Back to UkiyaSenpai's Profile UkiyaSenpai's Profile

Just Listen to the Song is the latest one-shot by writer Tatsuki Fujimoto and artist Oto Toda and is about a guy who posted his love confession to the girl he likes on YouTube, only for it to spiral out of control as people found some things totally unrelated to said love confession.

Compared to Fujimoto's previous one-shots after the release of Chainsaw Man Part 1, this is too short as opposed to previous two one-shots, namely: Look Back and Goodbye Eri that are over 100 pages more. To be honest, if it has at least 2-3 pages more, it might hit that nice sweet ... spot that would make it even better. Even if Fujimoto did not illustrated this one-shot, Toda's art style looks similar to Fujimoto's that if I didn't read the credits, I did not know that Fujimoto didn't draw the thing. Also helps that there are times in the story that their art style is better than Fujimoto's.

To the one-shot itself, best way to describe is that this is him getting overwhelmed with Chainsaw Man's success even before the anime came out that he just wants to tell his audience one thing. Just enjoy his work for what it is. Don't overthink about it, and enjoy the thing in face value. Sure there are themes in his stories, but for the most part, he just wants to tell a kickass story or an emotional story about two friends, while at the same time, show his love for movies and watching movies in a theater or in an abandoned warehouse filled with tapes. That's it. He even drives that point home when the main character learns that people are over analyzing his dumb confession video frame by frame, with some even playing the audio backwards, only for them to conclude that he is criticizing US gun culture, something that is totally unrelated to a crappy love confession song only aimed to his crush. As to how they ended up with that conclusion, I dunno, some people just like to overthink things without taking into account who made said thing.

That being said, if this is Fujimoto's way in telling his audience to temper their expectations for Chainsaw Man Part, which is coming out soon, then I guess I should temper said expectations and enjoy the ride. I mean, all I got when Chainsaw Man first started its serialization is a story about a guy who barely knows the world and got possessed by a chainsaw demon. Shit when from 0 to 100 real quick since then.

Unlike the first film where the artifacts of it being a TV series felt seamless, yeah, this movie felt like an actual compilation of episodes, not a movie. The merch push from the TV show is clearer, especially with the various backpacks G-Self equipped across the film, and there are clear cuts on where the original TV episode ended or ran. It didn't help that the movie felt sluggish at times, both in pacing and in plot.

There are times I felt like I should stop watching the movie due to the amount of information dump in a lot of scenes, and times that it ... felt like I should watch the TV episode that this part of the movie is based on, and this is coming from the guy that dropped G-Reco as early as around episode 4 or 5! That said, this is one of those films wherein the first viewing puts me off, but later viewings might make it better.

I am not a fan of compilation movies because if done badly, it's just the show with no opening or ending sequences in between. This isn't the case with G-Reco's first movie. It felt like I am watching an actual movie and not a bunch of episodes of the TV series stitched into one.

Everything feels seamless, especially after the slow start. The character motivations are clear, but the overall conflict felt like it needs further expansion aside that the Capital Guard saw enemies coming from space and they need to fight back. That said, will I recommend this over the TV series? It's ... an easy yes.