Voyage vers Agartha

This film was a pleasant surprise to find and watch. The story is compelling, the Japanese voice acting is excellent, and the level of imagination is fantastic.

I was struck by the sheer attention to detail in this film: gradual changes in daylight within individual scenes, subtle dirt and weathering, precise animation of water effects, accurate animation of wildlife, and excellent use of light and color. These little extras did not go unnoticed. All of this helps to create a richer visual experience.

The characters were interesting and quite nuanced and the musical score suits the film well.

Now here's what really surprised me.... This is the director's first full-length feature and first time working with the larger-scale studio system. Couple this with the fact that he's a young director and you have someone with a very strong career ahead of him.

The style of this film is similar to that of Miyazaki, and this is intentional. Miyazaki's style was chosen because it is recognized worldwide and it has proved itself effective for dramatic story-telling. Watching the behind-the-scenes information for this film was fascinating and it was amazing to see how young the crew were. Certainly there is a great deal of talent in Japan today -- talent willing to make 'classic' high-production-value anime. And for that I'm grateful. The next generation is sure to enjoy animation of the level that I enjoyed in my youth.

In summary, I like this film a lot and I highly recommend it. If I were to nitpick this movie, I'd say that a few scenes were cut short a tiny bit too soon. I recommend the director watch the director's commentary for Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back. In there is a discussion about holding the camera at the end of a scene and why it's important for dramatic shots. I should also mention that although this is an animated film, there are scenes of violence and some sequences that children may find frightening.

So if you're a fan of Miyazaki's work or simply a fan of imaginative drama and fantasy films, be sure to check this one out.

Since Hoshi no koe I've been a big fan of Makoto Shinkai and I always find his movies so beautiful that make him the only anime producer who is comparable with Miyazaki Hayao. For his latest work "Children who chase voice from deep below", the story settings and the characters are quite different from his previous works. The idea is likely inspired by the many old myths like the story of Orpheus, who traveled to the underworld and by his music softened the hearts of Gods. Yet "Children who chase voice from deep below" keeps on the track with Shinkai's previous works in discussing loneliness of human beings, but unlike "5 centimetres per second", with hope and love this time.

The music, once again, is perfect and the scenes are delicate and tender. When watching this you find yourself immersed in a dream-like situation where the sky and the trees and the world are of the beauty that far beyond your imagination. Shinkai created perfect environments, the moving wind and the colourful insects, every single detail in every single scene is fantastic. The plot line is a romantic imagination. It portrays a journey of finding hope and love after the every loss throughout our life. It's a reflection of life with fantasy elements. To recover from immense sorrow and stand up again and look forward to the future. I love the message the movie brought to me. However, the story does have flaws. The pace of some parts is too slow while of some parts is too fast. It can be explained by looking at the length of the movie, which is of the longest in Shinkai's works. And obviously, he still has to look for better ways to deal with a "long" movie. Besides it is a pity that Shinkai abandons his talent on talking about modern city life but tries to give a tribute to Miyazaki Hayao by duplicating many elements in Ghibli's anime movies. I have this impression because while watching I thought of Miyazaki Hayao's works like "Princess Mononoke" and "Laputa" in several occasions, yet not as good as those works. A good try with rooms for improvement. After all,however, I still love this film. It reminds me of the beauty in our life. I am particularly touched while on the edge of death the girl Asuna recounts every person in her life she is loved by and says, "After all it was only because of my loneliness." It moves me so much that how our every day will be if we treasure the people still beside us instead of looking for someone or something that is so abstract and beyond our reach. If you love Shinkai, go watch it. It is, definitely, a touching piece for all of us.

This movie, with its gorgeous animated vistas and hopeful if melancholic feel was impressive overall, even if it suffered from plot incoherence. This is a trend we've noticed in some recent (non-Ghibli) Japanese anime. It also shares a typical feature of these movies, the shy, introspective girl who is drawn into a fantastic world (e.g. The Cat Returns, Wonderland). Here the goal is to explore the underworld, which seems to be a post-mortem realm filled with dead people and gods, vast and yet declining, vulnerable to human infiltration. And that is precisely what happens here, the girl chasing the voice of a love interest she will never really have, and her teacher, who collects lore about the afterlife from ancient cultures, who is looking to retrieve his dead wife. If that sounds like Orpheus, the ending certainly reflects it in some ways, but otherwise there are actually very few allusions to traditions about the underworld, beyond a few monstrous guards, and a steam-punk ancient Mesopotamian aesthetic reminiscent of Castle in the Sky. Despite the awkward plot, my kids and I were drawn in by the amazing visuals and sense of foreboding that is present at the start and only grows as the adventure continues.

Sienna's rating: 7 or 8 stars Paul's rating: 8 stars Seb's rating: 8 stars.

Blending elements of fantasy, sci-fi & romance into an ambitious coming-of-age tale, Children Who Chase Lost Voices truly astonishes on a technical scale but it's also marred in the storytelling department, for its structure is a mess and the plot is overlong. And the longer it goes, the more tedious it becomes. An extravagant effort from Makoto Shinkai that unfortunately isn't as rewarding as expected.

This is a nice little movie notable primarily for its visual beauty. The story is loosely constructed but engaging, the mythical creatures are imaginative, and the whole thing is, while not especially memorable, generally enjoyable.

On the other hand, I felt the movie kept implying things and then just dropping them. A mysterious boy's statements to the girl seem fraught with meaning, suggesting some back story that is then never revealed. A strange crystal also must have some sort of history, but what? It's as the movie has unplumbed depths.

This may be the reason that at the end I didn't have the feeling of satisfaction I experience at the end of other movies (like the films of Miyamota). There is something absent from this one. But it's still a nice movie.