Promare

Set 30 years after the emergence of the emergence of pyrokinetic humans called Burnish. The movie follows Galo, a firefighter who as part of Burning Rescue, fights against blazes started by the burnish. After going against orders to take out Burnish separatist leader Lio, Galo finds himself a national hero, but eventually finds that the nature of the Burnish isn't as black and white as he's been lead to believe.

Hiroyuki Imaishi and produced by studio Trigger, the film definitely feels like a natural progression of the approaches, styles, and craft honed by a team whose work originated with studio Gainax on tonally similar material like FLCL and Gurren Lagann. The movie is filled with dynamic visuals and engaging action aplenty, but its plot often takes a back seat to the style and action and the ending becomes so action heavy it borders on exhausting.

Much like Gurren Lagann the movie has an approach that feels self aware and lovingly mocks the tropes found in shonen and mecha anime. Galo is a very familiar Maverick type protagonist who doesn't follow the rules and is more prone to action than thought or planning. Likewise Burnish rebel Lio is a very familiar melancholy stoic but strangely enough his character feels like it's played relatively straight. The movie alternates between over the top humor and apocalyptic action and for the most part it uses its jarring tones to its advantage to create an engaging viewing experience reminiscent of its usage in Gurren Lagann.

The movie unfortunately has some drawbacks to it. At a length of just under two hours the movie feels way too long to justify itself, especially with a third act which consists of nearly a half hour worth of non stop back to back action sequences. The action is well done and beautifully animated, but once it starts it never stops and it does become a bit much. The movie also piles on revelation after revelation over complicating the narrative. In many ways Promare's plot feels better suited to a TV series because if it had more breathing room for its story some of these revelations and heel turns seen in the film might've been able to carry more weight.

Promare is a case of style over substance, but its so stylish and so energized that it makes up for a cluttered, chaotic and confusing narrative. It's a showcase for some of the most dynamic and visually interesting animation one can recall seeing in an anime film and makes a welcome viewing for any anime fan in spite of its flaws.

Promare is very over the top and parodies almost all clichés modern animes do have. But unlike the majority of animes out there, this one is not boring. It is scene after scene of pure stupidity as an excuse to entertain and honestly, it works great. This movie is fun as hell.

The comedy does not work in animes. It is the usual screaming with dumb faces, but luckily that is a very small part of it. The majority of humor is the absolute ridiculous and over the top action and animation.

Kill la Kill and this one share the same director, writer and componist. So the script does not take a break. Instead of pacing the have a train on LSD. There is a lot of action that happens and pretty much all of it visually stunning, creative and some of them are hilarious. The soundtrack is obviously FIRE as well.

The few issues I have is the annoying dialogue of the main character and the break-neck pacing.

At the same time the anime knows how annoying the main character is and everyone calls him out for being an idiot. His passion for helping makes him also quite likeable as well.

The pacing is honestly a breeze of fresh air. In a normal movie it would be a problem but since the majority of modern animes are designed to have a pacing of a glacier with a lot of meaningless dialogue that only exists to pad time, it is very refreshing to see stuff happen in a short amount of time.

This is not the best anime of all time, but it would be a sin to pass on this.

A solid movie. The plot leaves much to be desired, with a generic "Fight the Powah" theme that's better suited with Gurren Lagann (and I'm not just saying that because Galo looks like Kamina, despite Studio Trigger claiming the looks are coincidental). Major events were predictable, particularly with the climax.

I wish Trigger put as much effort into the story as they clearly do with their signature animation style. Everything is all chaotic and action-packed, which made me enjoy things like Panty and Stocking, Kill la Kill, FLCL, and of course, Gurren Lagann in the first place. But (and I will sound a bit pretentious saying this) a little substance wouldn't hurt anybody. There's a lot they could've done more, particularly with delving deeper into the conflict between Burnish and humans.

Overall, pretty cool. Signature Trigger.

This film made my computer crash twice. The animation style is unique, colourful and energetic - perhaps too much! The characters are spread a bit thinly and not all of them were necessary. It would have suited a series better. Other than that, the setting and plot were really cool.

Man this anime burns.

I have been wanting to watch this movie for a long time. My god the animation was legit god tier. U cannot get bored when there is so many vibrant colors and moving pieces for almost 2 hours straight. It's beautiful and exciting from start to finish. There wasn't a any slow or dull moments.

It's amazing that I watched it while lying down, so I felt pretty sleepy. But the reckless pacing and fire animation actually kept my eyes wide opened.

The story was typical, and the villain was very obvious. It's not necessarily a bad thing, but towards the end I realized the story didn't make a lot of sense. The villain's motivation was actually justified. The backstory behind the premise didn't even feel complete.

The characters were meh as well. They were all straightforward without any unique quirk that I can invest on.

Overall, it's a mediocre story saved by incredible animation. 6.5-7/10.