“The little mermaid gazed at the prince, and threw herself into the sea”

I admit, I was very excited to see some of my favourite anime industry icons working on this new Netflix movie. Seeing the likes of Tetsurou Araki, who directed Attack On Titan, Gen Urobuchi, who was the scriptwriter for Madoka Magica, and Hiroyuki Sawano, a musical master working on this show was a treat, and they delivered and executed the technical aspects of this show extremely well. I was constantly blown away by the fluid animation and musical score, and I’ll definitely circle back and listen to this soundtrack quite a bit in the future. However, what weakened this for me was its lack of an underlying theme. It’s a similar type of romance story as a Makoto Shinkai, but this time, inspired by “The Little Mermaid”, but I just couldn’t find what message they were trying to convey.

*Spoilers below

My grading criteria: Story: /25 Art: /10 Music: /10 Characters: /20 Enjoyment /15 Thematic Execution /20

STORY: 10/25

A group of people, following a disaster that decimated Tokyo, kids that went through dark times or lost their families were able to play parkour to their heart’s content, and through that, created a competition that showcases a lot of danger, and Hibiki, the main character, gets saved by Uta, someone inspired by “The Little Mermaid”, and is actually a wonderful parkour player, leading their parkour team to victory. Following that, the romance plot picks up, and disaster strikes yet again, leading to a melodramatic ending. Seemed like a very typical Hollywood disaster film, just animated really well.

A very simplistic story, which likely could have been improved with a bit of a longer run time. It just seemed underdeveloped to the extent that I wasn’t really invested in what was going on in the story. Most of the characters aside from Hibiki and Uta were forgettable, and didn’t have much to contribute.

ART: 9.7/10

Undoubtedly an amazing visual feast, and the highlight of the movie. Wonderful action sequences, with many pictures that could go on phone wallpapers and memorable scenes to remember the movie by.

MUSIC: 9.1/10

Sawano delivers on the musical front as well, and it sounded great throughout. No doubt that I will be listening to the soundtrack later on. I did find the little “bubble tune” a bit repetitive, but it suits the movie well enough.

CHARACTERS: 8.5/20

Another aspect of the movie that could have been improved with a longer run time was the characters. Apart from our main duo, the other characters are forgettable and whatever plot line they started, it never really got resolved. There were minor romances between some characters, and even the main duo, that felt very bland and empty to me. Not much development for any character.

I do like the name Hibiki, which is a play on “Hibike”, which means “sound”, and it represents Hibiki’s character pretty well, so props to that name.

ENJOYMENT: 8.5/15

Enjoyed the visuals and the soundtrack a lot.

THEMATIC EXECUTION: 5/20

I honestly didn’t know what this movie is supposed to represent. Maybe it’s just that simple, a romance between Hibiki and Uta, combined with parkour action. Themes were executed very well, and it just seemed like a bunch of things mixed together, but nothing stood out.

OVERALL: 50.8/100

A masterpiece in the technical aspects, not so much a masterpiece in the narrative aspects. A sweet romance, mixed with interesting action, that feels, a bit empty.