Origine

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.

It begin nice and interesting about ecological problems and apolacypt future of Earth... but then it get really bad and nonsense: a bad guy, an army, the florest alive, a girl from past with a device to change everything or destroy all.

When you see the mountain volcano computer super machine you think "I could be doing something better, maybe just sleeping or washing crockery".

In short, this film was an overall disappointment in many levels. The story contained some very interesting ideas, but they were delivered in a blunt and mediocre fashion. Some of these concepts are clumsily mentioned and ignored for the rest of the film.

At times I got the feeling that this film tries to force its message on me. There were way too many clichéd and predictable moments to make things worse.

The main characters were annoying and shallow. The film doesn't give enough focus to any of the characters but continuously shuffles from one to the other in a disjointed fashion.

The visuals were impressive but that's something very common among many anime films. At times it felt as if some scenes were artificially added for visual value.

Gin-iro no kami no Agito, feels pretty much like an incomplete story board strung together hastily. If you are a fan of this genre, I recommend that you are better off with titles as 'Princess Mononoke', 'Grave of the Fireflies' or 'Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind'.

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.

As many agree, Origin is a beautiful anime artistically. The music, graphics, and the world created are gorgeous and it really stands above most other modern animated works. However, if you are looking for more than this, than I suggest looking else where. The beauty stops short of its appearance, and when it really comes down to plot and characters, there's nothing special. Action is slow and minimal and the people are flat, corny at times, and do not act realistically. Not to mention the plot hole here and the plot hole there... So, in summary, oh my goodness, I've never seen an anime as beautiful as this one; and oh my goodness, it's like... -poke- people don't act like that. It took a GIANT step forward in graphics and music in anime, but it also took a few step backs to times of bad characterization, and unfortunately, there's not even that much action to make up for that...