It's Judgement Time!
- Joined
- Mar 8, 2005
- Messages
- 10,818
Last anime I recieved for X-mas. It was a fantastic title. A lot of previous reviews claimed how "awesome" the animation was. Well, dont go into it thinking it's going to wow you or anything. Im not complaining, I just like to bring it down to earth and not overexaggerate the details of an anime just because I happened to love it.
Anyway the animation is good but in a miyazaki kind of way. It's not as fluid as a high budget anime movie, even this series uses trade budgeting tactics in it's animation direction. But it certainly is better than newer stuff.
Enough about that. What I loved most about this series (which is only 12-13 episodes long.) is that it didnt hold back. The character art style might not be as dark or mature looking as you see in newer series but this story tells a more mature plot and doesnt hold back on that.
Characters will die, get beaten, and face extreme situations. The writers simply werent afraid to shoot a character or beat them. Which is what I like. It gives all characters a sense of mortality, that any one of them can die at any moment. So you begin to really grow concern over some of them.
I'm not such of big fan of Shu, the main character. He's your copy-paste japanese male lead. A boy who hates fighting and wants everyone to love each other. While his intentions are good, he goes about it like a complete moron. He doesnt stop to think about what others are going through, he just simply demands that they forget about their troubles and be happy.
Well, you know it's not always that easy "Shu". You have one character who is just trying to follow orders and do as he's told so he can live to go back home after the war. If he disobeyes or if someone in his team acts up, he is punished for it. They could die for treasonous acts. Then you have Shu acting like an idiot and almost getting those guys killed over his ideas of "everyone love each other!".
Shu just needs to learn to step back and think about the situation before acting on his morals and gut feelings.
Oh well though, the end was pretty climatic and dramatic.
The music is great, the art direction and style was memorable, and I loved the characters and the way everyone developed. The plot doesnt get tricky but the depth of the emotion does get deep. you can easily sympathize for a lot of characters and I can easily see myself agreeing with some of their actions though they are extreme.
I'm rambling though:
The story is about a japanese boy on his way home from schoo. He stops and sees a beautiful girl sitting on top of a really high factory smoke stack. So he climbs up there to talk to her. What happens next, takes Shu to a new world where a maniacal leader wants to rule the world and he needs this girl and her pendant to do so.
Standard stuff but the way it plays out is amazing and a must-have to anyones collection.
This is what Anime is about, not that hyper-psychadelicassaultonyoureyes bull **** of today with your fancy J-pop musics. (ok so it's not all that bad but still.)
Titles similar to Now and Then, Here and There are what brought me into anime in the first place. Shame I only just now got the title. It was a refreshing change of pace from the normal fare I've been watching lately.
The ending is pretty climatic and just about the only time I liked Shu. It sort of fades out but in a sad way. It doesnt captilize on the sadness or anything which has that feeling of "class" to it. It's as if the story doesnt want to force emotions onto you. It simply presents the story, the characters, and their emotions, and backs off leaving you to decide how you will feel about it. Where as other animes, if they want you to feel sad, they will shove all the sadest music, several minutes of fist clenching and tears all smothering the screen until you get the idea "we're supposed to be sad.. aww".
Not this anime, it backs off. It doesnt rub anything in your face (well, there is one character it likes to stress on, but that's understandable), and I love that.
It's definitely a 5 star anime, in my opinion. Beautiful anime from start to finish in all respects.
Anyway the animation is good but in a miyazaki kind of way. It's not as fluid as a high budget anime movie, even this series uses trade budgeting tactics in it's animation direction. But it certainly is better than newer stuff.
Enough about that. What I loved most about this series (which is only 12-13 episodes long.) is that it didnt hold back. The character art style might not be as dark or mature looking as you see in newer series but this story tells a more mature plot and doesnt hold back on that.
Characters will die, get beaten, and face extreme situations. The writers simply werent afraid to shoot a character or beat them. Which is what I like. It gives all characters a sense of mortality, that any one of them can die at any moment. So you begin to really grow concern over some of them.
I'm not such of big fan of Shu, the main character. He's your copy-paste japanese male lead. A boy who hates fighting and wants everyone to love each other. While his intentions are good, he goes about it like a complete moron. He doesnt stop to think about what others are going through, he just simply demands that they forget about their troubles and be happy.
Well, you know it's not always that easy "Shu". You have one character who is just trying to follow orders and do as he's told so he can live to go back home after the war. If he disobeyes or if someone in his team acts up, he is punished for it. They could die for treasonous acts. Then you have Shu acting like an idiot and almost getting those guys killed over his ideas of "everyone love each other!".
Shu just needs to learn to step back and think about the situation before acting on his morals and gut feelings.
Oh well though, the end was pretty climatic and dramatic.
The music is great, the art direction and style was memorable, and I loved the characters and the way everyone developed. The plot doesnt get tricky but the depth of the emotion does get deep. you can easily sympathize for a lot of characters and I can easily see myself agreeing with some of their actions though they are extreme.
I'm rambling though:
The story is about a japanese boy on his way home from schoo. He stops and sees a beautiful girl sitting on top of a really high factory smoke stack. So he climbs up there to talk to her. What happens next, takes Shu to a new world where a maniacal leader wants to rule the world and he needs this girl and her pendant to do so.
Standard stuff but the way it plays out is amazing and a must-have to anyones collection.
This is what Anime is about, not that hyper-psychadelicassaultonyoureyes bull **** of today with your fancy J-pop musics. (ok so it's not all that bad but still.)
Titles similar to Now and Then, Here and There are what brought me into anime in the first place. Shame I only just now got the title. It was a refreshing change of pace from the normal fare I've been watching lately.
The ending is pretty climatic and just about the only time I liked Shu. It sort of fades out but in a sad way. It doesnt captilize on the sadness or anything which has that feeling of "class" to it. It's as if the story doesnt want to force emotions onto you. It simply presents the story, the characters, and their emotions, and backs off leaving you to decide how you will feel about it. Where as other animes, if they want you to feel sad, they will shove all the sadest music, several minutes of fist clenching and tears all smothering the screen until you get the idea "we're supposed to be sad.. aww".
Not this anime, it backs off. It doesnt rub anything in your face (well, there is one character it likes to stress on, but that's understandable), and I love that.
It's definitely a 5 star anime, in my opinion. Beautiful anime from start to finish in all respects.
