The Other Side of Animation 291: DEEMO: Memorial keys Review

(If you like what you see, you can go to camseyeview.biz to see more of my work on video game reviews, editorials, lists, Kickstarters, developer interviews, and review/talk about animated films. If you would like, consider contributing to my Patreon at patreon.com/camseyeview. It would help support my work, and keep the website up. Thanks for checking out my work, and I hope you like this review!)

Since 2019, there has been a small uptick in how video game adaptations have been handled. Instead of being the biggest burning money pits, the mostly positive reviews and receptions to projects like Detective Pikachu, the live-action Sonic films, Dragon Age: Absolution, DOTA: Dragon’s Blood, as well as the upcoming Mario movie cause me to think that maybe we are slowly and steadily heading into a realm where we don’t have to dread these productions anymore. Even the world of animation suffers from this situation, where the adaptations of famous and not-so-popular video games are inconsistent in quality. For every anime adaptation of a mobile game that succeeds like Princess Connect: Redive, we get 15 that fail and or miss the point. So, where does Deemo: Memorial Keys stand in terms of animation adaptations? 

This is based on the rhythm game by Rayark. It’s directed by Shuhei Matsushita, written by Junichi Fujisaku, and Bun’O Fijisawa, and produced by a collaboration between Production I.G. and Signal M.D. We focus on a young girl named Alice, dubbed by Anairis Quinones. She has lost her memory and is now stuck in an unknown world. That being said, she is not alone. Alongside her is a whimsical cast of characters that include the titular DEEMO, a mysterious entity that plays the piano every night.

Let’s talk about what may be the thing that will probably hold a lot of viewers back while watching this film, the animation. It’s pretty obvious that due to how rigid the movements are, a lot of the CGI is motion-captures, and the jittery look of the CGI models with smaller movements gives an uncanny valley feel to the characters in the film. It’s not Ex-Arm levels of bad motion capture since they did enough to smooth everything out to the best of their abilities, but it sure doesn’t look as good as something from Studio Orange or look as good as some of the recent CGI films from Japan like Lupin III The First or The First Slam Dunk. But with those two, they are franchises that were able to get the best CGI animation tools and teams around. It undercuts its visuals with this underwhelming CGI, due to how the film wants you to be enthralled in this mysterious place that our lead is in. It’s unfortunately drab looking. 

I hate talking about the visuals of this film, because they really do show how hollow the story comes off. It’s meant to be this fantastical take on finding connection and dealing with grief and loss. It’s trying to be this emotionally touching story about this girl’s journey of what I just listed in the previous sentence, but due to how floating and flat much of the world and the characters are, it only makes those issues stand out more. There also doesn’t seem to be a lot there in the overall execution of the plot. The characters are all uninteresting, and you can probably guess what will happen and what the twists will be. There are some decent moments where everything works, and when it’s letting the music and atmosphere do their trick, the film gives this ominous and otherworldly feel. Because DEEMO himself doesn’t talk gives you a feeling of what is behind the individuals’ intentions. The big problem is that there is very little going on in this film. It has story beats, but for a film that’s only 90 mins long, it drags the pacing out and then relies on you to be connected from beat to beat. It wants to run on emotional and fairy tale logic, but doesn’t go the distance to go all the way with said logic. It’s as if it has heard about films that do this, but didn’t go the distance. Who knows?. Maybe this film was meant to promote the game and be a tech demo for the music for the game. The 2D visual pieces during the ending credits are lush and beautiful. I just wish the CGI translated the designs well. There is a universe out there where DEEMO: Memorial Keys has a truly out there Fantasia-like experience, but we can only judge what we get here with the film’s visual and musical presentation. 

To be fair, the music is fantastic. The piano ballads are on point as they have these beautiful orchestrations that are the highlight of the movie. The composers for the film were Yoshichika Kuriyama, Shiho Terada, Kaho Suzuki, and Yu Sonoda, though the main theme was composed by Yuki Kaijura who worked on shows like Demon Slayer, Sword Art Online, Madoka Magika, and Noir. Without having played the game, these tunes were extremely catchy. Well, when you are based on a rhythm game that’s made to line up, or well, originally line up to release alongside the game, you should have killer music. The voice cast is small, but full of talented dub actors including Anairis Quinones, Bryce Pappenbrook, Mike Pollock, Stephanie Sheh, Luci Christian, and Michelle Marie. They do their best to work with the clunky dialogue. 

