The beginning of the movie was, to be frank, legitimately cringe inducing. I have long thought the days of guy characters tripping and accidentally seeing a girl's panties and then being chased around over, but this movie just reminded me that third rate writing will always exist. On top of that overplayed scene, of which I guess was the only way to introduce two of the main characters to each other, upon learning that the guy who she was just chasing around like a hound was her upperclassmen, Setoguchi Hina suddenly falls in love with the guy. Like, what? I was so shocked at the random and hasty development that I had to check the time that had gone by in the movie. A whole 8 minutes had passed before the main heroine got the hots for the other main character, Ayase Koyuki.
8 minutes has to be a record for shitty pacing. Even though I hate people who will call a film's pacing bad just because it doesn't adhere to some objective scale of, "this happens at x time" and such, 8 minutes was pretty jaw-dropping.
Worst of all, though, it's not like he does anything to gain her affection. He shows up, trips over the garbage she cleaned up, looked at her garments, and then turned out to be older than her. Bam, girl madly in love. What the hell?
It only continues to go downhill, as just a few scenes later, following some stupid scenes about Hina being jealous, Ayase has suddenly graduates. Oh, and those other older characters? They graduated too, I guess. Hina bawls her eyes out, but the audience is kind of left feeling apathetic to the whole ordeal. Of the few scenes they had shown up to that point, Ayase wasn't even in that many many of them to begin with. The fact I was now supposed to resonate with the girl, of whom was not developed particularly well either, about the guy whose only personality traits seem to be smiling, really stirred me up.
Now listen, I don't claim to be some music critic, but the soundtrack on this movie is pretty subpar at best. I Want to Eat Your Pancreas had a mediocre soundtrack, but I still loved that movie. The difference here is that this movie seems to have a boner for its songs and tries to play them at every moment possible. The continuous and repetitive melodies get really old, really quickly, especially when the scenes that they overlay are cliché montages that don't actually serve to substantially progress the story in any way. It's worse than a backdrop at the end, it's legitimately gritting to sit there and watch some melodramatic scene filled by less than average music.
The characterization? I wish there was stuff to talk about, but every character can only be boiled down to their archetypes, really. Childhood friend who really likes the main character. Main character who really likes some other character. Cool big brother. Teasing big sister. Love interest, but that's all you need to know about him.
It's kind of funny because when Ayase gets a haircut and Hina theorizes it's because he wants to make Natsuki, her childhood friend's elder sister, attracted to him, I laughed it off because there had been no indication whatsoever, neither had the two even interacted that much. But at the end of the movie, it turns out he DID like Natsuki, and it made me crack up because of how utterly convoluted and underdeveloped the whole plot was. Everyone likes everyone, but none of that is ever dived into. Yes, it's a one hour film that doesn't necessarily have the tools to put into place the groundwork for an emotionally riveting and complex narrative as far as the theme of multiple romances go, but why even try to tackle it in the first place if it's left so half assed.
Its presentation is acceptable at best. Usually, movies like this will try to have at least one nice looking still, or barely moving frame that's wallpaper worthy, but this one seemed to have spent half of its budget in the weird prologue thing in terms of visuals, and god knows it did not care for its audial qualities.
Its only saving grace is that is stumbled outside of the cliché realm at the ending to deliver an ending that actually implies the childhood friend won Hina's heart. Although it was a short lived implication, the fact that it comes after all of the inexcusable garbage made the moment an amazingly refreshing touch.
Even then, I can't believe I sat there and watched the full hour of whatever dumpster fire this movie was. It lacked in all qualities that one would expect from a good, or even average film. Everything it did in mediocrity was only exacerbated in a negative manner by all of the bad it portrayed. How can something be this by the numbers and mind numbingly cookie cutter in its presentation, characterization, and plot progression, and still not do it at least somewhat well? The formula has been set in stone since the late 2000's for cheesy romantic anime and still, this modern piece of cinematic rubbish can't do a single thing right. Forget its somewhat interesting ending, I hate this stupid movie. I hate it with my all.
I'm feeling a light 1.
