I believe this is the first movie of the two, the second being titled Umie? But it's the second movie in order of release.
Note: I've been out of touch with anime and manga for years now, even though I loved it so much since childhood, yes, I was watching anime since I was 4 and my first one was Windaria, you can imagine how that fucked me up. But what greatest impact it had on me is that was my first tragic story I guess. Even if I did not understand it at all, but some of the imagery was burned into my memory. And as a grown-up I came in touch with BL as genre. I was reading a lot before I settled down on few autors that I may check from time to time. One of those authors is Kizu Natsuki, author of Given manga. I'm honestly happy for her success, she has distinct style of art and storytelling. This is why despite my detachment from anime overall I still kept coming back to finish the manga and also watched its' anime adaptation.
This is why we're here.
I don't see myself picking up anime again, but I see myself still supporting authors and their works that were with me for years and years.
Well, Hiiragi mix is obviously concentrated on Hiiragi and Shizusumi, who were part of Yuki's band when he was alive. I think it follows the part of the manga that also had "mix" in the title. I honestly forgot, my memory isn't that extensive.
Now that they're facing the fact that their own guitarist quit the band the borrow Uenoyama as temporary member. And now Uenoyama came closer to what Yuki's music sounded like.
Part of the movie is the part with Uenoyama finding out that there is a possibility for them to debut as Given band, but Mafuyu avoids this topic.
Another extensive part of it is of course about Hiiragi and Shizu, having a glimpse at their childhood, how they came together and became friends. How each of them copes with the loss of Yuki and how they treated their music from then on. And of course how one loves another secretly, but definitely have misunderstandings about each other. Shizu thinks that Hiiragi once loved Yuki too, but because Yuki was with Mafuyu he did not want to be a third wheel, but Hiiragi actually just idolized Yuki as a person and never wanted to be with him in that sense, he loved Shizu a lot, but it never came across.
Actually some of it is humorous and cute how they animated the interactions.
But I'll be honest, sometimes I find the inner monologues that mostly deliver all the inner thoughts of characters be very Japanese, it gives off the feeling of "I'm 14 and this is deep".
In general the production of this anime is great. I like that for years now the industry finally found the key to get BL to a bigger audience, they concentrate on the plot and skip anything explicit. And suddenly we have so many BL animes coming out.
The style is great, it follows the manga closely giving this story life in motion.
Still one thing that makes me lol a bit since the time when the anime series came out is the music. Music is the big part of this manga and the lives of these boys, but honestly it works so well in manga, but it does not have the same feeling in anime for me.
Simply because the manga and anime, which follows the plot, make you feel like Mafuyu has the most insane voice you can think about (judging by reactions of Uenoyama and others), but when it comes to singing it's just a generic voice actually. The same goes for this movie, they mulled so much about the demos that Yuki left unfinished and they have such intense reaction to it that I thought I'm going to hear something out of this world, but nope, it's the same generic sound that many bands have. The song may make it sound different, but the sound is so forgettable that it's painful. Maybe for boys it's meaningful, but otherwise they make me feel like I'm tone-deaf and don't understand music at all.
RATE: 8/10. In general it's a great story with laughter and sadness. And it's great they're doing projects like these.
Little Witch Academia is one of those animes I put on indefinite hold (literally been years) to return to them whenever the mood strikes, after all when I still have interest in them I choose to keep it for later, but it feels like I never get around them haha. There are animes I can put on hold, but eventually I lose interest in them and let go.
It doesn't mean that Little Witch Academia was some phenomenal watch, but just the theme of witches and a magic school was enticing and it looked fun. And I also watched the movie and that short episode that I believe appeared first.
But yesterday I simply made myself watch it instead of waiting for that ethereal mood to arrive.
Actually, it's a quite naive watch. Idealistic and naive. It's very simple when it comes to the theme, but it does execute the idea. From zero to hero kind of story. It's also interesting to find the revelations of the last episodes, maybe my favorite part outside of some characters' antics. That Akko's magic was taken away without her knowledge, but the person who took it actually gave her the best motivation and life and her life goals.
It's also nice to see that the final part and union was done between two girls that were opposing each other for the entire series, Akko and Diana, but whose goals could not be closer. I could imagine their couple would have gathered a following.
