what a pleasant and pretty film.

firstly, the artstyle they were going for was on point. perfect for the late summer setting, wonderful on the eyes. i hope my summer looks like how this movies art style does, wish they gave this an HDR treatment because this color timing needs to pop out of your screen as much as possible.

i also adore the use of haiku throughout the movie, and how cherry uses them to communicate his feelings, and how that one blond kid’s graffiti kept popping up with lyrics from the haiku, and how those lyrics reflect how the MC was feeling at the time theyre shown on screen. they can be a bit difficult to decipher and be delivered in english. In the words of @rcoll499,

“Realizing that
Haiku do not translate to
English very well”

i definitely feel that it wouldve been a better viewing experience if i could understand japanese… but im too busy learning russian to do that lmao. otherwise, the dub is quite pleasant (besides smile’s groans. Wrong genre for that delivery, VA.) some deliveries of lines were a little cringe, smile can be annoying sometimes, and again the haikus don’t go into english very well. especially cherry’s one at the end. but, i appreciated the emotional weight they were meant to carry, despite the mediocre delivery.

the characters themselves I all found were not too anime-y if you know what I mean. except for smile, she got a bit too much at times but nothing egregious. i loved the chemistry between her and cherry though. that dynamic was done WAYYYYY better than what they were going for in 'pancreas', and i could feel that relationship was also quite believable given their time together and polar personalities.

the soundtrack is lovely, especially the track from the yamazakura record. if there was an actual entire album of that, id buy that shit up instantly.

~

ive noticed for the past three anime i’ve seen, they’ve really been focused on having the MCs stepping out of their comfort zones, and I feel 'soda pop' did a good job of delivering satisfying character development. maybe a little pushed to the end because of the run time, but it was a satisfying conclusion regardless.

also unlike other anime I’ve seen, soda pop doesn’t really loads of ‘creepy’ moments sprinkled throughout the movie which I REALLY appreciated. defo a good palette cleanser after 'pancreas' bizzare and straight up creepy behaviour. except for the fact that smile’s parents put her and her sisters on social media at such a young age? that’s pretty bad. but I appreciate the film points it out that that over exposure WAS bad by making her self-concious and then showing the side effects of it. It certainly a better job at clarifying those weird moments than some other anime (looking at you, pancreas…)

this film was a satisfying watch and a solid end to the weekend. i’ll probably rewatch it this summer because the artstyle is just so good, and so indicative of that late summer energy.

7.5/10