Audience reviews
20 · Sample from the first available page, separate from the total number of ratings.
tyler_dbz
Modest heroes has amazing visuals and sound throughout each film but falls flat on making conclusions to the interesting premises that they present.
I'd love to see more from the staff that have worked on these stories as there's some really interesting pieces of animation shown throughout. but that's all I'm really going to remember from this film. The stories didn't have enough going on for me to really remember them. In fact, I don't think I am going to remember these stories within a few days. There was no narrative pay off from these stories and I think it's due to how short they are. they need more to them to really leave an impact.
Watch this film to turn your brain off and watch some pretty colours. Don't expect much more.
Read at the sourceSobornost
Chiisana Eiyuu is a collection of animated shorts, featuring a different director, visual style, and story. All three are connected by the theme of different characters being “everyday heroes”.
The first, Kanini and Kanino, is about a family of crab-like faeries. The mother has gone off to give birth, leaving a father to care for two siblings, a girl and a boy. The animation has a Ghibli-like charm, and the fish are rendered in 3D, giving them some menace. However, there is no dialogue as such – characters speak only their names, like weird, Ghibli-crab pokemon. Though the emotions of the characters are well-conveyed despite this limitation, it’s easy to feel detached from what’s happening.
Kanini and Kanino feels like an eighty or ninety minute movie compressed down to eighteen minutes,…
Read at the sourceMidniteAndBeyond
WOW. Simply. WOW. This is a collection of three short stories, all from the same studio but with completely different creators behind them, and every single one of them was absolutely phenomenal. All of them had a completely different and gorgeous art style, entirely different setting, music, "world rules", everything. They were all completely unique but all equally impressive. I'd be just as impressed if I had just seen one of these on its own. But seeing three masterpieces back to back like this was exceptionally enjoyable. I'd gladly be first in line to see this studio do something like this again. It said "Volume 1" when the title appeared, so I'm hoping more than ever that I get to be amazed and impressed by this studio all over again in the future.
10/10
Read at the sourceTinyTabun
I don't understand the low reviews. I found these shorts adorable, heartfelt, well-animated, and full of life with the limited time granted. I particularly loved the design of the crab characters from the first episode, the invisible man from the last, and the fact that almost no words were needed in either to create a moving piece of work. I'd highly recommend to anyone that likes heartfelt shorts.
While none of the stories are particularly unique, that's a big part of the charm. The art style varies from story to story and I found it especially fitting. The only story I found a bit lacking was the middle one.
Read at the sourceDigiCat
This was one of the stupidest things i've ever watched
For starters the whole thing tries way way too hard to be emotional, starting with the hypermelodramatic first part
Kaniini to Kaniino:
Super melodramatic music accompanying a dialogue made up exclusively of... the characters names
This isn't something impossible to make work, but it is extreamly difficult to pull off, and Modest Heroes did not in the slightest, annoying AF is the only thing it pulled off
Samurai Egg:
This one was the nail in the coffin that absolutely made my blood boil
An entire episode feturing a mom panicking and fearmongering about food allergies, congratulations you just glorified the most unhealthy and destructive coping mechanism in the universe, and no the insanity does not end there, this mom is so deep int…
Read at the sourceHaruHaruMon
It’s somewhat hard to rate an anthology altogether, especially one like this with no interconnectivity between each story.
So, here’s a short review and scoring for each of the three stories!
Kanini & Kanino—a cute fantasy family story. Lovely animation, and adorable characters, but very predictable and hits all the story beats that you would expect. I enjoyed the world and am sad that the short runtime meant we didn’t get to see much of it. Overall, whilst I wouldn’t say it did anything wrong, it wasn’t very impactful in the end. 7/10
Life Ain’t Gonna Lose—as a slice of life fan, I very much enjoyed this one. Just focusing on the struggles of a mother and her son who had a severe egg allergy in a world where most things have eggs in them. It sort of made me thing about how difficult that…
Read at the sourcerobert788
Chiisana Eiyuu: Kani to Tamago to Toumei Ningen (2018)
A classic example of putting too much into the trailer(s). The trailer(s) also had the best of the music.
3 independent stories showcasing, great right? yes, they are good but they also lack any sort of greatness. The second one is especially emotional but then that 20 seconds of emotion cannot make up for the rest of the episode. The last one ends in a really stupid way and the first one was a bit meh.
The animation styles of all 3 are different and are pretty well done just nothing to tell home about for a showcase you expect the best.
The sound in the trailer(s) was much better than the show with exception of the second episode during the main scene of emotion.
