Saturday, December 03, 2022

JFF 2022: Anime Supremacy movie review

 


I chose this movie because Yoshioka Riho and Ono Machiko were in it and it is a movie about anime.

WHAT IS IT ABOUT?

Yoshioka Riho plays Saito Hitomi who is a newbie director directing her first anime series Soundback. She quit her government job to be involved in the anime industry because she watched this anime by this director Oji Chiharu. Hitomi's anime Soundback is going to go up against Oji's anime Liddel Light.

Anime Supremacy is a movie about two directors Saito and Oji who are going up against each other for ratings supremacy and trying to create the best anime they can. If you enjoy watching a team of people work together to achieve something beautiful ala The Great Passage than this show is for you.


THE GOOD

+ Anime Supremacy is a love letter to anime. While Atom no Ko is a too mainstream jdorama with gaming elements, Anime Supremacy feels like it was made for anime fans first.

+ Love the hidden jokes for anime fans such as 'my father never hit me' line which I don't think anyone got.

+ Anime Supremacy is a feel good movie about the magic and wonder of anime and plenty of emotional payoffs in the story.

+ I love all the behind the scenes stuff from promotions to seiyuu to storyboards and lighting. I like shows about jobs that we don't normally see when they get all the little details right. Its the little details that make the story and characters feel real.

+ The sub story of this famous animator and her quest for reajuu is a nice distraction from the two main characters but ties back to the themes of the main story which is is there a difference between otaku and reajuu?

THE BAD

- The only bad thing is Nakamura Tomoya is a bit too young to be the director Oji but he is the right person in terms of acting. Can't think of should play it but a young Furuta Arata would perfect.


SUMMARY

Very satisfying and must watch love letter to anime. Very well done and I love all the emotional payoffs. Looks like someone just uploaded a rip to avistaz.

1 comment:

Rick said...

It shouldn't surprise us that behind the magic and romance of anime is a typically Japanese workaholic corporate world, where the cynical mercenary higher-ups, mercurial creatives, and ruthless producers duke it out. The plot is driven by the race for ratings between two production teams, like a typical sports movie/anime, and while the production process is interesting, it's hardly enough to fuel a movie. See the anime Shirobako for another account.
As it drives towards the climax, artistic integrity overtakes the crass wish to win, and in its service the whole team finally pulls together. This whole movie is secondary to the anime world at its core, and necessarily the climax itself has to be provided by the two anime series' final scenes, rather than the conflict between the various humans, who we can't really care about because we don't know them, other than the FL director's fairly sketchy childhood story (we've seen this before in other videos about anime e.g. Juuhan Shuttai!)..