Rather than focusing on some weird premise about Tamako being the chosen princess for a foreign prince to marry filled with tons of filler to make a 12 episode series, we instead get the relationship between Tamako and Mochizou at center stage. This was my favorite part of the show and I always wished they had fleshed it out more, which they did excellently in this movie. The story now takes place as Tamako, Mochizou, and the others prepare for high school to end. Mochizou has decided that he wants to attend a college in Tokyo to continue his passion for film. However, he has to tell Tamako, a girl who constantly lives in the moment, about this decision. He also has the fact that he loves her bottled up inside of him. The majority of the story of the movie deals with his struggle to tell Tamako and her struggle to decide how she feels about him and his decision to leave the shopping center where they grew up together.
My favorite thing about this show though would have to be the atmosphere it creates. It is calm, yet somewhat dramatic. And it most certainly beautiful as the art compliments this mood greatly. We get excellent panoramic shots, skies beautifully outlining characters, and movie quality animation that really shows how great KyoAni can be. The music also compliments the atmosphere with mostly acoustic rock music. The song that Tamako's father played to her mother when he confessed to her is one of my favorites in the movie and used at just the right moments to compliment Tamako's feelings. The show uses silence and other surrounding sounds well to make for many scenes with both perfect romantic and awkward-romantic-tension filled moments.
The characters are greatly improved in this movie as opposed to the show. Mochizou, Tamako, and Tamako's friends all get much more development in this one movie than they did throughout the entire 12 episode show. Thankfully Dera is never shown aside from the first five minutes which helps add to the atmosphere I mentioned before (the lack of comic relief is a breath of fresh air). That's not to say the main characters are perfect now. They do take a bit too long dealing with romantic issues and have some bothersome aspects like Tamako's airheadedness, but it's to be expected in a situation like this and isn't much of a problem.
I really enjoyed this movie despite finding the show boring and annoying at times. Everything about this movie is better, and the only part I really disliked was the first five minutes due to Dera's annoying banter back on his island far, far away from the main story (thank goodness he can't fly). The only other thing I might complain about is that the ending seemed to happen a bit too quickly, but that's not too big of an issue since it was still nice. This is just a nice simple romance story about two childhood friends. While it may not be the most original romance story Kyoto Animation has ever done, it was executed wonderfully nonetheless.
