Why hello there anime fans you've seen alot of the films i've reviewed they've all been rather good haven't they well today i've done it i've found the one anime film that dares to be bad. I want you guys to know that when I posted I was reviewing this film I got alot of comments telling me how bad it was I really should have listened to those people so here is my review of Fireworks oh freaking joy.
Now at this point I would normally rant on about what I thought of the films story and give you a summery of the plot of film. Well this film wanted to be kind to me because it doesn't have one i'm not even kidding I watched the whole thing beginning to end and I have no idea what the heck the story is you might as well call this film stuff happens : the anime and it would make just as much sense.
Now since I got this film on DVD (it was a Christmas present) i'll be basing this review on the dubbed version of the movie. As such staring in the film is Brookyln Nelson as Nazuna Oikawa , Ryan Shanahan as Norimichi Shimada , Aaron Dalla VIlla as Yusuke Azumi , Julie Ann Taylor as Nazuna's mother , Laurie Hymes as Miura , Griffin Puatu as Junichi , Andrew Lent as Kazuhiro and Aiden Raheb as Minoru.
Guys and girls don't worry if you've not heard of these actors I haven't either and after there performances in this film I really don't want to. Just based of what i've just said you can take a guess as to what I thought about the acting because it's honestly not that bad the issue is however the cast aren't given anything to work with. None of the characters are interesting or even likable in fact the one word you can use to describe the characters is card board cut outs there all just card board cut outs who have no personality.
The animation for the film was done by Studio Shaft who have worked on shows such as March Comes in Like a Lion and Dance in the Vampire Bund among many others and they have worked on some films as well. So after all the bashing i've just given the film you'd think that I hated the animation well truth be told the animation is perhaps the best thing in the whole film and that really is saying something because the animation isn't that good but it's better then the acting and it's a damn sight better then the plot.
I'm not going to lie and say that the animation is perfect because it's not infact there are times where the animation just looks weird. A good example of that would be when the two main leads are at a train station and the girl is changing clothes for some reason the animation on her getting changed looks really weird and I don't know why that is.
In the UK this film is rated 15 which means no one under the age of fifteen can see it and for the life of me I have no idea why that is. Outside of the opening few scenes there's nothing in this film which screams a 15 rating and i'll admit when I first saw that rating on the cover I thought that this going to be a mature anime boy oh boy was I wrong.
In fact I think the only reason this film was given a 15 rating was because in the opening a group of friends talk about boobs and that's it. It's also due to that conversation that I think this film was made by horny forty year old men trying to connect with horny fourteen year old boys and so instead of focusing on making a great film they instead put all there focus on energy on a conversation about boobs.
I distinctly remember the trailer for this film and while it did hint at a romance angel for the film it didn't hint at a time travel element. That was one of two things that cought me of guard about the film (i'll talk about the other one soon) it comes out of know where it's not set up at all and due to the very nature of the film the time travel element plays no part on the story it's just there for the sake of being there and that was really annoying.
This movie is ninety minuets long this film should have only been thirty minuets long there's honestly nothing in this film which means it should be a feature length story. After I saw the film I went on to some streaming sites just to see what People were saying about the film and to my horror there was a few people giving this film a nine out of ten and I have to wonder did we watch the same film because the film I watched wasn't a nine out of ten i'm not going to say what it is because that'll ruin it but it's not that high.
Now then the other thing that really caught me of guard was the fact that for no reason what so ever this film decides to have a musical number in it. and just like the time travel element it adds nothing to the story. I'm not even kidding the main sings one song once and it's never brought up again for the rest of the film and i'm sat here thinking what's the point in having it in the final film you can just have the girl say she can sing and that scene would work just as well there's literally no need to have the song in the film at all.
Overall this film is trying to be many things and it fails at all of them even the romance angel which is set up from the beginning just doesn't work when you introduce the time travel element and the whole film falls apart when you make the main female character sing for no reason. So with all of that in mind the film is getting a 3 out of 10 from me.