BLUE GIANT

MOVIE

MOVIE
Dubbed
SOURCE
MANGA
RELEASE
February 17, 2023
LENGTH
120 min

DESCRIPTION

Dai Miyamoto's life is turned upside down the day he discovers jazz. A former high school basketball player, Dai picks up a saxophone and begins practicing day and night, determined to become one of the greatest of all time. He leaves his hometown Sendai for the bustling nightclubs of Tokyo, but soon finds the life of a professional musician is not for the faint of heart. His passion eventually wins over the cocky but talented pianist Yukinori, and after Dai convinces his friend Shunji to learn the drums, they launch a new jazz trio whose rough sound contains a raw energy that quickly wins attention from local audiences. But what does it take to truly be great?

(Source: GKIDS)

CAST

Dai Miyamoto
Yuuki Yamada
Yukinori Sawabe
Shoutarou Mamiya
Shunji Tamada
Amane Okoyama

RELATED TO BLUE GIANT

MANGA DramaBLUE GIANT

REVIEWS

Epsev
85/100
Authentic, straight-forward, and poignant; Blue Giant lets its jazz speak for itself.
A Real Jazz Movie

Blue Giant is one of the few works of jazz media actually about jazz. If you're a jazz musician, then this movie will strike all of the right chords for you. Otherwise, it might fall a little flat if you can't relate to the musicians' struggle, or if you just aren't into the music.

Other contemporary films like La La Land and Whiplash also appear to be about jazz; however, it's clear that they're movies that just use jazz to create a setting. In contrast, Blue Giant is only about jazz, even to its detriment.

Story & Characters

Blue Giant doesn't give much in the way of a grandiose plot, or deep characters. The movie is about a trio of young musicians trying to climb their way up into jazz stardom. Dai Miyamoto wants to be the greatest saxophonist ever. Shunji Tamada is driven by the desire to improve through his hard work. Yukinori Sawabe wants to make it in the jazz industry and land a gig at the movie's fictional version Blue Note Tokyo.

There's barely any backstory given to Miyamoto and Tamada, and Sawabe's isn't significant enough to make a difference to his overall characterization or the movie's plot. For the purpose of a movie, this actually works out just fine.

These three goals drive the entirety of the movie's plot, and there's no time given for any detours. Typically, this focus would lead to a movie without breadth, but made up with depth. In the case of Blue Giant, there actually isn't much depth to be found. Sawabe's ego gets in the way of his progress; however, even this doesn't lead to more than a minor road bump. The lack of depth to the characters and plot definitely can be seen as a sour spot, but leaving the bulk of the focus on the jazz performances more than makes up. The biggest issue offender is actually Miyamoto, who comes across as very flat for a main character. He doesn't have any deep issues, nor does he undergo a huge conflict. Instead, he's mostly a vehicle for the performance scenes.

It's refreshing to see a film that takes jazz seriously, without bringing up its internal conflicts (fusion, hip-hop jazz, etc.) or its external conflict with pop music. The obligatory "jazz is dying" point is mentioned; however, it doesn't really end up being a huge part of the plot. Blue Giant really is just about jazz musicians making great music.

Animation & Music

The performance scenes are really where this movie shines. It's immediately evident that Yuzuru Tachikawa, director of Mob Psycho 100, is at the head of this movie. The ~~fight~~ performance scenes start grounded, but very quickly become colorful, vibrant, and abstract. Miyamoto's view of jazz as creative, emotional, and artistic expression clearly comes through in the animation of his playing. At times he appears to undergo a Goku-esque power up, and other times we're taken on a visual journey. Tamada, being far less experienced than his bandmates, is mostly shown without the abstract flair that Miyamoto receives. Instead, the animators took great care to accurately animate the drumming.

At times, the performance scenes fall back on CGI for wide shots. It's jarring the first few times it happens, but the major climax moments of the performances are always well animated.

Hiromi's score for Blue Giant is exactly what one would expect when thinking of modern jazz. The movie doesn't use recognizable jazz standards, and instead relies on all original tunes. Minamoto's playing style is reminiscent of John Coltrane, one of the all time greatest jazz saxophonists; however, he also has a remarkable amount of his own musical identity. The tunes are exciting, flashy, energetic and abstract enough to match the energy of the associated animation. Blue Giant's music isn't nearly as memorable when compared to shows like Sound Euphonium and Bocchi The Rock. This isn't actually problematic though, as the songs give off the same feelings as seeing a live jazz concert. You're not supposed to remember the music because jazz is experiential and every performance is unique. In this sense, Hiromi's score does a wonderful job at complementing the animation and plot of the movie.