Some people assume that all animated features from Japan and other parts of the world are great, just because they are not made by Hollywood. It’s an extremely bad take that rings hollow, when no matter where you go, whether it’s budget is small or big, films of all levels of quality are going to be made everywhere. The film has a lot going for it, but it fumbles the execution by being a hollow experience based on a game that is made to sell the game. It’s a shame, because if it had a bit more polish and focus on its story, or went “all in’ on a symphonic experience, it could be something special. Sadly, that isn’t the case, so what we got is a film that falls flat in the story department. Still, it’s nice to see the film gain a bigger audience by getting a US release. if you are curious about this film, it will be coming to blu-ray and digital soon. For now, we will be diving into a multitude of different animated films from around the world and on streaming services. You will just have to wait and see what unfolds. 

Rating: Lackluster

The Other Side of Animation 290: Sword Art Online Progressive: Scherzo of Deep Night Review

(If you like what you see, you can go to camseyeview.biz to see more of my work on video game reviews, editorials, lists, Kickstarters, developer interviews, and review/talk about animated films. If you would like, consider contributing to my Patreon at patreon.com/camseyeview. It would help support my work, and keep the website up. Thanks for checking out my work, and I hope you like this review!)

Well, here we are back again with the Sword Art Online Progressive films. Well, you would hope with sequels that they would improve, build upon, and make up for any faults or flaws that the original had, or find a creative way to continue the story from the original film. That sadly isn’t always the case, as we have found out, with the retreads that don’t do enough to be worthy of following up the first film. A lot of anime franchise films have that issue due to a multitude of reasons, and it’s a shame because some have moments of greatness, but then feel like they were made because the first one made money. Of course, when a film hits it big, studios want to capitalize on it with similar experiences or follow-ups, but when you don’t take the time to take in why the original film was a success, then all you will be doing is hurting the original. Not that the original is going anywhere, but it’s more metaphorically hurting the original. With Sword Art Online, the least you can do is be better than the main original series, and with the Progressive films seeing how successful the Evangelion Rebuild films were, you know that they want to follow in that vein, but appeal to fans of the original series while also catering to new ones. Hopefully, with all that synergy, they will go out and check out the first film or the original show, and buy the blu-rays, games, soundtracks, and what have you. So, where does this new film land after following up the last one? 

Sword Art Online Progressive: Scherzo of Deep Night is directed by Ayako Kono, written by Yukito Kizawa, produced by A-1 Pictures, and distributed by Crunchyroll and Aniplex. We follow our gamer couple Kirito and Asuna as a month has passed since the first film’s story ended. We see them teaming up with another player named Argo, dubbed by Kimberly Ann Campbell. On top of trying to start and build up a thriving community among the players, they get caught up in a conflict caused by two guilds who want to take on the next raid floor to get a special item. With the future of the game’s world and players in the hands of what or who takes down the next boss, it is up to our two leads to stop a war from breaking out and also deal with a handful of players who get their kicks by killing other players. As a reminder, if you die in the game, you die in real life. 

Let’s get this out of the way first, this film does skip over Argo’s real introduction to the story after the last film teased their arrival from the last film. It’s underwhelming that for newcomers, it’s a bit jarring to see them interacting with this new character who has some ties with our male lead, who we haven’t been properly introduced to, and yet the film isn’t really interested in that. This is all about Asuna’s side of the story, but they set the story to a point that’s already set them up as friends with this individual. It’s like I missed an entire film or short that showed our characters meeting this new individual and how she just vanishes right after they beat the main threat of this film’s story, the boss on the 5th level. What’s frustrating is that the film creates some rather fascinating and interesting story beats that include the budding beginning of building a society of peace where all the players help one another and don’t try to kill one another. Obviously there are hiccups, and for some moments, the film does follow through with wanting those beats to be the focus of the story. It also introduces the element of how some MMOs have players who take joy in being player killers, but that doesn’t fully come back until the end as well. It’s pretty much the final conflict in the last 10 minutes of the film, and will be foreshadowing for future events. It’s a very lopsided story that doesn’t feel satisfying to be a part of, and the fact the film repeats not only moments from the original story but also the last film, it makes for a real downer of a journey into this popular franchise’s world. 

