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Kimi No Na Wa (the Movie)

7 years ago
Has anyone else seen this masterpiece? It succeeds at so many levels, it's phenomenal. The art, the sound, the story, the cinematography, the use of Japanese lore, it does so much so well. It's currently the highest earning anime movie ever, and the fourth highest earning movie in Japan ever, total Box Office collections worldwide at $328 Mn, despite the fact that it only came out last August.

Kimi No Na Wa (the Movie)

7 years ago

Minor spoilers, but I liked it. It had me scared the whole time that it was going to end on a depressing note, which made all the sweet little moments that much better.

Kimi No Na Wa (the Movie)

7 years ago
Yeah, it had extremely good pacing and kept you off balance over what was going to happen next

Kimi No Na Wa (the Movie)

7 years ago

It looks interesting. Now I must watch it. AHHGHGHGH You're distracting me from writing my entry!!!! T^T

Kimi No Na Wa (the Movie)

7 years ago
It's only 100 minutes... that may well change your appreciation of life (it succeeds on so many levels)

Kimi No Na Wa (the Movie)

7 years ago
Sounds like a decent bit of storytelling for an anime. I'll probably check this one out.

Kimi No Na Wa (the Movie)

7 years ago
I hope you haven't spoiled the story, a large part of the delight comes from not knowing what'll happen next. But there's so much to love - chekhov's guns done well, an eye for detail in everything, using modern Japan as part of the setting, the soundtrack and so much more. While Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood remains my favorite long-form animation (67 episodes at 20 minutes each or so), what this achieves in 100 minutes is nothing short of spectacular (which also makes it easy to recommend to newcomers).

Kimi No Na Wa (the Movie)

7 years ago
The only Anime I could sit through was Cowboy Bebop and things like Spirited Away , Kiki's delivery Service, and Mononoko.

Kimi No Na Wa (the Movie)

7 years ago

The storytelling is definitely on par with those. I mean, the visuals never get nearly as insane, but it's definitely up there with the good animes. It'll probably be as ubiquitous as some of those if the creator(s) keep doing movies like this consistently.

Kimi No Na Wa (the Movie)

7 years ago

Uh, not sure I agree with you on the visuals part. Makoto Shinkai always goes for overkill when it goes for visuals, and while they aren't 'artistic' as much as say Spirited Away, I'd rate the art on this above pretty much everything else, definitely significantly higher than Bebop.

At Berka: There's a lot of great anime content out there, personally I wasn't that much of a Bebop fan. I'd recommend (in rough order of preference) FMA: Brotherhood (head and shoulders above everything else on this list), Code Geass (the ending is a major payoff, both seasons), Steins;Gate, Clannad with After Story (the first season is fine, the After Story dials it all beyond 11), Psycho-Pass (first season only), Planetes, Shirobako, Hunter X Hunter (2011), Ghost in the Shell: SAC, Gurren Lagann (goes from a 7 to an 11 the moment Season 2 starts), No Game No Life, Attack on Titan, Spice and Wolf, Kill la Kill (pleasantly surprised by this one), One Punch Man. Note, that list contains a large variety of genres, so there's something for everyone.

In case you haven't seen it, Avatar: The Last Airbender is a paragon amongst Western animation, followed by a worthy but not outdoing follow series The Legend of Korra. For something more mature, Bojack Horseman is excellent, as is Rick and Morty.

Kimi No Na Wa (the Movie)

7 years ago

I never said it wasn't a beautiful movie. When I said Insane, I meant in the other ones, you see shit like turnip birds, tentacle lions, and flying space casinos.

This movie isn't like that. It's a very realistic movie, which is fine. Lots of supernatural sorts of movies have been made, which explore their concepts like this well enough. It's just that this movie is animated, which doesn't raise the standards at all (In fact, this movie actually sets the bar pretty high)  and the art in and of itself, while pretty, doesn't look necessarily inviting or intriguing by itself. It's captivating and visually powerful given the story it tells, which is very good. It doesn't need to be insane, because it's not inviting us into a new world. It's inviting us to a world much like our own, but with bigger eyeballs and psychic romance.

For illustrating that world, the art is perfect. But in an art-to-art faceoff, I'd have to disagree with you about Cowboy Bebop. If the art even can or should be compared on anything other than a technical level, (Which in itself is subjective enough) I don't think either one has quality over the other. (In fact, I'd lean on the side of Bebop sheerly because it creates an atmosphere on its own a little better than Kimi No Na Wa's does.) They both do their job well enough, but so much of what both of those art styles accomplish is also a part of the writing, the soundtrack, the voice acting, etc.

Kimi No Na Wa (the Movie)

7 years ago
That was an excellent analysis, and I enjoyed reading it. I'll maintain my stance on Kimi's art, and add the caveat that it only had 100 minutes to show us everything it had, which was mostly modern life - it didn't really have an atmosphere to create barring the mountain area and the cities, where it excelled. Bebop had 26 episodes and a movie to set up its theme and atmospherics, hence the unfair nature of comparison. That said, technical art goes to Kimi, hands down. Thematic art is harder to compare due to the different genres and content depth, but I'd lean towards Kimi again on this line, though I can see why someone would choose Bebop.

Kimi No Na Wa (the Movie)

7 years ago

It did have a thematic aspect to it, but for what it's worth, Bebop's art did a better job in less minutes than Kimi did, imho. It was futuristic and sleek, but also clunky, a little broken, and dirty. It was dark and gritty, but also comical at the same time. Stylized and anime-like, while at the same time subtly subverting and playing with those character and environment design tropes. Even though story-wise, it takes you a little longer to fully show you that you're about to witness a Cowboy Noir Wuxia Police Procedural Friends Sitcom dramedy (in space) the art style has a way of establishing all those things at the same time. You can pick out the story influences right off the bat from the clever design choices, making it an intriguing novelty and nostalgically familiar at the same time.

Kimi No Na Wa (the Movie)

7 years ago
Again, absolutely correct. However, I can say that the thematic scope in Kimi is limited by the differences in genre. Sci Fi gives you a gigantic palette of art styles, architecture, industrial design, medical research, and a lot of allied fields which you can tinker with and blend together to make a distinct setting. Modern life in Kimi has a much narrower palette, and despite that it nailed certain aspects like the two sisters doing the traditional dance at the temple, the weaving threads, the panorama shots, and more. All of those are mundane made magical by art, which is why I respect the direction that much more. If Kimi's team were to step into Sci-Fi, I'd love to revisit this discussion.

Kimi No Na Wa (the Movie)

7 years ago

That's definitely true, and we could probably argue in circles for days about how much more magical that could've been if it were as stylised as Bebop, or if Bebop were less stylized like Kimi. I'd point to an example of "realistic" stylization making realistic places/things magical, like Ridley Scott's Gladiator, or Zhang Yimou's Hero, but you could also argue that, since this is a cartoon, and not live-action characters in a stylized setting, going far into that direction would easily veer off into exaggeration/art film and not give it that same impact. Nebulous shit we're getting into here, we'll have to agree to disagree. xD

Kimi No Na Wa (the Movie)

7 years ago
More of agree that we have different perspectives that make sense in context, which I agree. Let's see what Kimi's team does next. This one had a lead time of two years, and the director felt that it wasn't enough, so it'll be a while till we can revisit this.

Kimi No Na Wa (the Movie)

7 years ago

Those are some remarkable credentials. 

US Release

6 years ago
To everyone stateside, Kimi No Na Wa is releasing in cinemas on the 7th, do see it if you can.