Audience reviews
20 · Sample from the first available page, separate from the total number of ratings.
1stDecame4Danime
Generic elves, generic dragons, generic human-centric medieval fantasy European setting. Oh yeah, it's generic fantasy anime slop time.
How do you fuck up a generic Tolkienesque fantasy story this much?
The characters almost all lack any real characterization at any point in time: mother, child, childhood friend, soldier, elf, manbaby king, prince, royal guard, etc. These professions/positions are pretty much the most any of them get, no nuance beyond the main duo of MC and her kid whose characteristics at any point are at most pure soap of forced melodrama crybabies.
The characters are constantly flipflopping on their core values and motivations as if none of their characterization ever matters. Their core motivations will go from 1 absolute to the opposite in the very next scene with ze…
Read at the source1List2RuleThemAl
A tear-jerker, that's definitely over-hyped.
Sure I shed tears on the right cues, so I could've rated it higher, but the fact remains.. this anime is just average.
- Things aren't explained. Random events just happened. Stupid flying dragons suddenly turning red and dying, with no explanation. They don't even bother explaining much about the "EVIL EMPIRE" (people seem to be happy, was the empire even evil or not?).
- The loom nonsense is just a bunch of gobbledygook with elves (or "Iorph", whatever they wanna call Elves in this) being all depressive and child-like (can't have anime without sexualizing 5000 year old children). Only time anything with "loom" was interesting, was in the movie Wanted (2008), and it was because of the action, not because of fucking thread weaving skills of t…
Read at the sourceitstaking
Warning: SPOILERS
I don't think I can write a sincere review without spoiling some parts that irritated me. Yes, I can see why people would cry to this movie, but I'd only expect a handful of people to actually be overcome by emotions. Why? I didn't feel sad while watching this movie because most of the emotional interactions felt forced and botched. Not to mention that there is no depth to any of the characters, which makes their actions in the climax seem forced as well. An example is when Ariel comes home drunk and pushes his mom down. Trust me, there was some weird ass tension between them that almost made me think he had a thing for his mom. Not to mention the scene where Leilia tells Krim she can't go with him because she wants to see her fucking daughter? Then Krim dies like an irr…
Read at the sourceLixy
So let's get the obvious things out of the way. Yoshida's art was as gorgeous as ever, so was Kazuhiro's music direction. These two could turn even the worst story into a marvel to behold.
However, when you get used to the great animation, you start noticing the problems with this movie.
It started off decently, the setting was interesting, I was excited to learn more about the world. The coming-of-age and motherhood aspect of it all was compelling and well written. But at about midway through the movie, the actions of the characters stop making any sense and are basically written/taken to get the story going to lead to the grand finale.
The characters just give up on their ideals multiple time throughout the story.
But really, I am writing this review mainly to get to this one compl…
Read at the sourcePelsfaknfe
This will be a very in-depth review.
This is the greatest movie that I've ever watched. More objectively speaking, based purely on critical reasoning, there is much to discuss, but the beauty of this movie trumped all of that. I will begin a more critical review of all of its strengths and flaws, but first, let me give my experience.
I watched this movie alone, without anyone around me, without a worry for the time. Without this, I imagine my experience could have been different, as it's difficult for me and many to make themselves vulnerable outside of the safety and comfort of privacy. I cried. I, who haven't cried to any sort of media in a few years, cried in a way that I might have cried only a few times in my life. I cried until I literally ran out of tears. It was so beautiful a mo…
Read at the sourceSainel
I'll keep this short -- this movie was a huge let-down. The first quarter/half or so was at least fairly interesting and quickly took a downturn in the second act. If you want, you can stop reading here.
The characters pretty much all sucked, with motivations/thought processes that remained as uncompelling as they were transient -- meaning that not only did they not make sense, but they weren't consistent either.
The only truly interesting character was Krim, a side character who functions only as a punching bag for the story to push it's weird theme. Which is namely that...
The story seems to have no other theme than shoving in our face that motherhood is next to sainthood and that all we should care about is pumping out children.
The animation was really good, but the story didn't…
Read at the sourceLove_Story
[Warming Spoilers]
I went into this movie with high expectations, after all, it has incredibly high reviews and as of this review is the 21st highest ranked movie on MAL. While others seem to think this movie was incredible I for one was unable to be moved. I want to focus this review on the three main parts of the movie I found to be its downfall; characters, story, and pacing.