In general it was fun to watch, colorful and dynamic. Very much what Trigger studio would do. I had my own fun with a lot of ridiculous parts, almost like slapstick comedy. Must admit Sucy was my favorite, with her sharp delivery of facts and unmatching personality. Other parts of delivering cliche monologues for this type of story simply me laugh (what can I do, it's so idealistic and naive). I had to remind myself - I watch young kids. But honestly Akko and her firends did so much damage to the school during their time ahaha. It was as if I watch the kids not having sense of self-preservance at all.
Some parts were truly ridiculous if you think about them for a sec. Not like this show tries to be serious anyway.
I laughed a lot at the final scene where Croix was being escorted and the Headmaster says - You can return anytime. While Croix is solely responsible for the mess. And they act as if it doesn't matter. Tsk.
Ngl characters outside of the few main are quite shallow and one-sided.
The only thing to complain about is almost a direct depiction of the conflict between Ireland and GB, which is a real thing and shouldn't be a part of the whimsical witchy story in my opinion.
Oh yeah, forgot to mention that students of the all-boys school Appleton (?) appeared in clothes that appeared similar to you-know-who. Which was weird.
Two assassin partners who never let their target get away somehow end up taking in a four-year-old girl. The hot and cool buddies start a family life with this cute, innocent girl.
These assassins can handle any job with no problem, and yet, they find themselves struggling with this little girl. From feeding her to playing with her to taking her to and from nursery school, they're always rushing around. But no matter how crazy their life is, when they have a job, they can't turn it down. To further complicate things, the girl happens to be the secret love child of a heinous mafioso that they killed!
Is it really possible to live as assassins and parents at the same time? Can this temporary family find happiness?
Tbh unexpected found family anime. It's been a while since I last watched anime. And I just started watching this for fun, because it promised to be not serious. And indeed it was. The overall mood was on the verge of being annoying, because just imagine a small kid that runs around and causes chaos, for those with a short fuse it's going to be something. But is still genuine and loving and beaming kid, so you won't get truly mad at Miri. Parenting is hard. Sending love to all the parents.
Their situation is peculiar and it's actually interesting to watch (like their profession and the situation itself are so conflicting, but no one does a deep dive into this), of course it goes not without some drama. Anime and without a drama in the last couple of episodes? Doesn't exist. I feel like anime always tries to raise some questions, which isn't a bad thing at all. When I finished watching my thoughts were - oh, we're adding depth here, okay.
From two assassins to struggling dads. Taking care of the kid is noisy, but also is happy. A redemption arc for two wondering souls that have their own past.
The only part that I had questions about was [SPOILERS] when Kazuki ran into the scene where Miri's mom was shot and the killer was still inside, the guy had a gun in his hand, but didn't shoot? Did I miss something? If he had no bullets he wouldn't take it out, but they're face to face and it's a dangerous situation and he just let himself be wounded and dominated like a punk. That scene looked really weird.[/]
PS:You might think it's gay ahahah because of the title, but it's not, they're just partners in work, nothing else, but modern day language really makes you think something when you see the word daddy lol.
Haha lol it was bad. Let's talk about it and dissect.
Altered Carbon: Resleeved should be put in time prior to the first season of the TV show, timewise. But if you accept it as part of the universe it doesn't really work as things don't go hand in hand well due to inconsistency with the TV show.
Storyline: The movie opens with a chase of a young girl (but as we know a person whose consciousness been digitilized can be resleeved into a younger body, but let's go with the young girl) by several big guys in costumes. From details and later revelation they indeed are part fo a yakuza sydicate. During the chase the girl finally reaches her destination, a night club, surprisingly in this club there is a sleeves terminal and Takeshi Kovacs wakes up (conveniently) in this club. This sounds weird, but let it slide. As it happens the girl isn't chased only by a bunch of yakuza, but unknown men in red clothes who kill without a second thought. The place for Takeshi was chosen with precision, his target to find and protect is exactly this little girl.
We switch to the VR where Takeshi talks with his customer, somone named Tanaseda Hideki, who wants to investigate the strange death of his brother, saying that with his character it was impossible for him to sacrifice himself for the clan. Holly had a deal with him, as she wanted to leave the syndicate and seeked help from Hideki, but basically he did the opposite.
Note: It is really strange the Japanese dubbing and Takeshi calling Hideki "senpai", because what kind of senpai is he? Doesn't really follow the Takeshi script.
The timeline is revealed by Hideki, it's been a year since Envoy is no more and Reileen with Quell were dead (but of course before Takeshi was stored). Price for investigation: Hideki will help to deal with Harlan's World matter. And to get into Mizumoto syndicate Takeshi will use alias Ken and go inside with the use of this young girl - Holly. Holly is a tattoois for the syndicate (more about why her later).
