This is a story about the importance of listening and the effects of not doing so. It something we can all understand and learn from.
Social anxiety, Suicide, self loath/pity, forgiveness/acceptance, attachment, the desire/difficulty to be connect and most of all the complexity of human communication and emotions - all covered in this Movie as you delve into a journey to unravel a facade to find emotions we all contain and hide from others to void the difficulty of conveying them. We follow a character who closes his mind and refuses not to listen to create his own cynical narrative and in it we learn voice (koe) - or communication - has many shapes and forms (Katachi) and that it's shallow to think it's all monotonous.
When I heard Kyoto - with their legendary art style - was going to make a favourite manga of mine into a movie, I contemplated packing my bags and going to Japan for it's premier. Sadly I lacked the funds so I had to settle for the nearest cinema in London - 3 excruciating months after it's release.
It was sad to see the seats half empty, but when the movie started, the 60 year old man behind me was laughing, gasping and getting emotional along with the rest of the diverse crowd and this shows how well the message of the movie resonated and how universal the enjoyment was.
The plot evoked a roller coaster of emotions, some easy to emphasis with, and others MADE easy to resonate with! The plot starts vigorously but with a pace you could easily keep up with. It slightly stagnates to build context until the plot's climax - which got my spine tingling - a climax that I don't want to ruin for the unsuspecting! But the stagnation is what stops it from getting a 10/10 for it's plot. The strategic retreat from the plot's focus enabled for a good few laughs and set up what was to come very well, but it turned a 2 hours movie into what felt like a 3 hour movie, where I was anticipating the end mid way though as it seemed like they had reached a happily ever after. It somewhat ruined the experience for me and I felt like it could have been executed better by adding some more romantic develop (because I felt more pity for the characters than love).
I hate to be the guy who boasts how much better the source content was, but it's necessary to mention that a lot of the 60 + chapters of plot couldn't fit into the 2 hours time frame - hence we got hastily implemented and unexplained developments that the manga could easily clear up (one of the biggest being that fat that they all set out to make a movie and that is the real crux of how the MC makes and learns to socialise with friends), frankly the manga and movie could be considered separate entities considering their different approaches and focuses to this plot. This is a clear limitation the anime movie medium of story telling has so I can't personally penalise too much for doing the best it could, certainly better than other movie adaptations - and I rate based on comparison. There was room to fix some of the issues related to this, such as by removing some of the pretty/still/un-progressive scenes in exchange for progressive and informative development from the source content. Then again removing them could have made it feel too dense/melancholic and would likely have ruined the nice pace it set out and the mood those particular scenes set - so it hard to criticise.
The art was stunning, and Kyoto included their trademark extra, where the frames are never still - there are always subtle things happening in the background that just adds the cherry on top of their memorising art. The art could get any anime brownie points including Phantom world. Every nook and carny was accounted for, from the curves in the fingers, the change in colour form skin to nail to the glow emitted by the bright lighting and the distortion of their realistic dynamic multi tone shadows. Kyoto kept to their cutesy shiny art style with tranquil backgrounds and scenery - and props for their consistently amazing colour pallet.
The voice acting was ace, like most anime - at this point it's a given considering how serious people take voice acting in Japan. The music hit the spot, it started of with an English song, which may have confused the Japanese audience if they were unable to translate the lyrics, but it was pretty clever and a good way to summarise the first few chapters of the Manga which the movies wanted to power through with to save time. The Musics crept up on you and exploded sometimes, others it gently wrapped it's arms around you as you desperately tried to hold the tears back, And as your face prepared to unleash an unforced smile, the music came in to amplify it.
All in all, coming out of the cinema was hard, there was a plethora of emotions and thoughts swirling around in my mind, it created a moral dilemma that still has my mind in conflict now. Nothing felt too cliche apart for the typical anime personalities, which can be over looked considering what the plot done with them. The movie was truly touching, the ascetics was mind-blowingly good and the music was on point.
I enjoyed it as an avid fan of Romance, particular dramatic ones - despite the romance not being completely conclusive in the movie. I enjoyed this more than any other anime of it's type, and I'm sure anyone with the same taste wouldn't hesitate to give it a 10/10 and others wouldn't dare give it bellow an 8 unless it's not their thing.
*=======================================================================================*
Personal Onion/side note:
Many had an issue with what they saw as an emotionally manipulative plot that stereo typed emotions and disabilities and thought it gave a shallow outlook on them. However I think expecting a movie that tackles these theme elegantly with precision is too much to ask for, especially of the length of this plot and with it's density in content. Some people are choosing to get offended by how deaf people and suicidal people are presented here - as if this anime was tailored to be the political ambassador for these groups of people and has a duty outline the existence of a variation of people in these groups, as well as representing them as strong independent people - rejecting (or at least wanting to mask) the existence of vulnerable people in this category. It seems like this leads them to think adding convenience in a plot and a catalyst for progression is inherently a bad thing, as if the purpose of media itself isn't to entertain with by showing a collision of stark stereotypes that enable recognition and empathy (as well as saving time on unnecessarily developing a character from birth to present day) but to make a perfect recreation or reality without abstraction and stereotypes of entities (something even a computer is not capable of) that is primarily to educate viewers and not provide entertainment that's not difficult to decipher.
Of course not everyone who make such points fall into the pitfall of expecting too much form their medium, but many seem to give these point significant weight in their score, with a few minor flaws seeming to elicit a deduction more than 3+ points out of 10. They are free to do this and I have no right to lecture them on their scoring system, but I just think it's inefficient, ineffective and lacks the investment of deep thought with a widened scope - IE. it clashes with my philosophy. If you fall into this category and can enlighten me on your perspective I'd really appreciate it.