Now, they do have some good story beats. It’s not all just squandered and missed opportunities. For once, while still having to pop up as the secondary lead, Kirito is not the focus of the story as it puts Asuna more in the spotlight. Her moments when she reunites with her ex best friend and her bonding time with Argo are the best parts of the movie. It really does show how much better this franchise would have been if she was the lead and not the template for boring male protagonists for franchises to come. Once again, A-1 Pictures put in the budget for the action sequences, and while I was not really on the same level as the story wanted me to be, the action sequences are well executed, thrilling, and show off some fun spectacle. The animation overall is still pretty good in general, even if it just looks like a more polished version of the original show. They do combine the CGI elements well with the 2D assets and they feel cohesive. That is very hard to pull off unless you have a team that knows exactly what they are doing with the compositing, and making the overall visuals look good on the same screen. The voice cast is as good as expected with Bryce Papenbrook and Cherami leigh reprising their roles of the iconic duo from the franchise. We also get Derek Stephen Prince, Patrick Seitz, Arnairis Quinones, Howard Wang, Amanda lee, Bill Butts, AJ Beckles, Xander Mobus, Alejandro Saab, Yong Yea, Griffin Puatu, and as already mentioned Kimberly Ann Campbell. The music is once again great as it brings this fun celtic Dot Hack vibe to the overall world and it’s all thanks to Yuki Kajiura who also composed music for Fena Pirate princess, The Case Study of Vanitas, Erased to name a few shows they worked on. 

With this new sequel repeating similar story beats from the last film, still continuing to readapt certain tiring story beats and aspects from the anime, skipping entire story beats just to get to a certain point, and truly falling flat in terms of overall satisfying storytelling with the obvious catch that there will be a new one coming out soon, Scherzo of Deep Night falls flat as a follow-up. It makes you wonder why they couldn’t have just rebuilt everything from the ground up instead of just retreading tracks, but with a slightly different paint job. It shows the faults of readapting a first season’s storyline that wasn’t all that great or lacks great storytelling when you are willing to skip over more possibly interesting story beats. Like, yeah, fans of this franchise will love this film, but most fans aren’t thinking critically about the shows/films they are partaking in. They just want to see more media from their favorite franchises, and that’s fine, but after a bit it gets tiring to just see something made for a fanbase that isn’t looking for something better. Maybe they are, and maybe they will agree with this review and others calling out this franchise’s faulty storytelling, but at one point, they should be taking this opportunity of being able to retell the storyline that will sooner or later hit some rather problematic points and just give it something new. I mean, the only reason this film series is getting made is because of the popularity and financial success Evangelion had with the Rebuild Films. If you love the franchise and just want to see more of the same, then so be it. Go check this film out if you want to, and I hope you have a good time! Otherwise, hopefully Crunchyroll or GKIDS will bring over that First Slam Dunk or Blue Giant film or some other interesting Japanese-animated fare that we all should be watching. Now then, next time, we will be tackling something. Not entirely sure what will be written first, but we will be talking about animation once more. 

Rating: Lackluster

The Other Side of Animation 276: Drifting Home Review

(If you like what you see, you can go to camseyeview.biz to see more of my work on video game reviews, editorials, lists, Kickstarters, developer interviews, and review/talk about animated films. If you would like, consider contributing to my Patreon at patreon.com/camseyeview. It would help support my work, and keep the website up. Thanks for checking out my work, and I hope you like this review!)

Studio Colorido has been a rather surprising animation studio that has put out an eclectic resume of work. From short films and net animations, to working on major properties like Pokemon, they have put their name down as a quality animation studio. Even their film releases have mostly been good. Granted, I prefer Penguin Highway over A Whisker Away, but not every film is going to be a home run for studios. Every animation studio in Japan’s animation industry is going to have a dud and a hit and it’s never going to be 100% consistent. Still, a studio like MAPPA, Science Saru, and Colorido has the clout to make an announcement and you make sure you see it, because they are crafting journeys like Drifting Home for Netflix, and it’s a real gem you should all check out. 

