Joake cugeru Lu no Uta

I was incredibly excited about this movie practically from the second I saw the trailer. I felt it made for an interesting and emotional spectacle, and I could see it took some inspiration from Miyazaki's "Ponyo". Well, in the end, I guess I basically got what I expected, though certainly not to the degree and intensity I would have expected. Yes, there is no denying that at least animation-wise, it is interesting, colorful, cheerful, and very much unexpected in this digital age, even though I cannot say I was blown away by its colorful style. I found it strange (almost weird at times), and the moments when there was dancing made me think of old animations like the French Asterix movies. Story-wise, I did not expect anything complicated. I would not have minded that that was all I got if everything had been balanced with a healthy number of emotional scenes and the kind of charming atmosphere that the aforementioned Ponyo has. Unfortunately, I did not feel very moved even though it was charming in some situations. It was endearing at times, although there was just not enough cuteness to really entertain me. I found the emphasis put on the soundtrack surprising, and I did not expect it to be about the band at all. However, I only enjoyed the music in this movie about half the time. As for the characters, Lu was quite a cute character most of the time and I enjoyed her, as well as maybe her father (who reminded me of My Neighbor Totoro). Even by the very end, the main male protagonist was only OK when he was not pouting, even though I could not get on with such an Uho (who should be called Aho more like it). Reading through my review of this step by step, beginning to end, you might be forgiven for getting the impression this was quite a mediocre movie, even though that is not really how it struck me. It was a weird movie; it was interesting; it was a lot weaker than I wanted it to be; however, I still found it mostly quite entertaining. When I enjoy something, I cannot give it a bad rating. So I am awarding a feeble four stars (6.7/10). (26.11.2017)