
a review by KatagiriYuichi

a review by KatagiriYuichi
If I’m giving you my honest opinion, Promare was pretty well made. Given that Promare was a great movie, albeit having flaws from one side or another. Studio Trigger may well be my favourite studio, making the most unique originals, all of them I enjoyed. Kill la Kill being an anime I still hold dear to this day, and Guren Lagann, something I’ve yet to finish but still epic from the first few episodes.
Studio Trigger ended up returning with perhaps another one of their entertaining works, also known as, ‘Promare’. How I came to know of this movie’s existence was simple. Hearing about it from others.
Promare happens to revolve around Galo, a firefighter. Humans also combust all over the world and cause a unique type of fire. Galo just so happens to be the type of firefighter to fight the unique fires with his rescue team. The primary antagonist is Lio, who is the leader and savior of ‘combustion civilians’, aiming to save those created fires.
Given the description, you’d think it’s a basic rival vs rival anime, but it grows to be way more than that, and to avoid spoilers, I won’t continue anymore.
The characters are indeed interesting too, though if you might, it can be cringey sometimes. They do their usual dragon ball screaming whilst having powerups. But nonetheless, these characters are cliché while having unique touches to them. Take our main character Galo, for example. Having a shounen-y main character trait, but then managing to work with others unlike most main characters. Sure, he’s loud, but it’s not bad.
On the other hand, we have our main antagonist, Lio, who is actually a decent villain as he avoids killing, and he wants to save ‘combustion civilians’. Heck, those ideals aren’t even in most main antagonistic characters. That is, until you realize who the main villain is.
Whilst I’m praising the characters so much, really, only the important characters are good. The side characters… uh, not really that good. They aren’t even worth noting, to be honest. All they really did was fight and support the main characters. They more or less did a good job considering this was only a movie.
Studio Trigger’s main point is the art. The art is such an eye candy. It’s also so aesthetic. The fluidy, and perhaps, the CGI could do better, but it was still fine. The fight scenes are so well animated, all while maintaining a consistent art. The sakuga was below average speed compared to other animes, but it’s okay. Even the character designs are so unique to one another. (With Galo even resembling Kamina from Guren Lagann.)
The soundtrack was fire, too. Especially the well-known OST, ‘Inferno’. The voice acting was unique, but to be honest, probably not the best. I say this because Galo, Lio and other characters have voices that, in my opinion, don’t exactly fit any of the characters. It was still fine, though. Just personally didn’t sit right with me.
Promare was actually finely done, to be honest. I am quite disappointed with myself for unable to find many flaws, but the entirety of the movie had me so… entranced. The scenes were so beautiful it distracted me from being even able to capture the story. Even though I didn’t watch it in theaters, it sure felt like watching in one.
So, I apologise, if I perhaps gave Promare more praise than it deserves, but I for one, think it deserves all this praise. This movie is my personal favourite and I definitely recommend. Perhaps you should turn your mind off and go with the flow.
45.5 out of 51 users liked this review