Fireworks

I must admit I've watched amazingly executed animated films but this one unfortunately doesn't make the list. The story: It had a lot of potential but even though the story was okay, it had a lot of twists and turns that could've been taken just a tad slower, but overall it wasn't terrible.

The p.o.v's: In case you haven't watched it to me it felt like the perspectives were jumping from one character to another plus I think the movie experience would've been a little bit better if they added Nazuma's perspective, since it felt like her point of view in this was basically missing.

Character development: Personally these characters felt pretty undeveloped if I could get at least some more insight on why the mc really liked the girl so much, and maybe a little more information on the little ball instead of it remaining a mystery

"Leave it to the imagination": Throughout the beginning when trying to figure out how the ball ended up there, to the end trying to figure out why the two weren't in class. I've seen other movies do this before but for a movie that had such great potential had a bad time trying to do this in my personal experience.

Overall: 6/10

First off, the animation is absolutely beautiful and if it weren't for a few seconds of really terrible CGI I'd say that the animation would be perfect. The music was also nice.

With that being said the film was so boring, and melodramatic, and dull, and just a complete waste of time. Which is sad being the story seemed kind of interesting. The exacution of the story however was poor. Skip this film and watch Your Name or The Girl Who Lept Through Time instead.

I walked in to this movie about 10 minutes late, and I thought maybe I missed something important, but I looked it up online and I didn't really miss anything. The films by this company are normally all very good, and this one looked promising, but looks aren't everything. The storyline seems simple enough, but once they throw in the magic/sci-fi aspects, it becomes very confusing to follow. The characters flip flop between being sympathetic, and seeming to have ulterior motives. I wasn't sure if Yusuke was a nice guy or a jerk, if Norimichi actually cared about Nazuna, or if Nazuna was a sweet girl or hidden psychopath. Once the plot point is shown, there is one ending that the characters could choose that would make everyone happy and fix everything, but it never came to mind. The ending is very confusing and threw too much at the audience. I really wanted to like this movie, but in the end it didn't affect me as much as Your Name or Girl Who Leapt Through Time.

I'm not gonna say this is a great movie. It kind of suffers from the same standard sins of plenty of anime out there, some jokes don't always hit, parts seem taken from a basic "how to make a successful anime" guide, over-stylised action, and the writing sometimes suffers from first-draft syndrome with a visible lack of polish. However, I'd also be lying if I said I didn't enjoy it.

The animation and music are both incredibly gorgeous. Not exactly on the level of Studio Ghibli, but it's not really trying to be, it feels like it's more often trying to be it's own way. I also found myself interested in the plot throughout despite the aforementioned shortcomings, and some of the characters ended up growing on me. I also enjoyed the tone, which managed to stay consistently emotional throughout.

So, is it a perfect movie? No, especially when compared to the aforementioned Studio Ghibli. But is it an enjoyable one? I think so. Not for everyone, but not terrible. I certainly found myself enjoying it much more than Sword Art Online.

I believe this movie deserves a better score. I didn't quite understand it myself when I watched it for the first time, but I slowly digested it. The core of this story is "if" and "pity". We miss so many chances in our lives, we feel sorry, we regret, and we cry. This movie gives us a chance to catch all the "if"s and correct the unconscious mistakes. However we'll never be able to correct all the mistakes and we even make more new mistakes during this process. We feel empty and lonely. This is life, the mistakes and pity make life what it is. There's always beautiful scenery on the way besides the fireworks. When we become peaceful with life, we grow up.