Review Updated After Rewatching in 2026!
##### Note: This is more of a personal ramble about the movie rather than an actual, high effort and well-spoken review.Introduction.
So recently I decided to rewatch Josee, the Tiger and the Fish with my girlfriend, 5 years after watching it for the first time. I originally wrote this review a few months after first experiencing the movie and gave it an 89/100 score, which is obviously a great score, and it all makes sense why I rated it so high back then now that I re-watched it. Because let me tell you that after experiencing it for the second time, the movie was surprisingly even better than what I remembered. Having rewatched it now, I'm almost certain that Josee, the Tiger and the Fish is indeed a masterpiece of a romance movie, one that gets unfairly nicknamed as "cliché" by people not realizing that its beauty comes from that exact simplicity of it. I'm not calling it a masterpiece because it revolutionized the romance genre, or even because it brings something fresh or new to the table; rather because it's a romance that follows the classic cliché formula of romance so well, that it sets an example for other movies to follow.
Story.
Although I want this review to be relatively spoiler-free, I will provide some basic information about its story so that you can understand what I'm talking about and describing later. The story follows Tsuneo, a marine biology student who also works part time, and Josee, a young wheelchair-bound girl who has been paralyzed since birth. Tsuneo is currently looking for a second part time job and due to circumstances and luck, he meets Josee and her grandmother, who due to her age is looking for someone to help her take care of Josee (as she is currently her only caretaker).
Thus, the two of them slowly start becoming friends, growing closer and closer due to their shared interests and their clashing, but in a weird way also compatible, personalities and ambitions. Josee has a fascination with the ocean, but with her being mostly secluded from the outside world due to her disability, it makes it hard for her to ever experience the beauty of the sea, so she consistently day-dreams about it. Tsuneo on the other hand is a young guy who has the opportunity to live life to the fullest, has many aspirations for the future and hopes to have a long and successful career ahead of him after his university graduation. In fact, he plans to move to Mexico to fulfill his dream of diving and witnessing the wildlife there. Since Tsuneo is basically the personification of everything Josee wants to do and become, she takes a liking towards him. The problem is that she feels like she would become a burden to Tsuneo due to her condition and while she does slowly fall for him, she simultaneously wants to distance herself from him. That's basically the whole plot of Josee, the Tiger and the Fish. Of course there are other events that will eventually complicate the whole situation, and others that will flip things completely on their heads and forever change the trajectory of their lives, but I will let you experience all that for yourselves if you haven't watched the movie yet.
My thoughts...
From everything I have described up until now, the movie probably sounds really generic and cliché. In fact that's what a lot of people claim this movie to be, and I won't lie to you, in a way it actually is. As I mentioned in the beginning though, it is not that its goal is to revolutionize the genre. What it's trying to do is to simply try and execute the romance formula perfectly, and in my opinion it truly excels at doing exactly that. As I said, Josee, the Tiger and the Fish is a truly great romance drama movie, probably one of the best of its kind, not because it's unique; but because everything this movie does and everything it tries to achieve plot and narrative-wise is executed perfectly. Everything that happens is grounded in reality, every single event and plot point that propels the narrative forward in this film felt incredibly "natural" as it was happening. And that's how it gets you; by being raw and staying grounded in reality it sets itself up perfectly in a very human, everyday-struggles kind of way. In an ironic twist, the movie by being so human, so grounded in reality and by taking virtually no risks narrative-wise, feels more unique and more daring than most movies trying to implement almost supernatural-like happenings to make their stories stand out.
Unlike some anime series or anime movies that try to subvert expectations as much as possible but in doing that they completely fail to have a meaningful message or a well-written story and throw their whole substance in the trash for some cheap emotional pay-off (cough cough... I Want To Eat Your Pancreas, cough cough...) Josee, the Tiger and the Fish simply does its job without making light of you and your emotions by pulling random ahh plot twists out of its ass, thus maintaining a consistent theme, message and a satisfying emotional payoff. I'd much rather experience a movie that follows a formula and does that perfectly, rather than a movie trying something new, but doing everything wrong in the process.
Changing the topic to the 2 main characters of the movie, I absolutely loved both of them. Sure, Josee may get on your nerves at first since she can be a bit of a tsundere and really abrasive at times, but if you truly understand her as a character you will definitely see where she is coming from. The way her life is, coupled with her daily struggles and the aspirations she has, but can never fulfill makes it quite obvious why she sometimes acts the way she does. Even if you do hate her at the start though, she becomes much more "normal" later, and the fact that she can be an asshole and gloomy some times, but other times she can be absolutely adorable and gleaming with joy, humanizes her in a way few movies can, and makes her very relatable and likeable as a person, especially if you can empathize with her to a certain extent.
Tsuneo is also a character I really liked; finally we get to have a male lead in a romance anime that actually has goals & aspirations with an active social life, not an "I have social anxiety and I don't know what to do with my life, god I wish a woman would finally show up in my life to save me" incel self-insert ahh type of guy. The chemistry between the two just felt right and natural while their goals and aspirations also aligned in a way that totally made sense to me. The overall dynamic of the character cast and especially the 2 main characters was something that just worked all of the time, throughout the duration of the movie and while some of their interactions and character traits can be seen as cliché, it wasn't boring or lazy written by any means.
The animation in this movie was absolutely stunning, there are so many shots that are wallpaper-worthy and the slightly messy art-style is very bold but gorgeous move that you don't see being utilized by a lot of movies very often, but it is something I've always been a fan of and it feels refreshing to see something more unique instead of the ultra-realistic aesthetic movies have. Anyway, I have literally nothing bad to say about the animation (it is what we come to expect from studio bones after all) and I feel that everything, from the art-style to the colors, from the backgrounds, to the character designs and also the fluidity of the animation was perfect. The music in this movie is also really good and further enhances the visuals with its presence.
Conclusion.
The way I see it, Josee, the Tiger and the Fish is a movie that pretty much nailed the romance/drama formula while at the same time not doing something particularly unique. It is as close to a perfect cliché movie as one can (probably) get. Sometimes the only thing you need to do in order to be a good movie is to try and remain as real and relatable as possible instead of going for that quick but incredibly cheap and forced emotional moment. Josee, the Tiger and the Fish did exactly that and that's why I loved it. Will you cry? Probably not, if you go into this movie expecting to bawl your eyes out then you will be utterly disappointed. That may discourage some people who actively search for sad and depressing series/films from giving this movie a try, but personally speaking, a movie that doesn't actually try to make you emotional at every given chance sure has way more potential at doing exactly that, compared to one whose sole purpose is to make you feel depressed. In general, I have almost nothing bad to say about this movie and the only reason I don't give it a 10 is because I personally am not that much into romance? But objectively speaking, I believe that when we talk about pure romance/drama movies, Josee, the Tiger and the Fish is perhaps one of the best I have seen.
