And now comes the part where I offer a full disclosure. It took me a long time to get through this film. I started it half a dozen times, and it took me at least 4 sittings to finish it completely. I believe this is because while I am a fan of all things anime and all things fantasy and science-fiction, this specific story did not resonate with me. Even so, I was very fond of all the characters. I love how they were performed by the voice actors, I love how they were drawn and I absolutely love the way that each character interacts with all the others.
The characters in this film are so well developed that I found myself laughing during many of the conversations, sometimes because the banter was clever and funny, while other times it was because the characters were so charming and so damn relatable.
So if I love the characters so much, why was I not moved by the story? I guess I just didn’t like the situation that the characters have been placed in. Give me some Kaiju. Give me a post-apocalyptic world. Give me zombies or vampires or…well you get the idea. Instead, these superb and completely fleshed out characters find themselves in a film about a cocky teen who has a crush on an older woman, who coincidentally can make penguins materialize into thin air. Such a strange premise. Also quick side note: while I like boobs just as much as the rest of you do…I don’t think that was a particularly interesting subplot. The film could have been completely ok without being so focused on them.
I would very much like to see all of these same characters in a completely different movie with completely different circumstances and a completely different thing at stake.
Maybe it’s not the film, maybe it’s my old ass.
For fans of Young Adult coming of age stories and anime.
