Before I start this review, if you haven't watched the anime yet, then watch that first. You can technically watch the movie without watching the anime series, but many scenes won't make sense without any context.
The Shirobako Movie (stylized SHIROBAKO Movie, or SHIROBAKO The Movie, etc.) is a direct sequel to the Shirobako anime that originally aired in 2014-2015. Announced in 2018, aired in Japanese theaters in February 2020 and at theaters all across America on August 10th, 2021. I and five strangers paid fourteen dollars (plus tax) at the Regal Hollywood & RPX in Greenville, South Carolina to sit and watch the highly anticipated sequel to what was one of the best anime to air in 2014. While most viewers came out of the theater exuberant, happy to see Aoi, her friends, and the Musashino Animation gang team up one more time, I left the theater disappointed and slightly upset.
The movie starts off four years after the anime ended. Those four years have not been kind to Musashino Animation, who has fallen from grace due to the ‘Time Hippopotamus Incident’. With most employees leaving MusAni after the debacle, and MusAni‘s reputation being heavily tarnished, the anime studio is now only a skeleton team that gets subcontracted by bigger production companies for anime. Aoi, still at MusAni, is offered to produce an anime movie ‘Air Amphibious Assault Ship SIVA’, after the previous company contracted to produce it, GPU, balks at it. Aoi, now a Producer, and MusAni accept the contract, knowing well that they only have less than a year to complete it and also need to find staff who are up for the task.
The first part of the movie after MusAni accepts the contract is Aoi ‘getting the gang back together’. Everyone (except Yutaka Honda, who is still working at a pastry shop, and Masato Murakawa, who stepped down from the President position at MusAni after the ‘Time Hippopotamus Incident’) slowly comes back to MusAni to work on the movie. It was around this part where I started to realize that this movie wasn’t going to be anywhere as good as the anime was. The problem was that it took way too long to reintroduce all of the characters. This wasn’t ever a problem in the anime because most of them were already working for the company, thus not needing to be convinced to work on a project. It also helps that the anime had a longer running time (the movie is two hours long, which is approximately six TV anime episodes). That being said, EVERY character is reintroduced, even if they only have a few lines after their reintroduction scene. I can see from a sentimental standpoint why this is important, but in relation to the actual plot, it takes valuable time away from showing actual production on the movie they’re making. The large character cast that melded so well together in the anime was spread too thin in the movie. The dialogue between the characters is still great though, I just believe that the character cast for Shirobako might be too large for a movie (or at least a movie with this pacing).
The rest of the movie consists of the team producing the movie. These parts left me with a sour taste in my mouth, wishing they weren’t so spaced-out and fast-paced. Unlike in the series, there is no real conflict involving the time crunch the MusAni team is under. Most of the conflicts revolve around the reluctance of some of the former staff being reluctant to come back, and that’s of course solved if they’re working on the movie. The climax of the movie, which is only relevant for a total of fifteen minutes, give or take, tries to emulate the climax of the TV anime, only to pale in comparison. The antagonist of this movie, while a greedy and overall bad person, is nowhere as good as an antagonist as the ones in the second cour of the anime. I found the climax to be underwhelming, mostly due to how fast it came and went, and also due to knowing that the movie was going to be made no matter what.
One part of the movie that really messed with my head was when they previewed the movie they made. While many comments were made about how it was great, there were some critiques about how the movie started good, but got too fast-paced as it went on, and about how the climax was underwhelming. These critiques are the same I have about the Shirobako Movie itself. It’s one thing to have an anime movie about an anime studio that produces an anime movie; it’s a completely different thing to have an anime movie about an anime studio that produces an anime movie whose drawbacks closely mirror the ones of the movie (in my opinion at least). In real life, I know that P.A. Works wasn’t under a time crunch like the MusAni folks were. The movie was worked on for at least two years and was released on time. Thankfully it was completed before COVID could complicate the schedule. It does make me wonder if the comments made about the movie that MusAni made were to mirror complaints one may have about the Shirobako Movie itself. I assume that I’m not the only one with these particular complaints. I don’t believe that this would be the case though—it would be an earth-shattering amount of meta to do this, something that would remind me of the movie Freddy Got Fingered and the story behind how the movie was made. To put it bluntly, this is a case of me over-thinking, and probably with me coping with the fact that my high expectations were not met.
For all of the bitching I have done, I’d still give this movie a 6/10. All of the characters that we know and love make their appearances, and their lines aren’t worse than in the movie. Only spread thin. None of them have their personalities ret-conned. The soundtrack is nice. The musical number Aoi does near the beginning of the movie was the best part of the movie in my opinion. And I’m not that big of a fan of musicals. While the character animation was better than in the anime (bigger budget equals better animation, duh), there was a problem with the backgrounds. It seemed like they were only standard definition and were scaled up to high definition without any anti-aliasing or upscaling. I don’t know how this happened, and I don’t know if this was a problem in Japanese theaters too, or only in American ones. I know the theater I went to wasn’t the only one that had this issue, and I wasn’t the only one that noticed it. Maybe it’s something to do with projecting the movie on such a big screen, or with the copies that Eleven Arts (the company that distributed the Shirobako Movie to American theaters) were given. Either way, I hope this issue is confined to the silver screen. The low-quality backgrounds are only a mild distraction, but it’s enough for anyone that’s paying attention to notice.
I believe that this movie could’ve been way better if the pacing wasn’t so weird. Along with the reintroduction arc that takes way too long, the movie that they made gets shown, in a five-minute scene, which should’ve been used to show the MusAni crew putting the final touches on the movie instead. The movie lacks any real tension, unlike the anime, which had multiple points that gave me anxiety like I was watching a thriller film. I’d say the main reason for this is due to the movie portraying making an anime as something way easier than it was portrayed in the TV anime. There was never a doubt that the movie was going to be made.
I know most viewers will be satisfied with seeing Aoi and the cast together one more time, but I’m sad that this might be the last time we get to see them. If they decide to make a second season (or would it be the third season in this case?), I hope they come at it with the same energy they had while making the first season. The movie made good money (over ten million dollars at the box office I believe), but the way it ended, it seemed like this might be it for the Shirobako series. Maybe it’ll come back and Aoi will be the President of MusAni or something along those lines. Who knows. Overall, the movie is okay, but well worse than the series. I think I’m in the minority on this. Perhaps I had too high expectations. I know I didn’t come to watch the movie just to bag on it. It upsets me that I have to write a negative review on it. Anyways, the Shirobako Movie is a disappointingly average movie sequel to a fantastic anime series.