Reviews

I recently watched this movie on a flight as it was the only animated Japanese movie, without an anime origin. I watched the film without any knowledge of the original light novel, not having watched a single trailer nor even reading the synopsis. My conclusion? It's a good movie to pass the time with, but not anything entertaining nor exciting.

The highlight of the movie was definitely the visuals. I found myself drawn in to the amazing look of the tunnel, with its various colours and the way it looked as the characters ran over the water. Even outside of the tunnel, everything looked crisp as well.

Something else that resonated greatly was the feelings it presented. The characters' desires - to be more than ordinary, to escape to the past and to reunite with their loved ones - they were all shown to the viewers quite clearly, and the characters' reluctant acceptance near the end that it's futile or impossible to achieve such dreams through the tunnel. After learning this lesson, the character's growth from their grief evoked a lot of melancholy that was able to transmit through the screen.

For voice acting, the voice actors did a masterful job of depicting both mundaneness and desperation. This provided a great contrast to show their desire to escape from their current lives. It can be seen as quite stoic or one-toned at times, however.

The characterization is what causes mixed feelings. The length of the film is quite short, meaning that not a lot could be written into the film, resulting in a small amount of development between the character's relationship. It could be explained by the two characters being relatively lonely in the first place, and being able to find solace in each other's understanding, but not a lot of their relationship is truly developed on the screen. It almost appears that they fall in love spontaneously, even though both of them have rather guarded personalities.

The pacing has similar problems. The more mundane parts seem to take a long time, while everything else moves too quickly.

The plot itself is nothing out of the ordinary either - character wants to make a wish, but realizes that they shouldn't at the last moment and turns back. The ending of this story does stand out as there are actual consequences.

In the end, I had a good time while watching the movie, but it's understandably not everyone's cup of tea - I'd recommend watching if you like bildungsroman stories.