Directed by Hiroyasu Ishida, the film is co-written by Ishida, Hayashi Mori, and Minaka Sakamoto. It stars a group of six kids. They are Kosuke Kumagai, dubbed by Bryce Papenbrook, Natsume Touchi, dubbed by Cassandra Morris, Taishi Koiwai, dubbed by Alex Cazares, Yuzuru Tachibana, dubbed by Ben Diskin, Reina Hama, dubbed by Abby Trott, and Juri Ando, dubbed by Cherami Leigh. As they venture around an old abandoned apartment building that is soon to be torn down, they all end up getting caught in a shift in scenery and location as the apartment building they are on is swiftly sent into the ocean along with them. As they try to find out the situation and what to do about it exactly, they also encounter a boy who may or may not be a ghost named Noppo, dubbed by Elliot Fletcher. Can our group of kids find a way back home while discovering what their friendship and/or relationships mean to one another? 

Do you know those old 80s/90s kids’ films that didn’t do well, but became cult classics and beloved childhood favorites? This is a modern-day take on those types of movies where a bunch of kids are the main focus, and we follow them through their journey on a metaphorical and literal memory of a giant building. A majority of the film is the kids traversing the open sea and checking out other buildings that are floating in the water, looking for food and reminiscing about the relationship each other shares. Now, while this film is at two hours, there are multiple points where they show montages of the kids interacting with one another and growing as individuals. It’s a coming-of-age story about kids who encounter themes of found family, loss, and memories first, and then an adventure film second. Sure, some characters show more growth than others, but the ones that get the focus make sense. It’s an intensely touching story that, while stumbling in how it handles its drama in the third act with how repetitive it gets, when it hits the right emotional note, it can be a real punch into the emotions. What this review is saying is that Its heart is in the right place. 

The film’s animation is more or less what you would and should expect from the talented artists at Colorido. They have always had a knack for having more expressive characters than most studios are willing or able to go the distance with how emotional the characters are on screen. It’s a studio with a distinct style, which is needed nowadays in order to stand out. Still, the combination of character animation, lush colors, beautiful backgrounds, and how it’s able to mix in 2D and CGI with relative ease makes this a gorgeous movie to look at. It takes its time to have moments where you can feel enthralled in the environment around our leads, and absorb the emotional headspace they are in when the story calls for them to have some kind of revelation or epiphany about what exactly is going on with them. It doesn’t hurt either that the cast is great. As mentioned above, you have a fantastic English dub cast of Bryce Papenbrook, Cassandra Lee Morris, Elliot Fletcher, Benjamin Diskin, Abby Trott, Cherami Leigh, and a surprise appearance of John DiMaggio, which is surreal. Not that it’s weird to see DiMaggio in anime dubs because he used to dub a lot of anime back in the day, but to see him again after so long being in mostly US-based animation is just great. Returning from composing the music from Penguin Highway is composer Umitaro Abe, and he brings a magical and adventurous vibe to the soundtrack. I mean, when you are a group of kids that are going across the high seas on a giant building, well, it should be fun and fanciful. 

While a touch too unevenly paced at two hours, Drifting Home is a charming journey a ton of kids take through memories about family, friendship, and dealing with loss and change. It could have balanced out its drama better, but it’s still a compelling and enjoyable ride with Studio Colorido’s distinct and colorful animation style, while also including a cast of likable child characters and a complex story about found family and caring for one another. It might not be as good as the director’s previous film Penguin Highway, but Drifting Home is a stellar experience that anyone looking for good Japanese-animated films to watch should absolutely check out. Now then, next time we will be looking at yet another Netflix exclusive, so be on the lookout for what it is! 

Rating: Go See It!

The Other Side of Animation 247: Sword Art Online Progressive: Aria of a Starless Night Review

Heads up: I was able to watch this film before its recent release via a screener sent to me by Funimation. I got no other form of monetization other than the screener. Thank you, Funimation.