Characters:
This movie is at its heart a character drama dealing with the feelings of love and loss. Because of this it is incredibly important to write your characters in a way that makes them worthy of the audiences attention. This movie fails to do that. The main reason behind this in my opinion is lack of character development. Our main cast is never properly developed throughout this movies 115 minute run ti…
Read at the sourcethejonion
(Full disclosure: I did watch Maquia on an in-flight entertainment system. I strongly believe it had no impact on my overall impression of the movie, but who knows, maybe if I had gotten to see it in theaters I would feel differently about it than I do.)
Maquia is a disappointment. If you enjoyed the movie, by all means go ahead and enjoy it - but to me it lacks the space to really drive its narrative and themes home, and as a result characters who should be interesting and compelling come off one dimensional and occasionally annoying as the thematic resolution falls flat. First things foremost, though: I have absolutely nothing against Mari Okada or her work on this project. She has her fair share of haters and her style is not always my thing, but she does a fantastic job with what she…
Read at the sourceChaulilou
So before anything, I did put a 10/10 for this movie, which apparently seems to tick off a lot of people, and I exactly understand why, but I'll get to that later. Also, this is my first review on MAL, but please do not let that affect the way you feel about this review. So for those of you who just skim reviews, here is my overall opinion:
Maquia is a masterpiece and you should all watch it. Now for the detailed review:
-Story 10/10 : Given there is no cinematic composition, or even a script section in the review noting I assume this all falls under the story section. See, a lot of people I think have been put off by the way this anime was set up. By that, I mean the anime felt disconnected, like mere parts of Maquia's life put together, and due to the maturing of the characters, didn't…
Read at the sourceSabaisms
I haven’t watched anime in over a year and I wanted to revisit its form through a good entry point. There was a lot of social media buzz surrounding this movie. People on this site were giving it 9’s and 10’s and even one of my favorite musicians, Porter Robinson, tweeted about this movie and how good it was. And so, I selected this movie on a cozy Friday night with a bowl of soup and high expectations.
Wow. It is disappointing in countless aspects over the course of its two hour runtime. I am writing this review so that you can save yourself the time I wasted!
To say the least, disappointment started to creep in before the halfway mark had even hit. If you’re looking for a film that dives head-first into a deep, emotional, and realistic exploration of paternal ties, then forget this mo…
Read at the sourceSMGJohn
Review 22.11.2018: Sayonara no Asa ni Yakusoku no Hana wo Kazarou
"Every review is subjective, art is subjective your opinion may differ, never trust reviews to make the opinion for you, use them as a guide and make your own journey."
Maquia was one of the movies I wanted to watch after it was announced in 2017 because from the few PV’s and promotional videos we got it looked promising being an original work of P.A Works that have done many great works in the past.
However P.A Works are very often hit and miss, they either make something brilliant, or something very mediocre and after finally having the Blu-ray release of Maquia I was astonished how overrated it was by everyone and critiques alike.
Your opinion may vary but for me there serious issues within this movie that make it comp…
Read at the sourceBarasmin
Back when the first trailers dropped, I was pumped to watch this movie. The artwork looked so stunning, the premise felt original and full of potential. After waiting for half a year until it finally became available to watch, I have to say it didn’t live up to my hopes.
This review will contain marked sections with minor spoilers, mainly to illustrate certain points that contributed to the overall stale taste that the movie left in my mouth.
The story itself is pretty interesting. A clan of near immortal beings, weaving history into pieces of cloth. A neighboring empire that, when their power fades, tries to obtain that longevity to regain its foothold. A young girl, that gets caught up in that conflict, is driven from her home and has to find a new place to belong in an everchanging wor…
Read at the sourceKarhu
I saw this movie already few weeks ago, but I am posting my review for it delayed because for the first time in several years, I was lost in what to say.
*might contain light spoilers*
Let me start by giving some backstory information: I am huge fan of drama series, but unlike most people who consider themselves a fan of drama: I hate almost every drama that is being made today. No matter how highly praised the series and movies I watch are, they always end up disappointing me. Shallow teenagers cry in them for no reason whatsoever. Emotional depth is at near 0% if achieved at all. Story telling and characterization rely too much on spoon-feeding the feelings. The world building is miniscule since the sole point of the series is always just to offer some cheap tearjerking for those who…
Read at the sourceLegendAqua
Mari Okada is back and back with one of her best works she has ever done.
