Promare

A visual feast and a high-octane journey. Far and away TRIGGER's best production to date, and excels on its own and against its peers as if it's not even breaking a sweat. The sheer, lush visual spectacle on display takes what is otherwise a story steeped in cliché to a completely different level.

Anime films are kind of on a different scale. It's easy to get enraptured by the higher production value that's allowed to a cinematic piece. Everything is going to look better and feel more cohesive than a typical television anime, because more is banking on getting people in the doors of the theatre and paying the ticket price.

That needs to be stated to emphasize just how above and beyond Promare takes all of its baselines. The art and animation on display here is basically indescribable. Every scene is in motion, a natural consequence of a theme surrounding fire. But they took that mere concept of motion, and applied it to every scene. The swinging cameras on the CGI fights give an incredible sense of scale and momentum without disorienting the viewer's vision, and every fight feels coherent, even when the entire screen is awash in explosions, fire, and tumbling figures. It really needs to be emphasized that words can only do so much to explain any of this. The level of what is shown rather than what can be told is on a totally different scale here.

The presentation and animation itself is just inventive, when it comes down to it. Beams of emergency lights that extend out in lines rather than as light. Lens flares given a transparent, square-like pixel quality. Fire that's essentially moving fractals to create the sense of motion. Into the Spiderverse levels of camera swings and perspective shifts around 3D models. Dynamic character-name cards that erupts stylishly whenever someone is introduced, even sometimes interacting with the rest of the scene and getting knocked out of frame or burst by the action. Promare brings an insane level of creativity and panache to the table. If a series like Violet Evergarden can capture the beauty of nuance in a scene, Promare takes that same intricacy of animation and concept in the complete opposite direction to just show how COOL everything can look. The film has a few lulls in the story, which are necessary for the breakneck speed the film, giving the audience a much needed break before the next 20-30 minutes straight of uncompromising combat. But even in these slower scenes, the visualization of a room with brightly coloured triangles, capturing a simple life before a flood of chaos, or a heartbreaking moment of camaraderie that is as fleeting as the last embers of a fire, the remarkable level of detail and creativity is immeasurable.

Another thing that's required to mention is the daring color palette present. Fire is so instinctive for our eyes to see, but Trigger went with a very bold choice of choosing a mix of magenta/turquoise, and pink/blue for any fire on display. This, along with some expected color theming on display in any good Trigger production, and you get something that is purely and unabashedly unique in all execution. Lush really is the word of the day, as the entire film is a visual feast, with so much to visually take in that it can be a little exhausting. Couple that with the heart-pumping music of Sawano, and you get a visual and audio explosion that can't be shred from your mind.

The story, surprisingly, is the film's weakest point. This is mostly due to the stiff cliché of its basis. Although the world-building is extremely creative in its imagining of a science-fiction world altered by a tremendous fire-war, all of this design is surface level. You can easily forget what the importance of the city is beyond something to be lit ablaze and to have tons of buildings ripped apart during the action set-pieces.

The characters are also fairly weak in design, but this tends to work in the film's favour. Galo is simple, dim-witted, and the generic protagonist (let's not mince words, he really is Kamina from Gurren Lagaan, even though that's just a meme). Lio is sassy-naughty boy who wants the world to burn at any cost. But despite these one-note characters, they act as idealized foils for one-another, both to compare and contrast each other's views at different points during the film. The central premise hidden in the film is fairly predictable as well, but because of the two lead protagonists being extremely fleshed out in their clichés, any other characters simply need to bounce off of their strong personalities for instantly fun dialogue or action. There are also a surprising amount of side-characters, and although none get fleshed out, all get a moment or two in the spotlight, which is all that's really needed to advance the plot forward.

In the end, complex storytelling is not what Promare is about. Promare is about seeing just how far anime can push the medium of animation and execution in every sense of the word. And what small faults exist are completely eclipsed by the sheer magnitude of adrenaline-fueled action and artistic talent on display. It takes a simple premise, and let's it blaze like a supernova with its raw energy, and leaves you with nothing but its unrivaled passion where its fire once stood.