Sword Art Online is one of the most popular and depending on your own personal viewpoint on the franchise, one of the most infamous. And to be clear, it’s infamous among anime fans and not something you would hear outside of anime fans. It’s one of the most profitable franchises around, and is a punchline for being popular and profitable. Granted, a lot of the franchise is not well-written or well-made, but hey, if people enjoy it, so be it. Just don’t be malicious or toxic about loving or hating it. Anyway, you know what also made a lot of money and got a ton of acclaim? The Evangelion Rebuild films. Do you know what industry took note of that? The anime industry. You know what franchise is attempting to do what the Evangelion Rebuild films did to the Evangelion franchise? Sword Art Online! Sure, most franchises do recap films, but Rebuild is different, as it is telling the overall story in a different way. Will Sword Art Online The Movie – Progressive: Aria of a Starless Night do the same? We will have to see. Oh, and before any of you hardcore fans of the franchise get at this review, yes, this is technically a film version of the light novels of the same Progressive name, but since they are essentially a retelling of the original story that expands upon some things, the film is pretty much doing that with recapping the story up to a certain point of the original experience. So, yeah, still a recap film. 

Directed by Ayako Kono, written by Reiki Kawahara, and produced by A1 Pictures, this film retells the story arc of the first floor within the VRMMO Sword Art Online. Our main story for this first film, however, follows Asuna Yuuki, dubbed by Cherami Leigh. She’s an honor student who loves to spend time with her friend Misumi Tozawa, dubbed by Anairis Quinones. One day, Asuna decides to log on to the newly released Sword Art Online, and ends up discovering that her friend Misumi is in the game as well! Sadly, the discovery comes at a cost as every player logged on to the game can now not log out. The game’s apparent creator arrives and explains that he has made sure no one can leave, and if they try to log out and take off the VR helmet, it will fry their brains and kill them. Everyone is now stuck in the game and is tasked with beating the entire game and the main world’s dungeons. The only other catch is if you die in the game, you supposedly die in real life. Can Asuna make it to the top with her friend? Who is this mysterious insert male power fantasy character they run into? What’s his story? 

So, if they were going to go the route of the recap/Rebuild-style retelling of the anime, where do you start? For the first half, they went with building up Asuna and her friendship with Misumi. It’s rather impressive to see a show that is known for not having the best characters in anime, taking its time to really build up the friendship, the betrayal, and the heartbreak between these two. Most recap anime try to get through as much of the show as possible. Usually, they tend to cover the first major arc of the show and then call it a day. They sacrifice the smaller character moments so they can get to the big moments that you all know and love, but hopefully have some of that theatrical animation budget to make them all look good. By the time the first major shift in Asuna and Misumi’s relationship happens, you are heartbroken with what happens, and that helps drive a little bit more of the drama. It’s been a hot minute since I’ve seen the original series, but the film definitely shifts the focus away from the franchise’s male lead Kirito, to Asuna, and it’s for the better. They pretty much make Kirito the side secondary character until the first major raid/the third act when he sadly steals the driver’s seat and takes over the film. 

The problem with making male power fantasy characters your lead is that unless you are careful with how you tackle the power fantasy by either making the characters themself massively flawed in some way or go the One Punch Man route and do some meta commentary on the power fantasy trope, they make for bad lead characters. With how many VRMMO and fantasy anime tend to make the leads ‘boring as tar’ power fantasy for male viewers, why wouldn’t you shift focus to someone else who could actually carry the story, and the story not suffer due to having to contort to the whims of the power fantasy? What also helps here is that they don’t try to do too much at once. With how much focus the relationship between Asuna, Misumi, and Kirito unfolds, they only cover the first two episodes, while filling out those two episodes with the time to have the characters bond. It also lets the stakes rise when the story needs them to, and we aren’t forcing our way to get from point A to point B to point C to point D at a rapid rate. It makes perfect sense for the film to make the first floor raid the third act conflict. It’s not a perfect journey to get from the beginning of the film to the end, but considering what this could have been, it should be admirable with how the director and writer took to retelling the story of the famous franchise. 

