Origine

I loved this film!!! I'm very into dsytopian themed films; animated, anime, or whatever. There is nothing wrong with using anime to bring to the forefront what we are doing to our planet, which will in turn, be harmful to us. I found myself going "ahhh" while watching and struck by the depth of the messages. I cant wait to tell my grandson about how good it is.

It's not uncommon to see Japanese animation try to remind its target audience about environmental messages given the fast pace at which the country is growing with city life and machinery. While Origin: Spirits of the Past was rich with potential, it ultimately falls apart after the first act.

The film takes place in a post apocalyptic world where trees and nature itself has gained intelligent consciences and humanity feels threatened by it. Agito is a boy who lives in a shanty town and ends up discovering a girl named Toola who was frozen in time. I found that there was much to like about the first act of the film due to its delicate pacing and set up for what could have been a plot line just as rich as its visually pleasing colour pallets. Unfortunately, what follows after the halfway mark is a series of high concept ideas derived from several different sources and ultimately a lackluster and unsatisfying hodge podge of clichés.

There were several scenes later in the film where exposition feels very rushed and driven by contrivances. A lot of the information you'd expect can very easily fly over your head unless you can keep up with the jarring pacing of the later acts of the film. The story just seems to throw a ton at the audience without letting any of it actually sink in, and this was especially surprising given how the first act took it's time with introducing characters with a 'this is how long it takes to cook dinner' approach.

A lot of the ideas seem to be derived from Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, Final Fantasy and several other sources which left me with the impression that the creators were barely trying. This especially shows in the man vs nature environmental message that has been presented numerous times in the past. The problem is that this film offers nothing new. It's all so stale and so predictable that it's very difficult to care for anything that's going on, especially with the characterization which feels very two dimensional in their emotional arcs.

Sadly, Origin: Spirits of the Past is all smoke but no fire.

The animation and basic plot are both excellent. The animation is detailed and well done, and the plot is unique and interesting.

Unfortunately the follow-through leaves much to be desired. Aside from nonsensical jump-the-shark moments (not all that uncommon in anime plots), the ending is anti-climactic and empty. It leaves the audience scratching our heads as to what actually happened and just guessing at what the blazes the writers and directors had in mind.

The majority of the film is basically just non-stop action / adventure, with a decent enough story to keep it going. But it loses the air of believable on several occasions (no matter how fanciful, a story still needs to have an element of "believable" within context). The closer it gets to the end, the less sense it makes, with an unrewarding, flops-flat ending.

This could have been a lot better if they'd tied up the end better, but someone got lazy or ran out of funds, one of the two. Overall this is unimpressive. It simply failed to deliver the full package. Yet another example of a great idea poorly implemented and ruined with a sloppy ending.

If Origin: Spirits of the past seems familiar to you then you are not alone. Even the most indiscriminate anime fan can tell that this is basically a watered-down copy of Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind. There are so many similarities that I'm surprised no lawsuits were involved.

Set in a future where plant life has taken control of a desecrated world the survivors try to live a delicate existence between the powerful forest and the fascist military until one day a mysterious girl arrives out of the past with lots of questions and long, drawn-out answers. Meh, it's all just so generic and dull full of all the usual anime nonsense. I never really understood why the hero, Agito, falls in love with her so easily. There's not much going on between them. And who was that calling her on that weird phone thingy near the start? It's never explained.

This story has been done bigger and better 25 years ago and there's not any particular reason why anyone should rush out and see Origin. Sorry.

Somehow i begun viewing this anime with a feeling of deja seen ... Hopefully somehow i was wrong ... The anime is really good even if the plot seems like an old plate out of the fridge and heated again it still holds something that few anime could be proud to have one of those is the charisma behind Agito the main character don't be prepared for a Miyazaki and at the end you will be facing something worth of his talent. Even if it's not the anime of the year nor even the best story, it's still a treasure worth to watch. There is a whole world to discover, and you take pleasure to discover it viewing pictures that stay in your memory.