AME WO TSUGERU HYOURYUU DANCHI

DESCRIPTION

CAST

MUSIC SupernaturalNatsugare

REVIEWS

• 

  vampirevore

  75/100
  A good movie if you can get past its pacing issues

  This review is, as per usual, largely spoiler free, but people have different thresholds for this stuff, and what I consider non-spoiler content may be a bit too far for you, so consider this your sole warning if you wanted to go into the movie completely blank, if you still want to know the score and/or get a tl;dr of the review, then you can skip to just after the last rainbow breaker.

  _Drifting Home_ is a movie that was just released on Netflix the other day, and in true Netflix fashion, I only happened to come across it by chance on my home feed rather than seeing any trailers or promotional material for it. That meant that I of course went into it mostly blind, with zero real expectations or idea of what kind of story I would be in for, since I didn’t even read the synopsis before letting the Netflix app queue it up. What I got was a movie revolving around a fairly small cast of characters, all children, pretty much just trying to survive and find their way back home after getting unexpectedly stranded in the middle of the sea. A core part of the story, if not the core part of the story, is the relationship that some of these kids have with the past, as they learn how to let things go in order to be able to find happiness in the present.

  As a consequence of the rather personal journey that some of the cast experiences, the story feels like one that entirely lives or dies on how much you’re able to connect to its main characters. Natsume and Kousuke are the ones that get the most fleshed out throughout the roughly 2 hour runtime of this movie, with all three of their arcs being tied directly to the apartment building they lived in together as children, and which is itself a physical remnant and reminder of the time that they spent with Yasuji - Kousuke’s grandfather - before he died. While the two have different reactions to their grief, the paths they took prior to the start of the story ultimately led them to the same outcome - a complete inability to move on. Being stranded together forces them into direct confrontation with this fact, and with each other, forming the basis of the interpersonal drama and tension that keeps the movie grounded even as it becomes somewhat more fantastical in its latter portions. In the last act of the movie, they try to take a physical manifestation of their past back home with them, and their failure in that endeavour reflects the message that you can never truly live and be happy in the present if you keep tying yourself to your past memories, even if those memories are happy ones. Not every character here has something to reflect on, though, and a couple of them in particular - while certainly still notable presences in the story - aren’t memorable enough for their names to have even registered in my mind at any point while I was watching. If you don’t care for any of these characters and their arcs in the first 40 minutes or so, though, I don’t personally think there’s going to be much value for you in seeing it through to the end, because there’s not much else going on.

  It would probably be a fair criticism to say that the movie drags on a bit longer than it needs to. While I did care for Noppo and Reina, the way things unfolded towards the end felt drawn out just to try to wrap up their arcs in particular when it wasn’t quite necessary, and they had already gotten a reasonable amount of growth and progression. This is an example of a broader pattern that pervades this movie, whether we’re talking about the last act or isolated moments scattered across its run, it builds and rides atop a wave of tension, and seems unable to let itself take off even as the crest of that wave declines. There’s moments that by all rights should be emotionally impactful, but just aren’t, as a consequence of how it keeps trying to go for a 10 on the tension scale over and over again. These kids had their lives at risk so often that when one of them did actually get seriously injured, I didn’t have much of an emotional reaction at all, though it’s definitely worth noting that the way it was animated was uncomfortable enough to watch that I did at least wince. Sticking with the negatives a little longer, the pacing issue also affected the dialogue, insofar as characters ended up circling around the same conversation and conflicts. It wasn’t repetitive enough to be actively annoying, for the most part, but it was tedious at points with Reyna in particular, and with how much the movie seems to want us to remember that Kousuke and Natsume played football together. Speaking of those two characters, though, the subtitles near the start of the movie were a bit confusing because while the voice actors kept referring to Natsume as a she, the subs had a line about her and Kousuke (not) being brothers. This mixup in pronouns doesn’t happen at any other point of the movie, so I have to assume it was just a mistake. Yes, I know that gender and pronouns are not synonymous, but there’s literally just nothing else to work with in the text of the film.

