With having had a wonderful time last year watching Mamoru Hosoda's excellent Anima/Japanamtion film The Girl Who Leapt Through Time with a friend last year,I decided to go on a search around Amazon UK for a title which would hopefully have a similar style to Hosoda's movie.
After having to get past dozens of pages filled with "related" titles that were nothing at all like what I was after,I was thrilled to find a movie at the very end of the final page,which matched exactly what I was looking for,which led to me getting ready to discover the spirits of the past.
The plot:
Conducting a Genetic experiment on a forest so that tresses can survive in a harsher location,the leading scientist experiments sadly has unexpected side effects,which lead to the plants gaining conciseness and destroying a vast amount of the human population and also breaking the planet's moon into a million pieces.
300 years later:
Being left in ruins by the devastation caused by the plants,the surviving humans spilt into 2 groups,with the first group being a militaristic one which based itself in a burnt out industrial city called Ragna,whilst the second,most largest group of survivors decide to live in a city that they call "Neutral City",which is designed to grasp as much of the water that the plants allow them to,and to also calm the tensions of the residents in Ragna enough so that they don't set out on an all out war against the forest.
Playing around with a group of friends on Neutral City,Agito and Cain accidentally annoy the mysterious guardians of the forest called the Zruids,who decide to stop Agito and Cain from playing around any more,by pushing them into the little seen underbelly of the city.
Attempting to get out of the underbelly,Agito finds an old machine,which after Agito spends some time messing with the buttons for a while,releases a girl called Toola,who appears to have been asleep for over 300 years.Escaping just before the forest unleashes a deadly flood,Agito and Cain soon begin to discover that the awakening of Toola may be about to cause the ingredients which lead to the near destruction of the human race 300 years ago to become awakened.
View on the film:
Opening with quick,fascinating glimpses to events that caused the near end of the world,the screenplay by Nana Shiina,Naoko Kakimoto,Umanosuke Lida and John Burgmeier does very well at making sure that the after effects from the event are never made overly complex or given needlessly dry exposition.The writer's instead smartly decide to show everything from the ground level,which makes the burnt out world that the characters find themselves stuck in,one that is very easy to get an identifiable grip on to.
Whilst the screenplay does well at creating a sketch of the world with smooth brush strokes,the writer's sadly fail at building strong,cohesive plot threads for any of the character's,with the various residents of Neutral City and Ragna continuously changing views on if they should go to war with the forest,being one which is filled with character's switching from pro to anti that is not allowed any sense of depth or motive,which leads to the character's never truly becoming fully formed.
Despite the screenplay featuring a number of flaws which sadly take the shine off the movie,director Keiichi Sugiyama gives Studio Gonzo's debut film a dazzling stylish eye,with Suigiyama covering the movie in a terrific dark atmosphere by expertly using light to create shadows,which along with giving the hand drawn animation an eye catching appearance,also allows Keiichi to subtly show the dark motives laying behind the character's eye's.
Backed by a sharp original soundtrack and a smooth English dub,Keiich expertly uses a combination of traditional and CGI animation to give this post-apocalypse world a real dept of field vision,with Keiich making the fantastic hand drawn animation feel almost three dimensional ,thanks to Keiich using minimal CGI effects to show the revived destructive nature that is slowly growing,which could destroy the spirit of the survivors forever.
After having to get past dozens of pages filled with "related" titles that were nothing at all like what I was after,I was thrilled to find a movie at the very end of the final page,which matched exactly what I was looking for,which led to me getting ready to discover the spirits of the past.
The plot:
Conducting a Genetic experiment on a forest so that tresses can survive in a harsher location,the leading scientist experiments sadly has unexpected side effects,which lead to the plants gaining conciseness and destroying a vast amount of the human population and also breaking the planet's moon into a million pieces.
300 years later:
Being left in ruins by the devastation caused by the plants,the surviving humans spilt into 2 groups,with the first group being a militaristic one which based itself in a burnt out industrial city called Ragna,whilst the second,most largest group of survivors decide to live in a city that they call "Neutral City",which is designed to grasp as much of the water that the plants allow them to,and to also calm the tensions of the residents in Ragna enough so that they don't set out on an all out war against the forest.
Playing around with a group of friends on Neutral City,Agito and Cain accidentally annoy the mysterious guardians of the forest called the Zruids,who decide to stop Agito and Cain from playing around any more,by pushing them into the little seen underbelly of the city.
Attempting to get out of the underbelly,Agito finds an old machine,which after Agito spends some time messing with the buttons for a while,releases a girl called Toola,who appears to have been asleep for over 300 years.Escaping just before the forest unleashes a deadly flood,Agito and Cain soon begin to discover that the awakening of Toola may be about to cause the ingredients which lead to the near destruction of the human race 300 years ago to become awakened.
View on the film:
Opening with quick,fascinating glimpses to events that caused the near end of the world,the screenplay by Nana Shiina,Naoko Kakimoto,Umanosuke Lida and John Burgmeier does very well at making sure that the after effects from the event are never made overly complex or given needlessly dry exposition.The writer's instead smartly decide to show everything from the ground level,which makes the burnt out world that the characters find themselves stuck in,one that is very easy to get an identifiable grip on to.
Whilst the screenplay does well at creating a sketch of the world with smooth brush strokes,the writer's sadly fail at building strong,cohesive plot threads for any of the character's,with the various residents of Neutral City and Ragna continuously changing views on if they should go to war with the forest,being one which is filled with character's switching from pro to anti that is not allowed any sense of depth or motive,which leads to the character's never truly becoming fully formed.
Despite the screenplay featuring a number of flaws which sadly take the shine off the movie,director Keiichi Sugiyama gives Studio Gonzo's debut film a dazzling stylish eye,with Suigiyama covering the movie in a terrific dark atmosphere by expertly using light to create shadows,which along with giving the hand drawn animation an eye catching appearance,also allows Keiichi to subtly show the dark motives laying behind the character's eye's.
Backed by a sharp original soundtrack and a smooth English dub,Keiich expertly uses a combination of traditional and CGI animation to give this post-apocalypse world a real dept of field vision,with Keiich making the fantastic hand drawn animation feel almost three dimensional ,thanks to Keiich using minimal CGI effects to show the revived destructive nature that is slowly growing,which could destroy the spirit of the survivors forever.