Luzes no Céu: Fireworks

This film tells the story of a school girl who finds a pretty transparent ball by the sea. She plans to run away from home to escape from her unhappy home, but her escape fails until her friend finds out the supernatural power that the transparent ball has.

"Fireworks, Should We See It from the Side or The Bottom?" is so different from what I thought. It is in fact not really about fireworks, but a science fiction story that is akin to the previous animation "Your Name". The story is sad, especially when I hear Nazuna's wailing cries, which are very depressing and spine chilling. I sympathise with her situation. Her plan to make money in Tokyo is even more upsetting, which indicates that her home situation must have been very bad.

The story is quite easy to understand, and is interesting. The Seiko Matsuda song that is sung in the tram is really beautiful, I should check it out. The very final scene is a bit puzzling, and is open to interpretation. I heard people discussing about it, which is a good sign because it means people liked it enough to talk about the film.

I believe this movie deserves a better score. I didn't quite understand it myself when I watched it for the first time, but I slowly digested it. The core of this story is "if" and "pity". We miss so many chances in our lives, we feel sorry, we regret, and we cry. This movie gives us a chance to catch all the "if"s and correct the unconscious mistakes. However we'll never be able to correct all the mistakes and we even make more new mistakes during this process. We feel empty and lonely. This is life, the mistakes and pity make life what it is. There's always beautiful scenery on the way besides the fireworks. When we become peaceful with life, we grow up.

I must admit I've watched amazingly executed animated films but this one unfortunately doesn't make the list. The story: It had a lot of potential but even though the story was okay, it had a lot of twists and turns that could've been taken just a tad slower, but overall it wasn't terrible.

The p.o.v's: In case you haven't watched it to me it felt like the perspectives were jumping from one character to another plus I think the movie experience would've been a little bit better if they added Nazuma's perspective, since it felt like her point of view in this was basically missing.

Character development: Personally these characters felt pretty undeveloped if I could get at least some more insight on why the mc really liked the girl so much, and maybe a little more information on the little ball instead of it remaining a mystery

"Leave it to the imagination": Throughout the beginning when trying to figure out how the ball ended up there, to the end trying to figure out why the two weren't in class. I've seen other movies do this before but for a movie that had such great potential had a bad time trying to do this in my personal experience.

Overall: 6/10

Despite the baffling title, Fireworks, should we see if from the side or bottom? is very much a simplistic tale about two young star- crossed lovers with a magical gimmick thrown into the narrative. Though it's essentially a remake of a 50-minute live-action TV movie made in 1993 by Shunji Iwai (Love Letter), fans of last year's megahit, Your Name will be curious to check this one out.

Norimichi (Masaki Suda from Gintama) and Yusuke (Mamoru Miyano) are two best friends who both developed a crush on their classmate, Nazuna (Suzu Hirose from Let's Go, Jets!). With the intention of eloping with the one she loves on the night of the annual fireworks festival, Nazuna has quietly chosen Norimichi to be the fateful one. However, Nazuna's plan is thwarted by her mother and Yusuke until Norimichi figured out the only way to escape is to make use of the strange orb which Nazuna has picked up from the beach earlier.

Last summer, Makoto Shinkai's hit body-swapping, time-travelling animebrought a new viewing experience especially to non-anime fans. Your Name was funny, throughlyengaging from start to finish and utterly touching. No doubt, Fireworks attempt to embark on the same formula though this time, the narrative is tedious, repetitive and mostly frustrating to last a mere 90 minutes.

The title refers to a running gag by Norimichi and his group of class buddies, a pointless argument about whether fireworks are round or flat when see from the side. It's very much a side gag just like the one about their form teacher's bust and her underground relationship with a fellow colleague. The gist of the story revolves around Nazuna, the torn teenager who refused to move to a new place with her mother who is remarrying for the third time.

The strange magical orb is an unexplained gimmick or device to allow Norimichi to relive the day with Nazuna else there wouldn't be much of a story to tell. By throwing the orb into the air, Norimichi is able to turn back time and changed their ending. The time spent with Norimichi and Nazuna however happened to be the most meaningful aspect of the anime as we get to learn more about the struggle and backstory of Nazuna, an angst teenager who dreams of leaving her current state to be a pop idol and wondering if she is following in her mother's shoes as she eloped with Norimichi.

Unfortunately, the narrative makes little effort to delve more into it and instead of giving the story a more rounded emotion feel, the anime is contend in delivering outstanding visual and breathtaking effects and colours especially during the fireworks climax. It's definitely a good thing for SHAFT Studio which is renowned for their acclaimed technicalities though not anyone will appreciate the blending of 3D objects and traditional 2D animation.

After two recent satisfying animes, Your Name and A Silent Voice, Fireworks turned out unexpectedly to be a huge disappointment. Suzu Hirose is pefect as the voice of Nazuna, Masaki Suda on the other hand sounds way mature for a junior high student. I for one have no problem with the sometimes photo-realistic often visually striking animation and the mesmerizing theme song by DAOKO. It's the somewhat disjointed and unfulfilled message that disappoints.

First off, the animation is absolutely beautiful and if it weren't for a few seconds of really terrible CGI I'd say that the animation would be perfect. The music was also nice.

With that being said the film was so boring, and melodramatic, and dull, and just a complete waste of time. Which is sad being the story seemed kind of interesting. The exacution of the story however was poor. Skip this film and watch Your Name or The Girl Who Lept Through Time instead.