Concluding Thoughts

It's nice to see a piece of media that actually understands jazz and the musicians behind it. Blue Giant lacks a deep narrative, and instead focuses far more on giving its audience a wonderful visual and musical experience.

Blue Giant put a huge smile on my face, and it brought me back to my high school and college days, when I was a pianist in jazz combos. I thoroughly enjoyed the movie; however, if you don't have an experience to relate to and wanted a more complex story, Blue Giant might just come across as a little lackluster.

I was happy to find out that Blue Giant's manga has 3 sequels that take Miyamoto on a journey across the world. Each of these could reasonably be adapted into movies of their own, making up for his lackluster characterization.

Modern Jazz

The movie came to American theaters at a contentious time for the jazz community. Laufey, an up-and-coming artist, has been widely recognized as the "savior of jazz" by everyone except the jazz community itself. Jazz festivals are being headlined by non-jazz artists, and even Blue Note has booked artists like Snoop Dogg. Laufey and La La Land are wonderful, but they're not jazz. Blue Giant is jazz.

If you loved Blue Giant and you want to dip your toes into the jazz world, Emmet Cohen's recurring livestreams are a wonderful starting place. Patrick Bartley is one of his regulars, and stylistically shares a lot with Dai Miyamoto. His playing on After You've Gone and Ugetsu is phenomenal. I wouldn't be surprised to see him in the credits for Blue Giant sequels, seeing as he's a huge anime fan and recently moved to Japan.

If you want even more, then consider going out to your local jazz club and giving a listen to whoever's playing in the jam session. You'll see young high school and college aged musicians and learn that jazz isn't dying. It's alive and kicking.
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ZokuNeel
100/100
RAAAAHHHHHHHH READING THIS REVIEW IS NOT ENOUGH GO WATCH IT
__I AM DAI MIYAMOTO, AND I AM GONNA BE THE BEST JAZZ SAX PLAYER IN THE WORLD __ Funky. Lively. Colorful.
Blue Giant tells the chronicles of Dai Miyamoto who wanted to be the greatest jazz sax player in the world, along with his bandmates. Quite cliche motivation isn't it? Welp, as cliche as that sounds, Blue Giant executes the plot and its themes so well.

The movie is an adaptation of the original manga series of the same name. I was quite worried because an 80-chapter manga would definitely not fit well into a two-hour movie. Thinking about it, it is not possible to adapt that much content into a movie with time restrictions without reducing its quality... or so I thought.

The film does not dwell deep too much as much as the manga did, and it all goes straight to the point. If you are worried about character depth then, I might have something to say to you. When it comes to character development and character depth, the film encounters challenges in executing all of these due to time restraints (well imagine compressing all of the content into one movie lol), quite particularly on our main character, Dai Miyamoto, Compared to the manga, the manga had so much depth when it comes to all of these, while the film skips the first 20-30 chapters. However, the question is, do all of these affect the quality of the film? Definitely NOT.

The film exceeded my expectations on literally EVERYTHING. While the film does skip contents from the manga, to be fair, the contents skipped are mostly just an introduction and background of our main character. The flesh, blood, and bones of the original story were adapted SO. FUCKING. WELL. From Dai traveling to Tokyo looking for opportunities as musician, Dai looking for bandmates for his jazz band, as well as performing in gigs. The film manages to produce a coherent storyline and even added some scenes that weren't in the manga. I love it even more that the main theme of this is jazz to begin with, as jazz isn't given much attention in modern times compared to the contemporary and popular genres such as pop and rock. The film tackles how hard it is to be a jazz musician, given that it is underecognized in modern times. One by one, step by step, slowly but surely, the film manages to capture the ongoing success of jazz artists in slow but graceful manner.

Oh boy, do you wanna talk about the art and the sound designs? All the camera movements, the light directing, the compositing, literally all of these will make you ask for a minute: is this even a musical film? How can a musical film be this flamboyant? From the start until the end, mostly especially during their performances, it was such an eyegasm and eye-candy to look at. Oh and the sound designs? My jaw literally dropped because I never expected to be THAT GOOOOOOOOOD. I've been waiting for this film so much ever since I read the manga because I keep wondering how will the film portray such scenes. The film added so much more than I expected and god that last performance was amazing. Such a once in a lifetime experience, better t wear your headphones at max volume when you watch this.

Words cannot describe how I believe that this film was such an extraordinary experience I had in all the films I have experienced, reading this review isn't enough, GO WATCH IT.
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Zerokano
90/100
You want Jazz? Here you go, rough and intense. The sole Jazz Anime that exudes liquid gold
Preface
I love Jazz. I was born with Jazz as daily consumption through my family. While some say it's a bit of an old taste and unmatching for my still relatively young age, I still stand by it. Even though I can barely play any musical instrument (only confident in drums), the joy of just listening and fully immersed in Jazz is something that I can truly be proud of.

