Ride Your Wave

[AIF 2019] Probably have this rated a bit too high, but it's been a long time since anything made me feel the way golden-era Pixar flicks made me feel as a kid. Is any other Japanese screenwriter even close to Reiko Yoshida these days?

Fairly typical, by way of Japanese romance animations, but this was is done quite well. It balances reality and imagination, to bring an emotional touch to the film. It has a nice story and a pretty good reveal.

Incredibly bland, the characters are as flat as cardboard and the plot doesn't do them any favors. Still, it's pretty to look at and overall passable as a film. Reminds me of Hanabi.

Looks nice. Kind of loses the mark after the romance scenes in the first half.

Man what a disappointing movie this was. I love the first 30 minutes or so but the rest of the movie was a repetitive drag.

It's actually amazing to see 0 chemistry between 2 drawn, fake characters. The movie contains about 1 1/2 likable characters and centers around a couple that gives off "First Date energy" for their entire relationship. The plot can't decide if it wants to commit to its weirdness or pull a Kangaroo Jack and pretend it's all fake. A twist with no actual build up. The animation has straight up pictures instead of drawings for some background objects, so it's not even a complete movie.

Maybe Masaaki Yuasa's most conventional movie so far, but then again it features a girl dragging a life-sized water-filled dolphin toy through the city so she can talk to her dead boyfriend...

The animation is a feast for the eyes, but it tells a rather dull story that somehow manages to feel twice as long as it actually is.

Nat as impressive as others like, your name. Good soundtrack and some moving parts, but a lot was boring to me.