Rewatched with James on 2025-04-09
A very very interesting movie. I’m a little bit mixed about how I feel about it but i love it nonetheless.
More than anything, the premise completely caught me off guard. This movie is definitely up there with Your Name and Suzume in terms of how creatively the story unwraps. I mean, come on! An entire town perpetually trapped in an alternate dimension, who’s construct is held together by smoke wolf gods coming out of a steel factory of all things!!
I went in expecting a freaking high school romance, not an urban fantasy with a world this fascinating.
My sour tones are the usual short comings that come with young love stories and fantasy plotlines that leave far too much in the viewers interpretation. There are so many questions that I have about what the hell is happening that, from an initial viewing, are seemingly never meant to be answered. Sometimes, the romance leans a bit too naive for my taste. But man, the emotional beats hit hard, they had my heart racing and my curiosity peaked in anticipation of what happens next all the time.
Then there’s the freaking animation. Mappa sure pulled all the shots with this one. Every frame looks like a masterpiece, and the soundtrack blends perfectly. Even the ending theme? Absolute peak. I’ve already listened to that song more than 5 times consecutively since finishing the movie and I’m still not sick of it.