Introduction:
“Maboroshi” is a movie that is in animation, on which Mari Okada and Seimei Kidokoro are the original creators and MAPPA studio is the animator. The original movie to which the game is a plot sequel focuses on the characters of Masamune Kikuri and Mutsumi Sagami, high school students who have all grown up in the town of Mifuse where time has ceased to be active after being brought to a halt by an explosion in a factory. Living their poor lives as separated people they meet a wild child, showing them their identities and the principle of love and murder.
Release Date:
The album was “Maboroshi” and was released in Japan on 28 January 2024. This film is currently available on Netflix with English subtitles therefore, access to this film may not pose any big problem to many people across different international regions.
Crew:
| Role | Name(s) |
|---|---|
| Director | Mari Okada |
| Producer | Manabu Otsuka |
| Music Director | Masaru Yokoyama |
| Story Writer | Mari Okada |
| Screenplay | Mari Okada |
| Editor | Ayumu Takahashi |
Cast:
| Actor/Actress | Character Name |
|---|---|
| Akimune Kikuiri | Koji Seto, Robbie Daymond |
| Masamune Kikuiri | Junya Enoki, Max Mittelman |
| Atsumi Sagami | Reina Ueda, Jeannie Tirado |
| Atsushi Nitta | Tasuku Hatanaka, David Errigo Jr |
| Itsumi | Misaki Kuno |
| Reina Yasumi | Yukiyo Fujii |
| Tokimune Kikuiri | Kento Hayashi |
| Daisuke Sasakura | Taku Yashiro |
| Yūko Sonobe | Ayaka Saitō |
| Hina Hara | Maki Kawase |
| Yasunari Semba | Daiki Kobayashi |
| Mamoru Sagami | Setsuji Satō |
Story:
They are unable to grow old as with the people of Mifuse the factory was destroyed and they do not know a change of seasons. It is the idol anime of Masamune, an A-class artist, and Mutsumi, a girl who is commanded to take care of an extraordinary girl called Itsumi, the protagonist of the series: and depicts the severe, hard life of two main characters in the world covered with ice. With this, the problems of identification, characters, and the very nature of existence turn into a theme with time. Smoke coming out of the factory looks like an actual dragon, which is added to create more mystery and help audiences wonder what lies in the town’s history.
Review:
animated movie ‘Maboroshi’ an artwork by Mari Okada is a depiction of the life of a teenager and loneliness that has been depicted by the director in the storyline which is derived from the dream. The topic of the anime involves the beautiful town of Mifuse in which all the citizens are frozen in waiting for a chance to revive their deaths in a factory explosion where only two teenage characters from the anime remain alive, those are Masamune and Atsumi. By examining the mechanics that define the existence of this rather surreal state of being, they move through the stages of emotion and connection, and meet a wild girl, all of which add to their experiences.
All the same, there is awful character speed and pacing and the storyline is also very ill-organized for this spectacular animation work. The main complaints regarding the book have been that it jumps from one subject to another and has unrealistic allegiances that somehow eclipse the story. As “Maboroshi” tries to involve the audience by using its high concept coupled with stunning visuals, it falters to offer a viewer much by way of a proper narrative and thus leaves a viewer wanting more beyond the look of things. I believe it can be a visually stimulating experience, but there aren’t sufficient narrative incentives to draw people into events.
Positives:
- Stunning Animation: The animation is excellent with fine characterization and similarly well-drawn and well-coloured backgrounds that plunge the film into the dreamscape of the movie.
- Thought-provoking Themes: The movie gives the audience food for thought as far as other aspects of the movie such as time, life and life itself are concerned.
- Memorable Characters: Masamune and Mutsumi two main characters are believable and human, their primary features are vices, and the main accent is made on their growth.
Negatives:
- Pacing Issues: This in a way I suppose is a disadvantage of the film since some scenes are slow and can put some viewers to sleep most of the time.
- Convoluted Plot: A complicated plot becomes the viewer’s main problem, to solve which in the framework of the film is to be identified the cause of the town’s freezing.
- Underdeveloped Supporting Characters: The only significant limitation of the book is that, and despite having major characters with complex characterizations giving them enough depth, some of the supporting characters seem too ordinary, too generic to be convincing.
Technical Aspects:
- Animation: The action in the story is rather weak in “Maboroshi”, but the appearance of the characters is drawn carefully, having fine references to motifs and ideas of the movie, and nice and unbearably active colours and sparks.
- Cinematography: The cinematography of the film is noteworthy and the shot-making and the techniques used for getting reflections do provide depth and character to the movie.
- Music: Ichizô Seo, the movie’s composer, also supports the film’s emotional prologue and is insistent on setting the feeling of sadness.
Performances:
The voice acting is good enough especially on the main seiyuu where Jun’ya Enoki for the protagonist Masamune, and Reina Ueda is Mutsumi. However, though the chemistry and the acting of feelings participate in solving the question of realism when it seems that the film is filled with magic, it is.
Moviepoptime Review:
On account of quite an inspiring idea and magnificent visuals, this film succumbs to what I’d like to refer to as ‘anime perverted.’ I’m sure you’ll find this brand of perversion in artsy western films that I’ve never seen, but it has been the main reason why I wouldn’t introduce anime to more people. The examples I’m thinking about are the love interest showing her underwear to the main character and turning on the cold shoulder, the friend continually leering at the girls around them and the classic, ‘wolf girl’ with no justifiable reason for her behaviour at the start of the story. Presenting all these factors on hold, the characters and the plot are quite near to the promise.
Not only did I feel like there were pieces of the main character that I should have wanted to like, but by the end I couldn’t, or perhaps more to the point didn’t need to. His whole personality is the stupid “wants to draw” and the beautiful “like a girl.” As is traditional with any director’s self-insert character, he is more or less of the same calibre as the shading of every other animation director. While having something nuanced with the concept of the living corpses of a town trying to struggle with the idea of nothingness, this movie just does not do it correctly at all.
Conclusion:
And “Maboroshi” presents the beautiful anime and, for a while, or at least for several minutes, makes viewers recall the existence of people in the world. It is not a work of cinema that is without flaw, with effective pacing and a rather complex plot at that, however, the film’s strength in character development, its visuals along its themes are more than enough to satisfy the target demographic of the audience that anime appeals to. It will also be relevant to note that similar to the play, the movie concludes with a question which in itself presents to the audience time, love and the chase for life.
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