It's rare for me to cry, feel heartbreak or to feel genuine emotion toward an anime film let alone find a dram in the anime category. This film is one of the best but unfortunately forgotten anime gems, but truest me once you see the film you'll never forget it.
One of the things I love about this film is it's documentary style, the cinematography and presentation. even though some aspects of the animation mainly in some gestures of the human characters seem a little dated it doesn't delude anything and after a while you do get use to it. But beside that the animation style I feel is great, from the way the humans are animated but most of all it's the backgrounds. The Detals of the buildings, vehicles, you name it it's there.
I'll admit something to you this film has one of the most horrifying, upsetting and unnerving scenes I've ever see in animation, when we see in graphic detail the bombing and all of the people it is destroying in it's wake. As well as the aftermath it left from people that are burned badly with flesh hanging in places looking like zombies (that wasn't a joke, it's a true fact) walking dying a slow death to the charred burned ruins of a city that was once flourishing and beautiful.
The facts of the history presented in the narration also make the emotional weight heavier and made me feel sicker because it's true. As my dad said more stupid things happen in war than smart things, when someone tells someone to go one way, even though logically they should go another.
The music is also good it has an end theme song that is one of the most beautiful if saddest songs I've ever heard. Other than that the true strength of the film is in it's character drama. Gen and his family are people that I can actually love, may'be due to the sense of familiarity they carry. Gen is a character that actually reminds me a little of myself when I was his age, whom was mischievous, borderline selfless and selfish, in his spirits, funny, and slightly mature for his age. The life style, activities they all do that basically is what the first 30 mins are composed of just regular things you would do and say in any peaceful neighborhood you live in. It was when it was all taken away and part of Gen's family died I appreciated those things as well as the same things I have a lot more because once their gone their gone forever.
We see Gen just struggling to keep his family composed of his mom and baby. Even though he may seem like his usual self, when things get hard we do see some emotional cracks from some of the powerlessness he suffers due to the bleak non fruitful conditions as well as dealing with the recent loss of his family.
However the film isn't all dark, things do get better due to Gen's unbreakable sense of hope. It's like with Andy from "The Shawshand Redemptions" it was the one thing that was keeping him, his family , and the people he's helped along the way alive, without it I doubt they would of made it. But despite all that there was one scene near the end that is one of the most heartbreaking scenes ever which broke my heart into a million pieces and made me cry.
Gen, his family and everyone else in that tragedy will live in my heart forever. Life always goes on even in the darkness of tragedy.
Rating: 4 stars
One of the things I love about this film is it's documentary style, the cinematography and presentation. even though some aspects of the animation mainly in some gestures of the human characters seem a little dated it doesn't delude anything and after a while you do get use to it. But beside that the animation style I feel is great, from the way the humans are animated but most of all it's the backgrounds. The Detals of the buildings, vehicles, you name it it's there.
I'll admit something to you this film has one of the most horrifying, upsetting and unnerving scenes I've ever see in animation, when we see in graphic detail the bombing and all of the people it is destroying in it's wake. As well as the aftermath it left from people that are burned badly with flesh hanging in places looking like zombies (that wasn't a joke, it's a true fact) walking dying a slow death to the charred burned ruins of a city that was once flourishing and beautiful.
The facts of the history presented in the narration also make the emotional weight heavier and made me feel sicker because it's true. As my dad said more stupid things happen in war than smart things, when someone tells someone to go one way, even though logically they should go another.
The music is also good it has an end theme song that is one of the most beautiful if saddest songs I've ever heard. Other than that the true strength of the film is in it's character drama. Gen and his family are people that I can actually love, may'be due to the sense of familiarity they carry. Gen is a character that actually reminds me a little of myself when I was his age, whom was mischievous, borderline selfless and selfish, in his spirits, funny, and slightly mature for his age. The life style, activities they all do that basically is what the first 30 mins are composed of just regular things you would do and say in any peaceful neighborhood you live in. It was when it was all taken away and part of Gen's family died I appreciated those things as well as the same things I have a lot more because once their gone their gone forever.
We see Gen just struggling to keep his family composed of his mom and baby. Even though he may seem like his usual self, when things get hard we do see some emotional cracks from some of the powerlessness he suffers due to the bleak non fruitful conditions as well as dealing with the recent loss of his family.
However the film isn't all dark, things do get better due to Gen's unbreakable sense of hope. It's like with Andy from "The Shawshand Redemptions" it was the one thing that was keeping him, his family , and the people he's helped along the way alive, without it I doubt they would of made it. But despite all that there was one scene near the end that is one of the most heartbreaking scenes ever which broke my heart into a million pieces and made me cry.
Gen, his family and everyone else in that tragedy will live in my heart forever. Life always goes on even in the darkness of tragedy.
Rating: 4 stars