  From a technical perspective, _Drifting Home_ is simply phenomenal. The soundtrack is consistently on point, the animation is not only flawless but inventive in its use of 2D and 3D elements, the art makes what should be a bleak and dreary environment still manage to feel immersive, and equal parts wondrous and terrifying as and when the situation demands it. I have absolutely nothing but praise for what the director and animators and everyone else involved in the production managed to pull off in these aspects of the film. What I do have a minor comment on, which is really just a bit of a weird tangent, is the fact that Bryce Papenbrook is the English voice actor for Kousuke. With how recognisable his voice is as Eren Jaeger from Attack on Titan, I thought it would be a major distraction for me when I started watching the movie, but after long enough I actually almost forgot. On the whole, really, I didn’t have high hopes for the English dub, but I was pleasantly surprised by how well literally all of the voice actors did, not a single one of them felt out of place or stilted, and that may have contributed to my enjoyment of the overall work.

  Overall, then, this is a movie that - as long as you’re able to resonate with its main characters - is an enjoyable watch, with reflections on grief and personal growth helping to keep its interesting and visually immersive world grounded and engaging for its audience. Even with the issues that stem from its relatively poor pacing and its approach which risks everything on its characters, _Drifting Home_ is probably still worth checking out, and earns a respectable score of __75 out of 100__.

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• 

  heychrisfox

  68/100
  Mixed messaging and missed expectations.

  The biggest issue with this film was mixed messaging and missed expectations.

  

  Given the premise of this film, it seems like it's going to be a band of crazy kids stuck on an apartment in the middle of the ocean. I interpreted that as a fun little romp, a silly adventure where the kids struggle, but bond, grow up, and have a unique time in their lives.

  That... is not what happens. This film is surprisingly dark. It's more akin to a less dense version of Lord of the Flies mixed with Life of Pi than a cute, fun adventure movie. The kids are actually struggling here. They have to ration meals, struggle to survive, use their wits, and strain against the stress of their situation. Injury and chance of death is very real in this world. People's heads get bashed, people fall into glass, or slip off metal sharp metal poles. Starvation looms, tensions flare, life is on the line.

  

  Look at the pictures and all the promotional material for this show. Would you say that description above matches it? This is the core problem: what looks, at first, to be a lighthearted and fun adventure is actual a survival story. And if your expectations aren't aligned with that, you're going to be a bit confused by the genre division.

  But there are other issues at play. Namely that the screenplay is exceptionally convoluted and bloated. The reason for this seems to be that they came up with the core concept for the film, and had a strong idea of the ending, but had no idea how to fill the second act of the film. This film has it all. Of course the survival aspects are present, including all the struggles that come with that genre. But there's also shintoism, fantasy magic, light romantic tension, character drama, childlike joie de vivre, ghosts, nostalgic drama... there is so MUCH in this film, so many things that the film wants to say and address. And the problem with Drifting Home, just like other films that want to say a lot, is that it's hard to fit so many different, disparate topics and ideas into one film and make things cohesive.

  

  At its core, Drifting Home is a character drama. It's about the kids doing everything they can to survive while also straining against each other's personalities. The problem is, the screenplay is a bit incompetent in this regard. The way Drifting Home interprets drama and conflict is through arguments. A problem will arise ("we're running out of food"), so the kids start to argue. The argument will talk about how there's no food, someone will say "we'll make it work," and then a third-party will say "we have to work together." Then everyone agrees to do their best. But then, hey, no food again, and the exact same argument happens, in the exact same way, just featuring different characters; then the argument gets resolved in the same way, everyone goes back to normal, until the next thing spawning an argument. The arguments also don't really change a lot; it's not like there are new problems that the kids argue about, it's the same core problems of trying to survive that always inflame tensions. This makes the arguing itself extremely repetitive and annoying, because you remember this same problem being resolved 10 minutes ago, but now they're just fighting again. It becomes nonsensical.

  There's also an issue that the cast is quite large as well. Seven is a crowd, and although everyone has a foil to bounce off of, trying to characterize and give everyone a valuable arc in the film is a struggle within the screenplay. There's a whole lot of talking, yelling, brooding, etc., and much of this is inconsequential to the broader plot the film is delivering. This muddies everything, making delivering conclusions on everyone's arcs difficult. There's a scene near the end where all the characters have this emotional moment regarding themselves as characters. The problem is, it happens so suddenly, that it's over after a second, and feels extremely unfulfilling, because it doesn't feel like we had enough time to learn about everyone's personal situation for the moment to really pay off.

  

  This is because a deeper core of this movie is the relationship between the two protagonists: Kousuke and Natsume. They're childhood friends, and childhood sweethearts, but also straining under the shared relationship of Kousuke's grandfather who passed away many years before. But because this film is a survival film, that core premise takes a back seat to them working together to survive. As such, we don't get enough time to see these characters emotionally bonding in a way that doesn't involve tension or conflict. The present day has left them both emotionally fraught, so it's difficult for them to act like real friends, especially in a survival situation; but we, as viewers, WANT TO SEE THAT, because we know they care about each other, and never get the opportunity to experience that outside of a couple scenes here and there, or outside of flashbacks.

