You know, I like the concept of how strange foxes, take away the stuff that we have forgotten. The focus on memories in this movie had quite a few charms. Oh, if only it would have focused more on these themes!
Unfortunately, apart from that… we’ve got ourselves another “watch for the visuals”-movie. And what great visuals they are! It’s a shame that everything is in 3D (botox-faces!), but there’s still a ton of eye candy. The visuals bear a ton of imagination: while the script may suck, the animators at Production IG really threw their best effort into making the visuals as interesting as possible.
But dear god… the plot. Here’s a proposal for a drinking game: take a drink whenever this movie a) breaks obvious physics or b) inserts a plot-hole. You’ll be drunk in no-time. This pretty much is another movie about a kid (whose mother is dead, by the way) who gets transported to another world by accident. This isn’t that bad on itself, but everything just goes way too easy for our heroine. The creators pull really weird plot twists in order to just keep the plot going and make her feel special. There are a ton of things left unexplained that desperately need explanations, especially about the underground thieves: just about everything about these things just doesn’t make any sense.
I see this disturbing trend in Production IG’s movies and OVAs: this is their third in a month and a half that puts style above substance. What happened to the Production IG that was always wonderfully able to combine these two?
| Storytelling: | 4/10 – It may be a family movie, but that’s no excuse for so many plot-holes. |
| Characters: | 7/10 – Utterly bland side-cast. Lead character has her charms…. once in a while. |
| Production-Values: | 9/10 – 3D may be 3D, but the amount of ideas the creators put into it is impressive. Watch this movie for the visuals. |
| Setting: | 6/10 – Interesting ideas, but doesn’t use it enough and contradicts itself too often. |
Suggestions:
– Gin-Iro no Kami no Agito
– Brave Story
– Spirited Away
– Yobi The Five-Tailed Fox
