topic, minus the 20hour train scenes.

Really cute and emotional, this movie is very under-rated. Also just ignore all the reviews saying it is like spirited away or anything like that cause it just isn’t.

Story:10/10
The story is very emotional and beautiful!

Art:8/10
Very beautiful! Nice and detailed.

Sound:8/10
The music was really good and made the emotional scenes way better! And the normal sounds are decent.
...
Character:6/10
Kanna’s character was really well done, it made me want to know more about them. Yasha wasn’t interesting at all.

Enjoyment:9/10
Loved it so much!
Watched it with some friends, which made it 10x better. I would 100% watch it again!

This is just my opinion of the show. You can agree or disagree with this review all you like.
Also I like more simple reviews as they are quick to read, hence why there are no spoilers and so short.
-CuteChaff

x

This story is literally a rip off from Spirited Away mixed with Star Platinum ZA WARUDO from Jojo spiced up a bit by passion of running of whoever the person is that came up with the plot.

In short the plot resolves about young girl who's mother was god tier runner. Said girl liked running also. Too bad, mother has died due to uknown reasons and now the daughter enters the world of spirits and begins her journey to see her mother's soul again. Blah blah blah, you know the drill. It might sound like i'm talking shit about the plot but the execution is actually ... good and you should give this movie a try.

Animation is nothing out of ordinary but it's not bad either and fits quiet well. As for the sound the voice acting was also good and OST was overall also good with few exceptions for when it got exellent from time to time during more important scenes.

As for characters there's not much to talk about here. Our main focus is MC that will have a lot of ups and downs throughout the story. Pretty human of her if you ask me. As for the other characters they're all literally a side plan.

As for the enjoyment aside from first 10 minutes that i found to be boring rest of the movie wasn't boring at all. Sure, it might feel a little bit cliche if you saw similiar stories before but it's not cliche to the point that you'll know right away what will happen on screen up next. You also might want to go out and start running a bit after watching it.

Solid 7/10

This just needed a bit more to make it to an 8 and I honestly think that's probably the simplest way to put it. It's entertaining and I will certainly rewatch it periodically, specially with the kids, but it's not going to be a story I go around recommending.

Of particular note is that the story really is not very deep or thought provoking or honestly all that engaging, and it all comes down to how the the main character doesn't really feel like they are in an adventure but rather being zoomed around by forces beyond their understanding to beautiful locales for the sake of ... the plot with little engagement or signs of difficulty in regards to the allege main element of the story which is the running. In fact, if she had just been going around in Heelys how would we have known the difference? When one of the main elements of your story doesn't feel like it matters and has basically no stakes other than being told that it does, you have a problem.

But let us talk about those beautiful locales for a minute. The backgrounds are gorgeous, and I can almost feel they were traced from pictures of the locations they were visiting and it does so with the appropriate vibrancy that you need to make them pop and want to visit them. If you told me most of the budget went to them I would believe you because the animation is mostly adequate but not particularly great. Many times the actual animation felt like it was being run at 8fps when it clearly wasn't and I would even be able to begin to explain how they manage that but it seems to be something only really affected the beginning and the rest of the film felt significantly more fluid and there was less of a disconnected between what you could hear and what you could see.

And what you can hear is going to be the most cliche stuff ever, down to the foley. But you know what? Cliches exist because they work and everything about the sound just worked for me. The VA is on point, the music always fits the mood even if the animation doesn't, and there is a certain vibrancy that is felt with sounds of the stuff in the film. I got nothing deep to say, I just liked it a lot and it added a great deal to the experience of watching the group travel to fulfill their mission.

And I am glad it did, because I can say this with complete certainty: I don't care about the trio. I don't mean I hate them, because that is giving far more emotional weight than they ever provided though out and while I could forgive that Shiro wasn't going to be the next Sam in cute rabbit form or that Yasha was always just going to end up apparently learning to support her through the power of friendship, but what really, really, really made me not care much was Kanna herself. If my comments about the story didn't make it clear, the cracked central pillar of the film is Kanna and how despite all the attempts at making us care about her deep connection between running and the love she had for her mother, she acts in the most boring and flat way possible in regards to it and her experience with it except when the plot absolutely demands she be sad. One of the best ways to make you feel for the character and enter their state of mind is the little actions they take to provide us with a context of how their whole lived experiences affect them, but at least from what we saw Kanna existed in four memories and there is literally nothing more her. If you truly are not going to make the running and its struggles in general be a bigger part of the plot, at least make her struggles shape and provide us with nuances of who she is and why. TL;DR: I don't like Kanna and she somehow feels the weakest of all characters when Shiro exists.

But, did I enjoy it? Yes, absolutely. I enjoyed it greatly as an exploration of Japan, I enjoyed it greatly as a visual spectacle and I enjoyed it in the same way you enjoy a children's film when you are older and have more opinions about even the little things in life. As a way to enjoy 99 minutes of your life while being dazzled, I have found worse options and I feel this can safely be put in list of movies I will rewatch with enjoyment even if I didn't like specific aspects of it. Go watch it but the right expectations and you will find it worth your time.

As a movie for children, which this most certainly is, it works very very well. The story is good, although cliche and easy to guess what will happen. It's easy to understand while still giving plenty of things to think about. The only issue I had with this movie was the animation quality. It was ok, but there were very noticeable budget constraints. Most of the budget seems to have been used near the end of the movie, because there were some fairly well done scenes, but otherwise the animation gets a solid 4.5/10 from me. Watchable, but kinda janky.
Overall a sweet story about ... dealing with loss. The loss of a loved one, loosing yourself, and trying to find your way.

If you're looking for something to watch with your kids this is a wonderful choice! Though, it might make you tear up a little.