Exiting VR Holly manages to escape, but is stopped by a woman who claims to be one of UN's CTAC called "Gena" and their aim is Mizumoto syndicate.
The trio along with a small unit of CTAC members is ambushed by people in red, who Takeshi calls 'ninja', but their fighting and aggressiveness is indeed similar.
Takeshi with Gena manage to defeat them and agree with the following, returning back to Mizumoto syndicate with Takeshi and Gena as bodyguards. Anyway Holly confesses that Shinji, who is in line of successing the syndicate is planning a coup and it is connected with the ceremony of succession.
Note: I have no idea why someone bought this story, because it sounds weird how a girl runs around the city, but then comes back as if nothing big happened. Not to mention no one investigated the people in red, as if it was not a big deal that your tattooist your need for your ritual is targeted.
Back in the syndicate, which resides in a huge effing hotel/headquarters "Wild Geese". A.I. running the hotel is called Ogai.
And here come the stereotypes, since when Takeshi is greeted with the incoming yakuza, one of them acts just the typical yakuza with all the attitude and "you showed disrespect so pay for it" that kind of thing. Which is pretty annoying to me. So here we have Shinji placing people in one of the best rooms.
But here comes the story of the ceremony everyone is talking about and which made the successing person want to coup the whole thing. Sounds weird don't you think? No worries, The ceremony is even weirder.
Every head of the syndicate has a tattoo done on his body, this tattoo is same as a special program that will be activated during succession and will completely kill the stack of the previous head, that means "real death". The only one who holds the technology is the tattooist (the dragon head tattoo on Holly's hand).
Note: No one finds it weird how they show a seemingly young girl tattoing adult men? Just me? Just look they have like entire bodies almost covered, front too.
When this ceremony was described I already had my opinion plumetted. But anyway, the background of it is that heads of the syndicate and people of the syndicate treat honor above all, they laid death as foundation and the ceremony was created not to make one person hold onto power forever. It is unknown who created this ceremony. Like.. yeah. Of course it didn't help. You created an entire ceremony just for that, wow you like rituals. Just blasting the stack with the gun is too crude. Anyway when Takeshi talks with Hideki, Hideki is doubtful of this fact, since he knew his father and that scum was too wicked to die for a code. It is obvious that Hideki left early (and created his own clan), since he has no idea what role the girl plays in all this. I'm amazed no one investigated it, it's not like it is a big secret, after all the succession is held among the whole syndicate virtually present and you could have just asked, as it happened later and revealed that Holly wasn't holding her first ceremony.
Anyway we switch to VR reliving the moment, it has the death of Holly's parents whose stacks she's looking for with Mizumoto's help. It is obvious that her dad might have been previous tattooist. It's not a theory, it was pretty obvious he was a threat to the mystery of the ceremony. And knowing Holly worked only to get parents' stacks, it is obvious why she herself stayed silent (yet, doesn't really fit well her stormy wish to get away and being resolute at the beginning, claiming she leaves).
Switching to Shinji he reprimands people in red. Wow, such a surprise that he is the one behind ppl in red. As if it wasn't obvious from before, since he is the one who wins most with Holly's death. But does he?
Note: I find his plan stupid. Holly is the only holder of the technology of that tattoo, means if she is dead then technology will be lost. Okay, what if you manage to kill Gonzo, but I doubt ppl of syndicate will calmly let you usurp power and spit on the code they honor so much.
It's funny how "Gena" walks around with the pass she got after killing a guy, but honestly not a single person or anyone is really concerned that a guy was killed. She gets info about Holly's parents. And here I must say. I feel weird how she acts like Mother Theresa towards Holly. I can understand her hate for yakuza for using children, Reileen had a past of her own, but her love and feelings were solely for Takeshi only, she is supposed to be dead for him right now, but they accidentally meet (she realizes it's him thanks to a nursery rhyme he sings, which sounds more like summoning a demon). Shouldn't her feelings be strong? Why would she care about anyone else? Anyway.
Again an assassination attempt by red guys. It's funny how Shinji uses red guys to kill his own men. This scene looked so sucked out of nowhere, the whole big group walks down the corridor, just because Holly will go see Genzo. One thing is for sure, which I haven't mentioned yet. The action is good. The only good thing about this animation are action scenes, they're jampacked, they're bloody, they're beautiful.