  

  That isn't to say the film is all bad. It nails the visual aesthetics, and all the character designs are amazing. The animation is stunning as ever, which is to be expected from Studio Colorido and Ishida himself. There's also quite a lot of expertly crafted CG, which is rare in anime.

  But a few good compliments and a nice initial vibe cannot combat the weight of a messy screenplay, which inevitably drags this film down from being better than it could have been. It's an unfortunate sophomore slump for an otherwise ultra talented director, and is a strong example of "telling not showing" and how a bloated screenplay can really drag down an experience. If this film had focused on its core ideals: nostalgia, drama, and character bonding, this would have been a fantastic experience. Unfortunately, it throws everything including the kitchen sink into the mix as well, along with an overly mature and dangerous tone, which drags down the entire production.

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• 

  DirToshimasa

  90/100
  Un buon anime da guardare

  Questa recensione contiene spoiler? Forse si, forse no. Ovvio che si. Per me ogni informazione, anche minima, è uno spoiler. Ho visto questo anime senza nemmeno guardare i trailer che sostanzialmente rovinano l'intero film perché sono pieni di spoiler. A me questo film è apparso davanti e per curiosità l'ho guardato, avevo scarse aspettative, anzi scarsissime, pensavo "ora lo apro e vedo dopo quanti secondi lo chiudo" invece l'ho visto fino alla fine. Ti consiglio di vederlo prima di leggere qualsiasi recensione e/o vedere trailer, non te ne pentirai.

  

  La casa tra le onde è un anime con una buona animazione, buone colonne sonore, bei disegni e soprattutto una bella storia scorrevole però non è solo una simpatica avventura, come si può pensare guardando la copertina colorata e sgargiante, perché non è troppo infantile ed è leggermente "cupa" con una leggera presenza di sangue ma la visione rimane adatta a tutti.
  I protagonisti sono dei bambini delle elementari che durante una pericolosa lite sul tetto di un edificio abbandonato, destinato alla demolizione, si ritroveranno a navigare su questo edificio in mezzo al mare e dovranno cercare di sopravvivere per tornare dalle proprie famiglie.

  Il messaggio rappresentato attraverso questa lotta alla sopravvivenza, secondo me è che il mare in cui navigano, rappresenta "il mare dei ricordi" e l'edificio su cui navigano è uno dei ricordi dei due protagonisti che non riescono a staccarsi di dosso per via dei bei ricordi andati che non torneranno più e vari tormenti dovuti a rimorsi. Il "navigare troppo in mezzo ai tormenti" può uccidere per questo motivo quando questo ricordo a forma di Palazzo si imbatterà in altri brutti ricordi o bei ricordi che vogliono rivivere, alla lunga si scontreranno e la loro "nave" rischierà di affondare e se cadranno in mare rischieranno di essere inghiottiti dall'oblio senza poter riemergere in superficie e morire.
  I tormenti vengono rappresentati con una tormenta e il malessere è raffigurato come un ombra nera in fondo al mare pronta ad afferrarli e ucciderli.
  I protagonisti combatteranno se stessi per superare questi brutti ricordi/tormenti e anche quelli belli (spoiler immenso) si salveranno "dall'affondare" (sia metaforicamente che letteralmente) proprio "agganciandosi" a un bel ricordo che li farà riemergere e una volta che si saranno liberati dal peso che si tengono dentro "alleggerendosi" voleranno verso la salvezza.

  Potresti pensare che La casa tra le onde doveva essere fatto meglio perché vedere bambini di 9-10 anni trasportati in un mondo in cui affrontano i loro ricordi da cui non riescono a staccarsi di quando avevano 3-4 anni dicendo "ah quando ero bambino", come se ora fossero degli adulti, o vedere una ragazzina a caso all'improvviso fare cose che anche chi fa parkour non sarebbe in grado di fare, dopo che per tutto il tempo l'anime non sembrava staccarsi troppo dalla realtà, potrebbe farti strano ma ci può stare.
  Comunque La casa tra le onde non mi ha annoiato è sicuramente un buon anime non solo per il messaggio.
  Per me è priorità "9 su 10".

  English

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