Characters are underdeveloped due to length but you can get by.…
Read at the source2life
Modest Heroes is a 53 minute movie about 3 short stories. These shorts are beautifully animated and each carry a raw emotional power with them. I thoroughly enjoyed the movie and I would recommend you to watch it as well.
The animation is insanely good. The movements feel alive, the CGI is superb and best of all, the scenery is amazing. Each short boast an impressive amount of details as well as a natural feeling. Looking at each scene give you the impression of immersion while keeping it as simple as possible.
The movements act with stretched lines and exaggerated body movements which makes it lively and smooth to look at (I forgot the animation technique). This is close to anime like Redline or Gurren Lagann. An impressive feat is that you can “feel” the weight behind each action.
The…
Read at the source000_Asyl
This 53 minute film is already a short film in itself, but it encompasses another 3 shorts, each of 14 or 15 minutes.
They are very simple and full of energy, not at all tiring to watch, and with great 2D animation. The scenarios are very neat, and the details are very characteristic, in all 3 shorts.
Each of these shorts has a different animation format and this gives more identity to each of them, contextualizing that they are different stories, but that in the end they are there for a single purpose.
Even the CG animation of the fish in the first short, plays very well with the whole atmosphere and the outfit, so it's really cool to see.
The soundtrack even gives you an incredible sense of immersion within each story presented in this film, even if it is not memorable and easily ide…
Read at the sourceNikusuu
So I recently watched a movie named "Modest Heroes" and I'm pleasantly surprised. Before I start with my review of the movie, I should say, that Studio Ponoc, which made this movie, was completely unknown for me until I decided to watch this movie. Also I should say, that this is no ordinary movie, you're used to, because this movie is only like 55 minutes long and is made out of three short movies of lenght from 10 - 15 minutes. Every movie is, how the title of the movie hints, about heroism. But it's not about typical universe saving heroes, but more about normal "everyday heroes". However, let's get to the movie(s).
First movie short named "Kanini and Kanino" (Directed by Hiromasa Yonebayashi) tells a story of two crab siblings, whose mother went to a surface to give a birth. And only…
Read at the sourcePrawin_28
Modest Heroes is a 53-minute long movie composed of 3 short films from Studio Ponoc, these shorts are more about Studio Ponoc showing their potential and aptitude for great animation while still providing small stories with passable story arcs.
Kanini & Kanino:
The character design and their setup were very intriguing. There is no dialogue and the characters are only able to say each other's names. I'm a fan of silent films and think that when used properly, they can be more powerful than dialogue, coupled with a world that piques your interest only to fall flat, makes for a bad combo. -SPOILER- I really thought the mother character 'Kaka' died from one of those big fish, which reminded me of Finding Nemo but, it seems that she just went to give birth. Which then begs the question, why wo…
Read at the sourcelethargilistic
Kanini & Kanino:
Nice backgrounds. Story was shit. The gimmick of characters only saying each others' names can work, but this ain't it chief.
The CG water effects clashed so badly with the backgrounds that my heart ached to see it.
Life Ain't Gonna Lose:
Feeling curmudgeonly about this one. I never got invested in either the kid's plight nor the mother's (such as it was). The tragedy of this one comes from how normal and everyday this dangerous situation is, but that doesn't make it automatically gripping. It's got to have something else. And this just didn't.
The art was mostly fine, but I didn't like the soft modern look here. I know I've enjoyed the style in other stuff, and this is making me wonder what I was thinking before.
Invisible:
This is the best of the three in "Modest…
Read at the sourceSammstar
I just saw it and found a set of works intriguing. For me, the level of the stories goes up over the course of the three shorts. I will give my opinion on each one. (Spoilers maybe)
1. "Kanini e Kanino" - I think it started well, but over the course of history it has become somewhat confusing, having so many events grouped together, children who seem not to have, and it is not well explained about them, or why the mother of children simply rise to the pregnant surface, or why children who would be aquatic beings managed to get to the surface so fully. In addition to the aspects of the story, the combination of 3D and 2D to a certain extent is cool and acceptable, as the scenario has a more realistic style, while people are drawings, but I think it ended when the fish appeared! Why was the…
Read at the sourceVimu_Riyuga
Very good concept. There is 3 story in this movie. every story is different type of story, got their own style and it's unique.
The author did a very good job. Showed us some stories about different sides how terrible the life can become and how they fight for it.
the art was good too. Sound system was excellent. Nd those characters was perfect.