My passion for anime is also strong. So when the trailer for this movie drops, I know I’m 100% in for it. After evaluating all of my watches in 2023, surprisingly, this has come on top. We’ve had Oshi no Ko, Pluto, Hyakkano, etc. Yet this has come as my number one pick for 2023. In honor of that, this movie deserves a review.
Story & Plot
Well, the story follows the usual format of zero to hero. While I know it's cliched, there's truly only one goal in this movie that is brought up by the MC, to be the best Jazz player in the world. That's a big claim. Yet, he himself set his main target as "to perform in SoBlue Tokyo", not exactly a world stage but definitely the number one stage in Japan for Jazz (based on Blue Note Tokyo IRL). Gathering mates, practicing, doing lives, expanding the fan base, more lives, more practice, falling out, skill block, it's all there. A 2 hour screenplay that couldn't possibly manage to fit everything in perfectly, yet it still did it impressively well.

I haven't read the manga, and I get the feeling that there are so many more untold stories left in the manga. But this isn't a manga, it's a movie. With actual animation and MUSIC in it, which should be its main selling point. And it did focus on that. Overall, a good enough screenplay adaptation with music as its main selling point.
Characters
The three main leads, Dai, Yukinori, and Shunji, are all musicians with different backgrounds. Yukinori is a pianist from a young age, trained on the basis of discipline and rules. Shunji was barely a musician as he only played just after the movie started. But his drive to be able to catch up to the rest of the band pushes him forward, improving his drumming and sense of music. Whilst Dai, trained by trial and error, had natural born talent and passion that he perfected in mere three years.

While the story shows the skill disparity between the three different leads, it doesn’t overcomplicate it for a 2 hour screenplay. Yes, there was a rift between the leads, but it didn’t over exaggerate it to the point of it being the main topic. As to why? Well, for more Jazz screentime of course. I bet the screenplay writer can fit in a more intricate and deep plot for a more dramatic and truer story, but it was swept aside for more Jazz screentime. A decision that is, to me, well worth it. More on that in the music section.
Animation & Visuals
I was afraid when the tag showed CGI. We all know how plagued a title is when it has CGI in it. But in this movie, it was for a better cause. First off, the scenery and background was well done. Tokyo was vibrant with the sort of “blue” that showed life and progress. The aesthetics fit really well. Everyday life scene was vibrant and passionate. And when the live show starts, it turns itself into one of the best expressions of Jazz, visually. It quite reminds me of Pixar’s Soul way of visualizing Jazz. The two is actually a pretty similar IP, revolving around Jazz.

Now to the CGI. Well yes, it’s still jarring visually, but the hand animation for every instrument was true to its note. Particularly in the solo drum scene, where I could imaginatively hear what Shunji was going through. That slow-fast movement between the crash and ride was amazingly well done, true to life.
Music & Score
This is the meat of this movie. Uehara Hiromi, notably known as Hiromi on stage, did an amazing job with the scores. The original piece, truly liquid gold. Oozing out from the refinery, finest, purest liquid gold in the form of Jazz. It follows 50s-60s standards well enough, but it also fuses in modern Japanese Jazz in between. Such bold arrangement, one that tickles the listener to effortlessly listen to it. Enamoured by its rough and intense play, one that truly captures your attention by the first bar. Again, liquid gold was exhibited in this movie. I can’t stop jamming when the music starts, simulating ride and crash hits in between. It’s not just fun to watch, but also fun to go along and jam with.

Never have I been this excited about Jazz in TV/Movie media. The only other Jazz anime to compare is Sakamichi no Apollon, but that title leans more heavily on the coming of age aspect, less on the Jazz. Another is Pixar’s Soul, but Jazz is only the set environment, and not the main goal. With this, it’s all about Jazz, and I couldn’t agree more with it.
Ending Remark
You know, this is a biased review, a review from someone who enjoys Jazz. This movie may not be a cup for everyone, but for the Jazz enthusiast, I can surely recommend this. Heck, even if someone isn’t into anime, this is still a good watch for them. I know that, because my Dad also loves it the second the first bar drops, even if he doesn’t watch anime. Because the common language is not the media type, it’s the music, the Jazz that’s in it that brings forth viewers with minds alike.

Overall, this is a phenomenal movie, one that deserves my Anime of The Year 2023. If you love Jazz, no doubt you’ll love this. Be it avid anime watchers, or even someone who doesn’t watch one. It will still be able to entrance you with its Jazz, by the first bar.
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