Maquia, When the Promised Flower Blooms

I ended up finding this on a random anime website and thought the art style was pretty so I decided to look it up. I barely read anything about the movie though since I didn't want spoilers, so I went in pretty much blind tonight watching this. Because I don't want to spoil the movie for anyone else looking to watch this, I won't go into too much detail. I just felt the need to review this as soon as I finished watching because I was in tears the entire time!! This movie has such a bittersweet ending, but at the same time closes the story off in such a perfect way (again, don't want to spoil, so I won't say why/how). Please just watch this for yourself! Everything's amazing about this: the plot, the pacing, the artstyle, the music, the character development. I wish this was hyped up just as much as Your Name or A Silent Voice because if I hadn't found this movie on that website, I would've never had the chance to watch this. Again, please watch this if you have the chance. You won't regret it!!!! I'm editing this because I just found out this was Mari Okada's directorial debut??? BLESS THIS WOMAN.

Plot: a very beautiful story. It has a lot of deep messages and scenes. And there is also that magic that only Japanese can manage this well... Probably it would makes you cry (like I did).

Animation: perfect, smooth.

Drawings: particular, they have their fingerprints and it is a very good one.

Soundtrack: another very good thing. It is very enjoyable and pleasing.

Conclusions: an amazing, deep work that I can surely recommend to everyone. Especially for moms or who have doubts about being one.

I saw this movie during its limited theatre release in Australia. Maquia: When the Promised Flower Blooms is the directorial debut by Mari Okada. She also wrote the film. The writing, voice acting and animation is great. The main characters Maquia and Erial are realistic and convey the relationships between Children and their parents. The film also explores themes of motherhood. The film however is dragged down by some of the side characters and several flashback scenes which I thought were unnecessary. Overall I thought this was a great movie and it was only held back by some minor flaws.

I had the pleasure to see a preview of Maquia without any previous knowledge of it. This is something that I recommend. That being said, Maquia start off quite dense with different warring factions and odd bits of vocabulary. No worries though, because even though every detail is not fully explained the word building and slow pacing eases you into the story. And it IS quite detailed, both story vise and visually. The protagonist Maquia from the title, is born in village where the inhabitants record and keep history by weaving long tapestries. Her people are a legendary elf-like lot who can live for hundreds of years and stop aging in their teens. Now, this trope could easily turn quite nasty, but Maquia steers tastefully far from most potential threats. In all, Maquia is a story about family and relations. It's poignant and serious in an oddly down-to-earth way regardless of it's fantasy setting.The animations are a high-budget marvel to see. My only gripe is that the movie kind of ends multiple times, and the last 30 minutes or so feels like one ending after another. Apart from that it also made me cry quite profusely. So, go see it.

A-plot 10/10, B-plot 10/10, Characterization 10/10, Pacing 7/10, World Building 7/10, Voice Acting 9/10, Soundtrack 8/10, Animation 10/10,

Maquia: When the Promised Flower Blooms is one of the best anime films to release in the last few years. Almost everything about this film is perfect, from the well defined characters and the compelling plot to the beautiful animation and soundtrack. The only problems I had with this film are for things that didn't really matter like the minimal world building and a few unnecessary characters. Although one real problem I think the film had was the pacing especially in the first half. There are several time jumps in the film which skips over quite a bit of time and several moments that are hinted at but skipped over that I would have liked to have seen and I think would have made the ending more impactful. Because of this I think this story would have also worked really well as a 8-12 episode series. Despite these problems, the plot and characters were more than enough to keep me invested. I highly recommend you take any opportunity you have to check out this film.