Reviews

The Light of a Firefly Forest is a very simple anime, which isn't necessarily a bad thing in all circumstances, but in my opinion it does this anime a disservice. It's very bare bones from top to bottom. There are very few characters, very little development of said characters, very few plot points and very little to take away from it after your viewing is over. Perhaps comparing against Shinkai- a man genuinely in the conversation of the best to ever do it- is not the fairest of comparisons, but when I look at movies of a similar length, such as The Garden of Words, or even of significantly shorter length such as Voices of a Distant Star, and then I compare the amount of plot and emotional impact between those and this it makes it quite clear there really is no comparison.

The one core rule of the film- our main human character must never ever touch our main spirit character or he will disappear forever- is clearly established and repeatedly reinforced quite early on in the film, so it was very irksome to me that the characters took no precautionary measures whatsoever to prevent accidents and regularly walked extremely closely to one another and were one bad step away from accidental contact. It felt like neither character was particularly concerned about the enormous, irreversible consequences of a single accident.

The ending of this film felt predictable, anticlimactic and abrupt. I can't imagine most viewers would be wowed or find it overly satisfying, nor can I imagine a viewer fighting off tears or feeling truly emotionally impacted in any lasting or meaningful way.

For being over a decade old this movie is pretty, but anime that look good to various extents are more and more commonplace these days and it's nowhere near enough, as with every other part of this, to make it remotely memorable long term.

Ultimately I don't actively recommend AGAINST watching it- it's short, simple and inoffensive and you haven't "wasted" a great chunk of your time if you choose to give this a go- but it's super super skippable and forgettable if you choose not to watch it, and for that reason I find it very difficult to recommend.

OBJECTIVE RATING- 6 to GENEROUS 7 for the right viewer
PERSONAL ENJOYMENT RATING- 6-6.5