Sayonara no Asa ni Yakusoku no Hana wo Kazarou or Maquia: When the Promised Flower Blooms is a tapestry of the titular character Maquia voiced by Manaka Iwami, being a Iorph, a secret race of humans able to have longer lives than regular humans, when her village is found out by the forces of Mezarte and she flees, she encounters a baby and promises to protect the baby now named Ariel voiced by Miyu Irino. It's a tale of motherhood in all shapes and situations, a tale of what "immortality" does to someone be it good or not, it's a tale of partings.
Spoilers Ahead!
Maquia: When the Promised Flower Blooms' core themes and what Mari Okada utterly nailed is the shapes and situations of what motherhood is like and sure…
Read at the sourceSistine-Fibel
Seeing many of these 10/10 reviews and people saying they cried shocked me. I wondered if we had even seen the same movie. I, and seemly many who left the theatre did not leave angry; but we certainly were not raving about it being a masterpiece either. And in the whole theatre, only a single person cried. I overheard many conversations after the movie of it being "okay" and "a lot of stuff didn't make sense" and a few more criticisms. And I agree with them, this movie is no masterpiece. However, it is not bad either. So, here is my review
Story:5/10
Firstly, I find the plot to be all over the place, and it never seems to have enough time to focus on each 'arc' of the story. Due to this, we see a few time jumps that aren't explained and many many many coincidences throughout this animatio…
Read at the sourceDeost
Considering this is Mari Okada's debut it is amazing how it turned out to be. That being said I do think it has some flaws which I will get into, which was primarily the story and the characters.
Story: 9/10
The story is simple and executed greatly but not to perfection which is why I did not warrant it a 10/10. The war sub-plot just doesn't feel important enough. You could replace it with any other real-event conflict and you wouldn't change the overarching themes or characters too much. I think Mari Okada just bit off more than she could chew here. Apart from that, the story revolves around Maquia, her child, and her friends and her experience with the emotion love. It executes the themes of Motherhood beautifully with great story-telling elements such as the use of symbolism, juxtapos…
Read at the sourcecamacusjamacus
It's world building is done very well and very naturally and feels so legit and lived in. It's done in a way that's very show and don't tell which makes it so easy to fall into. It's a light fantasy setting, which is neat since you don't see that in anime very often. The CG is sparse but does kind of stand out, but still isn't the worst I've seen. There's some very nice animation on display here at times. The premise and some of the ideas I think that hey were going for are interesting, but the way it's presented is disjointed and some of the character actions confused me, which both hurt some of the intended dramatic emotional beats. On the whole I was conflicted but ultimately didn't like it.
Read at the sourceRanigad
Too often are we limited in our perspective to our current circumstances. It's truly a challenge to be able to step out of our shoes and view the world from a different perspective because, quite frankly, our perspective is the one we are most familiar with and the one we own. Our relationship with others are oftentimes influenced by this limited perspective as well. As a child, oftentimes you may be blind to the world at large, to the troubles and responsibilities of adulthood. Growing up, you may be blinded by your personal problems and challenges to see the efforts of and problems faced by those around you.
Similarly, in anime and manga we are often bound by a limited perspective. We oftentimes follow the protagonist through selective interesting snippets of their life story, we see pe…
Read at the sourcelunark
Let's start with the obvious: Yes I did give this movie a bold 10/10.
I wasn't sure how to feel about it so I watched it twice in cinemas in Japan with a one week cool-off period in between both viewing.
Honestly, the first time it simply blew me away and stayed in my head non stop for like 3-4 days. This is a heavy statement but it is indeed one of the best animated movies I've ever watched. The second watching was in order to try to find flaws and to focus a bit more on small details of the plot and the music.
Let's structure a bit the mess in my head, here goes:
Story:
Well, Mari Okada all right. She is known for her emotional stories and this one indeed enters the category just fiiiine!
The movie feels very long in a good way: The story, the world and places, the character develo…
Read at the sourcekitbikyuu
To start, I watched this in theaters in Japan.
The art for this series is fantastic. Backgrounds, buildings, and landscapes are all works of art. The characters, on the other hand, are not so great. I hope they improve them for the Blu-ray release.
The voice acting was pretty good, but there were a couple places that had me wondering how it passed pre-screening.
The story starts out kinda slow, kinda jumps to a bit of action, then slows again. There is a lot of character growth, and you do get attached to them.
Finally, this movie is an emotional rollercoaster. I usually don’t cry in movies, but this one had the whole theater (including me) crying at the end.
Overall, I would say it is worth seeing at least once, maybe even worth buying. But I can’t see myself going to watch it a seco…
Read at the source