Animation-wise, this is where it starts to fumble a little. Not that the animation is bad, because it’s not. It just doesn’t look as good as other anime franchise films. It’s not its fault it doesn’t reach the visual overload and drip of Evangelion Rebuild, but when you are going from show to film, there should be a much more noticeable upgrade. Still, the animation is mostly smooth, there are a few very pleasant shots, and when the action kicks in, it ranges from action-packed to intense, depending on where you are within the story. It’s not the biggest upgrade from show to film, but it looks solid enough. You can turn back the clock and look at much older anime recap films and see how they just didn’t do a dang thing with going from show to film. If you need proof, go find the old Cyborg 009 recap films or the Tatsunoko stuff. In some ways,we are in a much better place than we were back in the day with anime franchise films. The music by Yuki Kajiura is good with some pretty rocking fantasy RPG beats from the training montage to the raid battle having the accurate musical tracks. It sounds a lot like Dot Hack and or something similar to the Demon Slayer series, but that’s also because Yuki helped compose music for both series. The English dub is rather good as usual, and any issues I have with the story are not because of the English voice actors or the Japanese voice actors. Bryce Papenbrook returns as Kirito alongside Cherami Leigh as Asuna, and they do help elevate some of the rougher parts of the script. The other actors are strong as well, and if you are sad other characters and their respective voice actors don’t make an appearance, don’t worry, they will probably show up in the next film. Still, Cherami Leigh and Anairis Quinones carry a lot of the drama on their shoulders, and they do a good job at making you feel connected to their friendship. 

Sadly, the problems keep coming up when you remember that this is Sword Art Online, and 2013 was almost a decade ago now when the original series came out. When Kirito shows up, the story does then turn into more of the typical fantasy/video game action anime that you would expect. The third act falls flat due to a few storybeats that don’t feel properly executed with how the major fight unfolds, and it’s not fully Kirito’s fault that he’s the poster child for boring power fantasy characters, but he sure did reinforce the tropes and how many anime after the original show came out would want to be like Kirito. Asuna also suffers after his introduction to the story, because she becomes less interesting. It’s also a shame that they didn’t change too much else with the story up to this point. They may have cut out some filler pieces, but it sure does feel like this franchise is stuck in the past, figuratively and literally. It’s hard not to dread how little the franchise has changed going forward as well, due to how it all unfolds within this movie. Will the next film not change much? Nostalgia is a very sinister force right now in how our media is crafted, going right back to pandering to the most common denominator. Sorry for the snobbish side of this review coming up, but when you watch the Evangelion films and how much they changed and improved upon the overall story of the original, you can pick up how this one might not go the distance, but we will have to see. It’s not really fair to judge this film due to how we don’t know how the upcoming sequel will turn out, but it’s also fair to point out that while some major changes happened within this film’s take on the original story, not much else has changed either. Like, how did no one at the game studio not know about this creator basically doing a Battle Royale experiment without them knowing? Yes, the game industry is in a really bad spot right now in real life, but if your drama is going to revolve around one individual causing the ruckus, then there better be a good reason he was able to make all of this unfold and happen. 

Listen, it’s not this film’s fault that it came out the same year as the final Evangelion Rebuild film. It’s not its fault that it’s not as good as that last movie. It’s not its fault Sword Art Online is an overall flawed franchise where the spin-offs were more interesting than the main series. However, it is its fault with how this film feels like it’s only going halfway with its retelling of the story. What would have been interesting is if they pulled a Marvel What If?, and killed Kirito in this film or didn’t have him to let it focus solely on Asuna. Sure, that wasn’t going to happen, due to how the creator of the franchise wanted to make sure their vision was going to go as planned and any major changes needed to be decided by them, but when Sword Art Online has been out for almost a decade now, times have changed, and the anime scene is much different for both good and for bad with this film being released. It’s not the worst animated film of the year, nor is it the worst anime-related film of 2021, but when your competition is Evangelion, Demon Slayer, and My Hero Academia, then you had better come to the front lines with something worth investing into. It’s a shame, because the first half of this film was really compelling and interesting. Once the film is available to watch, maybe give it a rent first, but if you are a huge fan of the franchise, you will probably want to buy the blu-ray when it comes out. Now then, we come around the corner to the end of 2021 and next time, we will be talking about Bob Spit: We Do Not LIke People. 

Thanks for reading the review! I hope you all enjoyed reading it! If you would like to support my work, make sure to share it out, and if you want to become a Patreon supporter, then you can go to patreon.com/camseyeview. I will see you all next time!

Rating: Rent it!