Cry School Musical.
What They Say:
A girl has her voice magically taken away so she can’t hurt anyone with it until her outlook on life is changed by music and friendship.
The Review:
The same creative team at A-1 Pictures that brought us the real tearjerker, Anohana: The Flower We Saw That Day, has returned to make us purchase more tissue boxes. The Anthem of the Heart, directed by Tatsuyuki Nagai and written by Mari Okada, tells the story of a girl named Jun Naruse who dreams of attending the great ball at the castle atop the mountain in her small town and dancing with the handsome prince who lives there. Without spoiling any of the movie’s amazing opening scene, nothing is at all as it seems and through tragic circumstances, Naruse loses her voice because of a magical egg. Hilariously enough, eggs are used symbolically from then now on, peppered (yep, the puns are coming) generously throughout the rest of the movie. Let’s just get this out of the way first and foremost: The Anthem of the Heart is phenomenal. Like seriously.
Fast forwarding a few years to Naruse in her last year of junior high, she is known around town and school as the weird girl who never talks. At home, tensions are high with a mom who constantly seems empty inside. Every time she attempts to speak, an intense pain attacks her stomach nigh immobilizing her. Along with three other classmates, she is picked for the community outreach event committee against her wishes. Eventually giving in and deciding to do an original musical modeled after her own life story, the movie explores the different characters’ personal issues while getting ready for the big event. It interestingly enough feels like two different storylines, but it strangely works. Constantly switching between this person’s story and working on the musical, it comes together in a beautifully composed melody of comedy and drama right up until the very end. There were moments throughout the entire movie where I was laughing out loud one second and wiping my eyes (it’s my seasonal allergies, I promise) the next.
As someone with a love and passion for theatre, I extremely appreciated the effort put into the musical portions. The team took the easy way out by simply attaching original lyrics to classic Western songs, but it didn’t feel cheap in the slightest. In fact, some were so well done I could’ve swore “What Child Is This?” was always in Japanese. The initial song sung by male protagonist, Takumi Sakagami, is an eggcelent rendition of a song from the musical “Around the World” with lyrics about eggs, of course. This captures the attention of Naruse and she soon realizes she can circumvent her speech problems by singing out how she feels. Together with Daiki Tazaki and Natsuki Nito, the lead cast is varied and interesting. While Takumi is the typical nice guy love interest, Daiki is the tough guy with a soft heart and Nito is the insecure popular girl.
Though all four of the main cast are built on cliche anime archetypes, much like the movie itself, those archetypes are totally thrown out the window. Each character, including the side characters like Naruse’s mom and Takumi’s grandparents, are so well-developed and bring their own unique element to the story. My only real gripe with this movie is that not all of the storylines get enough screentime and I would have rather seen this movie as a 12 or 13 episode series instead. Because there is so much happening, the pacing is great and quick, but not so much that you get lost along the way. This allows for every scene to be meaningful, decadent, and rich; not a scrambled mess like it could’ve so easily been.
The use of imagery is deep and I’m sure I didn’t even catch half of the symbolism that the writer used the first time watching. From the aforementioned usage of eggs to how Naruse’s house is unusually dark and dim every scene it’s in, everything felt so alive to the point where I actually forgot that I was watching anime. The animation itself is simple but good. If you’re looking for top movie quality or super stylish, modern animation, this is not the anime to watch. Instead, the simplicity is welcome and makes sense for this type of story. The character designs are lively but sometimes uneven. The environments and backgrounds are striking and beautiful. The short usage of 3D is not forced and looks surprisingly good.
Altogether, everything feels like Disney handed off High School Musical to Hayao Miyazaki and out popped The Anthem of the Heart. Every single time I thought I had accurately predicted what would happen next, the writer would be like “nah, brah.” This all culminates in a finale that I still play over and over in my mind as I type this. The entire last 20 minutes is A-1 Pictures operating a machine gun of feels aimed right at you with 100% accuracy. Boom, tearshots everywhere.
Summary:
The Anthem of the Heart is a true modern anime classic. A mixed cast of well-developed characters, a beautiful soundtrack, a story that flips cliche anime tropes on its head all come together to create a phenomenal movie that will have laughing one minute, crying the next, and mad at yourself after for forgetting your tissues. The Anthem of the Heart: Beautiful Word Beautiful World is a beautiful movie and a must watch.
Grade: A+
The Anthem of the Heart was viewed at the North American premiere Sunday, November 1st, 2015 courtesy of Aniplex of America and as of the posting date, tickets are still available for purchase across the United States at http://anthemoftheheart.com/