I really enjoy it. I really enjoy it overall.
showed us different and new stuff. Hoe two kids survived with their father, how a kid who got problems with eggs. he can even die by just touch of an egg. He survived it, The last story which is my most favorite story. An invisible man no one can see him but he still survived and still surviving, Even tho it was tooo tough.
Read at the source11chadwick
Modest Heroes consists of three shorts aimed at children. The first short is about two brothers braving the dangers of the river to save their father from a fish. It is a straightforward story that children will enjoy and adults will not be too interest by. The second short is about a boy that is allergic to eggs. This has more application to adult life because it shows how the mother must change her lifestyle for the safety of her son, and it shows how there could be any number of unknown threats with such a common food as egg. The best short is about an invisible man who is both physically invisible and socially invisible. It is my favourite anime short because of how it handles this premise. The art style is not smooth and fluffy nor sharp and edgy, and has a particular aesthetic, helpe…
Read at the sourceJoshimatsoo
This anthology film isn't tied together with any particularly inventive meta narrative like some others out there, but like classics such as Robot Carnival, its collection of stories have one aspect in common: their themes. And as you may have been able to ascertain by the title of the film, that theme happens to be the concept of "modest heroes." Everyday people, some average and some not so much, who make sacrifices and acts of heroism both big and small. This can range from a young boy simply trying to not let an egg allergy get the best of him (in "Life Ain't Gonna Lose") to an invisible man ("Invisible") striving to find his place in a world that doesn't even acknowledge his existence.
Hiromasa Yonebayashi, director of Arrietty, Marnie and Mary, directs the first segment of two crab-…
Read at the sourceThe_Psychiatrist
Appearance and technicality is not everything in an anime : These 3 short movies produced by the Studio Ponoc seems more a beautiful technical demonstration of the studio pure animation capabilities than real narrative works, in-depth reflections or compelling/original stories.
The first one is a mildly fantastic family friendly scenario with superficial events, classic stereotypes and extremely predictable outcomes.
The second one is an ordinary slice of life story about allergy.
The last one which seems at first the most original of the three was obviously inspired by John Carpenter's version of the Invisible Man and ends up in an ordinary fashion instead of bending to the mystical symbolism or spiritual side (which would have been more interesting to my opinion).
Therefore, everythi…
Read at the sourceBaba_Zone1
Modest Heroes is 3 shorts film by the newly formed studio Ponoc, former Ghibli employees. These 3 shorts films give us a much better indication of how Ponoc films are going to be different from Ghibli. I first have to say some sad news if your wondering ( probably not) why is this film so short like it doesn't even reach an hour all together well sadly this was supposed to have a 4 short film directed from the legendary late Isao Takahata for a personal reason or to give these new directors more exposure. Also got to give credit to Yoshiaki Nishimura the producer and is the only reason why this studio was formed giving these animators a chance to show off their abilities.
1st Short directed by Hiromasa Yonebayashi definitely the most established director out of the 3 directing two films…
Read at the sourceJTurner
MODEST HEROES, a 53-minute (yes, that's how long it is) animated feature which is actually three fifteen-minute featurettes in one program, is the second animated release from Studio Ponoc. Founded in 2015, the fledging studio found success nationwide with their first feature, the charming if derivative MARY AND THE WITCH'S FLOWER. That film, handled by Hiromasa Yonebayashi and many other former animators at Studio Ghibli (who temporarily closed in 2014 but thankfully reopened recently), was more of a crowd-pleaser and technically more of a "Best of Ghibli" kind of showcase. MODEST HEROES, on the other hand, is something quite different, and may actually be all the better because of it. This "package film" (a term borrowed from the 1940's Disney releases MAKE MINE MUSIC, FUN & FANCY FREE,…
Read at the sourceLightQuill
"Chiisana Eiyuu: Kani to Tamago to Toumei Ningen (Modest Heroes)" is Studio Ponac's second movie project after their debut film, "Mary to Majo no Hana (Mary and the Witch's Flower)". The film is a collection of three non sequential shorts that each tell a unique story about a heroic character and his or her respective journey. "Modest Heroes" is obviously not going to beat "Mary and the Witch's Flower", but it's still an enjoyable watch and it did certainly kept me interested the whole way through.
Short One: "Kanini & Kanino"
"Kanini & Kanino" surrounds the tale of two crab siblings whose life of living underwater becomes drastically different when their pregnant mother goes to the surface to give birth, leaving only their father to protect them from the dangers of the river. One night,…
Read at the source