TLDR
Josee was a movie my friends and I have been anticipating for quite some time. I love me a good tragedy, and as soon as I saw a wheelchair, I was hooked. After watching it, I was a little conflicted. It has excellent appeal at being a vanilla anime and looking good, but the characters, story, and emotional climax kind of fall short compared to everything else in its category. I would say Josee is the Toradora of drama romance movies. If you were to watch this first, then watch Weathering or Your Name, for example, you would appreciate them a lot more.
Plot - Average
As I mentioned before, Josee is a light film to enjoy, but it doesn't have the same depth compared to some of the greats. For about the first 48 minutes, the story follows Josee, a crippled girl struggling with the outside world. She doesn't go out much and is mainly shielded by her grandma. She meets the MC, who at the time is just looking for work. He is a college student looking to fund his abroad trip and, throughout the movie, becomes interested in Josee. He starts to notice Josee's stubborn nature and quickly realizes her ideology. She is categorized as the "fish" while outside; people and obstacles generally fall under the "tiger." Her grandmother taught her that nothing good is in the outside world, so this bundle of negativity quickly builds up.
About halfway into the movie, the climax hits, and the grandmother is pronounced dead. I kind of enjoyed the sudden development, but I can see how others would nitpick about it. Josee continues her rude personality only to cause the MC to get into an accident. This is clearly the turning point of their relationship. Josee instantly softens up to Tsuneo, and the central theme of the show is brought up. Josee can't keep blaming other people for her problems. She cant lash out this negative energy towards others and has to face them head-on herself, something she hasn't done because of her grandmother. We get a pretty nice dramatic scene in the library which illustrates Josee's growth in character as well as some romantic appeal to conclude the film.
To conclude the story section, I think Josee is really simple but enjoyable at face value. It has some fantastic dramatic moments with great tracks to compliment them, but the plot points, sequences, and developments are pretty basic, if not predictable. I think I would have enjoyed the story much more if their relationship made a bit more sense; with the MC being treated like dirt, the whole movie pairing them together kind of felt forced, and I felt a lack of connection.
Art - Above Average
I think Josee is in contention for the most conflicted art rating on my list. At certain times it looked terrific, incorporating the black bars to fit the movie aesthetic as well as the Horimiya art style. Other times it seems like the picture quality is lacking, or just background animation in general. It's really rare for me to be this undecided on art because usually, within seconds of looking at a show, I can give a general rating. Unfortunately, for Josee half the time, it looks like a nine and the other half a low 7. I still enjoyed this section because of the vanilla appeal I mentioned before. It has a super casual art style that isn't abstract and contains light colors, a minimalist approach, and attractive girls—a recipe for success.
Sound - Above Average
The sound was around a 7.5 until the last 15 minutes of the movie, and I heard Eve. He is undoubtedly my favorite Japanese artist to date, and I've listened to most if not all of his songs. It instantly enhanced my enjoyment rating, and I always got to tip my hat when companies decide to use the goat.
In addition to the Eve tracks, I noticed a good amount of premium OSTs that played throughout the movie that are better than the usual rubbish. There were many dramatic scores with violins, pianos, and everything else that fit the dramatic theme nicely. Overall this category was by far the strongest and heavily influenced the vanilla appeal that I loved so much.
Characters - Average
Josee being a movie already puts the character section at a disadvantage. I believe its much harder to connect the viewer to the cast in 2 hours than it is in 12 episodes of screentime. Unfortunately this film suffers the same curse as its nothing to brag about.
Josee is probably my favorite character. I think her design is super cute and appealing, while also sticking to the whole “disabled” tag. Even though her attitude is warranted it still became one of my biggest problems with the show. For about 50 straight minutes she just treated Tsuneo like shit even though he was the only person there for her (especially once the GMA died). Its terrific she realized her actions were wrong and attempted to fix them at the end but with minor tweaks this section could be an 8.
Tsuneo is the human embodiment of pure lmao. What at first was a “part time job” quickly became a passion for him. He stopped asking for payments and admitted that he felt obligated in helping Josee overcome her problems. He persevere through the insults and name calling (even if they were jokes) and even worried about Josee’s well being once he woke up from the accident. He didn't lash out or blame her once for putting him in a wheelchair and lets just say he is a better man than I am.
The only other character worth mentioning is Mai. She is hot so I guess she has that going for her. In addition she kind of played the Nao role from Silent Voice. She had romantic interests in the MC and progressively pushed Josee to cut her little kid attitude and actually make some moves before she does. Her confession scene was actually one of my favorite moments and I think she was a solid addition to a LACKING cast.
Positives
As I mentioned before the only reason I rated Josee a 80 and not a 75 is because of the vanilla appeal. The characters, background, animation, and everything in between give off these casual feeling that is super easy to grasp. The girls look great, lighting is on point, and I just enjoyed my experience vs some other abstract films i've seen. Furthermore I appreciated the romantic charm they added even though they kind of mishandled it. Early on it was nice seeing Josee blush at the MC and get flustered, even styling her hair later on in the story.
The last big positive I noticed was Josee’s wheelchair. I think having this element increases the dramatic effect a ton. While watching the movie I thought this would be a tragedy and seeing her crawl in the sand elevated that vibe completely. Weather it be people bumping into Josee, her grandma dying, or just her pouting in general, this movie did a FANTASTIC job at making the viewer think “damn I fucking feel for her”.
Negatives
Well I think the biggest negative for me is the lack of stimulation or emotional appeal. I might be wrong in assuming this but I was really expecting a sort of dramatic tragedy. Looking back on the tags its under the “drama romance” so more like Her Blue Sky then Maquia or Pancreas. The developments and moments in the movie didn't really wow me or make my eyes light up once. It was pretty predictable plot wise and just felt short and simple.
The last big negative I had was just their relationship as a whole. Don't get me wrong I always appreciate romantic appeal in anime but this time it just didnt make sense. It felt forced and not natural as Josee treated the MC like shit. 48 minutes in the movie he has gotten nothing but insults thrown at me and even though I understand its apart of Josee’s character it still frustrated me. It wasnt until the car accident that Josee was kinder towards the MC and overall it didnt feel like they did enough to connect the two characters in time for the confession scene.
Conclusion
In conclusion, I think Josee and the Tiger is a solid starter anime. If your deep into your experience, you will find it pretty predictable and textbook with not much separation from other shows. I'm guilty for easily enjoying these "vanilla" look-good films, so that alone probably added 5-6 points. It has a lot of shortcomings, such as the lack of actual emotion or plot itself, but it's a decent watch, and I enjoyed myself.
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