I laughed like mad when seeing that Takeshi was like - you either tell me about ceremony otherwise bye. So this is the moment when Holly talks about the secret behind tattoo. Conclusion they got from it: Shinji kills Holly and gets eternal power over syndicate... is this a fairy tale or what? CTAC with their unknown purpose tell Gena to return, kill Holly and that's it, they have enough on Mizumoto or Shinji and they don't care about the outcome.
So, this is the moment when Gena aka Reileen finds out that in front of her is her brother due to nursery rhyme he sings. And she decides not to kill Holly, but tell her the truth.
In VR while Takeshi talks with Hideki he mentions one detail about Genzo that triggers Hideki into frenzy and it becomes evident that the first Head (Hideki's father) didn't die. Takeshi finds prove to that since he finds the equipment for the transfer.
Shinji plans another ambush, but is outsmarted by Genzo with Holly helping him.
Here comes the ceremony, with the trio and Ogai on stage and countless people of syndicate vritually present as their public and witnesses. With Genzo dying, and Shinji being a successor. The ceremony is interrupted by Hideki in the audience who reveals that before them is no other but the first Head of the syndicate. Shinji's consciousness been long dead and he only transferred himself to a new sleeve. It is pretty obvious for the viewer due to the eyes of our villain. Shinji asks Ogai to disconnect everyone and proceed with the ceremony. he makes Holly complete the tattoo, but she wants to use this moment to kill Shinji but fails. Holly says that she is tired of killing.
Note: Now I wonder, there were only 3 heads in total, meaning she could have killed only two people in total, it feels obvious that Holly wasn't there for the first murder (it's assumption that her father was the one who witnessed and was killed for it). So her victims are obviously the previous head (Hideki's brother) and now Shinji.
Shinji makes her proceed and finish the ceremony, though I don't see the point number one. This follows the most "I conveniently carry around" scene. Holly confesses that Gena told her about her parents' death, which makes understandable why she helped Genzo to obtain Shinji's body and wanted to kill him next. Two stacks of Holly's parents were in the seem on katana he was holding. I howled WHY into universe at this point. Shinji smashes them both, which is a real death to stacks. Shinji is confronted by subordinates, whom he kills while wearing an armor. AGAIN. CONVENIENCE. Why armor is right behind the scenes. I wish I new.
Although he kills almost everyone, but he is actually stopped by Ogai, the one who received data on obvous soul transfer of the first Head, basically cheating and later of course Takeshi saves the day and manages to wound Shinji and later leave him with broken limbs. This part was also very unlike Takeshi, since he was like a cock who asked for a fist fight as "real men". The first Head with broken limbs asks for help and cries, Holly uses her power to activate the tattoo and slowly kill, but Hideki is the one who delivers the final bullet and delivers real death.
Gena aka Reileen sends fake report of Holly's death. Takeshi is taken by Hideki to work on other cases to which he agrees. And this is a very anime finale with Hideki basically cheating Takeshi it was not the only job he had for him. Basically going back on his word.
NOW. What was the point of this fuckery? Just to expand the universe? nah girl, it expands nothing. It basically has no story value, it's like going through a side quest. The story feels written on someone's knee, nto well thought through, the world is plain, motivation is bad, characters don't act like themselves etc. Now what I consider good points and bad points of it.
GOOD POINTS
The action is really good. It's fluid, there is a lot of it, it's bloody, it has aesthetic.
Although I'm no fan of CGI animation when it comes to anime, but this wild mix that looks like real movie, cgi and animation looked stylish. The only bad part were male bodies, so exaggerated.
BAD POINTS
Story sucks. It's flat. Backstory is underdeveloped that it sounds silly. It has many loopholes.
They take the TV show as the base (since TV show and the book are different in some key personalities), but don't really follow it and characters are quite OOC. Not to mention that everyone around acted not like ppl.
If you think that Holly, who obviously knew about the killings, would have shared this info outside...Yeah, then this anime wouldn't have happened, I understand.
Anyway, I don't consider this goo, action was good, but the rest is a poor excuse for a cash grab or something. Take example from Blade Runner Black Out 2022. This is an example like an insert animation should look like. But here it is a disaster and a poor addition to the existing universe. People who could have easily explored the info didn't do it, but knew about the girl. Everyon acted like blind people when attacks were inside the hotel. Like there is no suveillance at all as it seems. It was strange like Gonzo let Shinji to play for some time, though who knew if Shinji one day would just kill him. Takeshi was fooled at the end, but didn't do anything Tkeshi would do but agreed to play. Reileen didn't act herself. And so on and so forth. So many question.
RATE: 5/10. All stars are for action, story sucked too much to bother.
Starting from "Toki o Kakeru Shoujo" the name of Hosoda Mamoru resounded in the community of anime lovers. Hosoda stepped on a more serious arena of storytelling, but still kept his creations suited for the general audience. From then on once every few years the screens shine on the viewers with the new animation movie. It has distinct animation style and especially a story point that has become very much his thing. I call it "embrace the sadness". There is always a moment of sadness or tragedy that doesn't actually pull the person down to fall, but to pull and release for them to reach a new level. And it happened in all of his movies.
But we're here talking Summer Wars today.
The story of Summer Wars is relatively simple, a senpai at school asks one of the boys to accompany her to her hometown, the occasion is the birthday of the head of the family, her grandmother. She then tells a white lie that he is her boyfriend. During the night the boy receives a strange e-mail with a code and while almost being a math Olympiad representative from their country he solves it and send the answer back only to find out in the morning his own face on TV with accusation of breaking the main system everyone is using - Oz. As it turns his account was stolen and used for malicious attacks and the one doing it is an A.I. developed for hacking. It caused a true chaos in society. But what was most concerning was the stealth of truly important accounts that were responsible for national security etc. Kenji with the entire Jinouchi family then proceed to stabilaze Ueda and fight against the A.I. who stole Kenji's account.
The final scene is of Kenji cracking the code to change the missile's destination that headed right to their residence, but since he succeeded the final angle changed and the missile lands accurately in the fields with a high-pressure hot springs stream rushing out after the impact. The Jinouchi residence in tatters after the shock wave, but still alive and happy.
The story indeed has a lot of questionable points, but since it's young people movie forget about that.
'Embrace your sadness' moment to be pushed forward is - death of the head of the family.
The cause of it is malfunctioning of monitoring system due to hacking attack on Oz and not being able to give medical help in time. The passing not only pushes the family to grief, but also forward to get together and deal with the A.I. that might cause others' people passing that is suggested by Kenji.
It also brought back Wabisuke, the illegimate son of the husband to the current head, but who was brought up under the loving wing of hers, yet one who ran with the little money family had abroad just to earn it with the project he developed - the abovementioned A.I. In every of Hosoda's movie is a note of melancholy and sadness as a result of some sort of drama or tragedy happening, but it also becomes the character's motivation to move forward.
Really good and obvious point is about the family unity. Jinouchi is a big family that existed for several hundred years, judging by what was said they were once rich enough, but all businesses were lost in the hands of poor abilities (the late husband to the current head). So once rich family declined in assets, but not in family bond. Although declined financially, the head of the family still had connections, which gave a short glimpse of the past, how people were building this society and came together for greater good.
This was a really gratifying part of the movie as a whole. And a really positive part too. And in the end Kenji becoming part of this family becomes a happy thing, due to his own family situation being very much like many households, busy parents and their children left alone.
Ah damn, I still tear up the moment granny dies, she's so dope. But that is the thing in all Hosoda movies, we either live through someone's death or something close to that.
But. There is always a 'but' for me. These are just things that you don't really care about or maybe you notice them the first time, yet still they make you think - uh... And I'm talking about several questionable things. What a surprise from my side (no, it's not, it's a blatant irony): Oz as centralized network for every walk of life. It is pretty dangerous to see how services that are responsible for the water pressure for example are almost in the same aisle as enertainment etc. Not to mention that the A.I. locked out others from the system. And here I think come forward some parts that are under the question like: why there is no emergency to deal with that like.. manually? for example to get disconnected from the Oz and use iternal system. Sure thing it's not a thing for the false emergency calls, but when it comes to other systems, they're basically not protected. Not to mention the missile in the end. Same with traffic jams, have you ever seen a traffic regulator? Like there's a person with a baton that helps cars to move when traffic lights are nto available. If I develop into this further there'll be more questions, but since it's a movie for young people you are not allowed to question things, they are as they are :D Otherwise movie wouldn't have happened.
Generally, it's not that big of a deal, since this was not what movie tried to convey, sure thing this is a hole-y background, but it works for this story. And in general it is what it is - a nice entertaining story. And thank god it doesn't have a mother who has to let her son be let into the mountains, because he wants to become a guradian to the forest and live in wilderness, thanks for that.
