7.3 | / 10 |
Users | 2.0 | |
Reviewer | 4.5 | |
Overall | 3.8 |
When she hears a strange song from a crystal radio, Asuna tunes into more than just a magical stream of music. Soon, she is transported to a mysterious world where mythical beasts roam and brave warriors fight for their lives. Agartha is a land of breathtaking beauty and unimaginable danger-a place where, it is believed, even the dead can be brought back to life. But at what cost? Children Who Chase Lost Voices is a spellbinding new work from Japanese visionary Makoto Shinkai, who amazed audiences the world over with Voices of A Distant Star and 5 Centimeters per Second. Now, with Children, Shinkai affirms his place as one of animation's most original voices.
Starring: Hisako Kanemoto, Miyu Irino, Kazuhiko Inoue, Junko Takeuchi, Fumiko OrikasaForeign | 100% |
Anime | 95% |
Fantasy | 22% |
Romance | 17% |
Drama | 6% |
Adventure | 5% |
Action | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
Japanese: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
English
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region A (locked)
Movie | 4.5 | |
Video | 5.0 | |
Audio | 4.5 | |
Extras | 2.5 | |
Overall | 4.5 |
Studio Ghibli and Hayao Miyazaki may not have a monopoly on gorgeously animated quasi-folktales that often have a serenely meditative spirit, but you’d be hard pressed to find anyone who can better do what Ghibli has been doing for years. Makato Shinkai is a thirty-something Japanese animator who obviously grew up loving the works of Miyazaki and is now creating some lustrous pieces of his own. Children Who Chase Lost Voices (which has been released globally under a number of different titles) is Shinkai’s latest, and it is a piece that easily could have come from the ranks of Studio Ghibli. Luckily Shinkai is not a mere mimic and invests this film with its own very unique spirit. This lovely film echoes the ancient myth of Orpheus and Eurydice in a way, and in fact one early scene has a Japanese teacher relating an ancient Japanese myth that sounds pretty much exactly like the Orpheus story, with a distraught man journeying to the underworld to reclaim his dead wife, only to lose her through his own stupidity in not heeding the warning not to look at her before they both manage to get back to the above ground level. As in many (frankly probably even most, if not all) of the Studio Ghibli classics, our hero is a young child, in this case sweet if sad Asuna, a girl who is a top student despite (or perhaps because of) the fact that her father has died and she is forced not just to deal with not having him any longer, but also with the fact that her mother is very busy with her nursing job and can’t attend to Asuna as much as would be preferable. Also like many Ghibli films, Children Who Chase Lost Voices exults in a sort of languorous, almost meditative, quality that exploits ambient environmental sounds and the calming environment of the Japanese countryside. All of that is left by the wayside, however, once Asuna finds herself traveling through the Japanese version of Tartarus, an underground lair where spirits commingle with weird creatures and a race of people who don’t take kindly to their lair being visited by a “top sider”.
Children Who Chase Lost Voices is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Sentai Filmworks with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. As wonderful as so many of the CGI outings by Disney – Pixar or DreamWorks or any number of other entities may be, there's still something so inherently charming about well done hand drawn animation that when something as patently gorgeous as this film comes on the screen, it's like suddenly waking up in a new and magical world. Line detail is phenomenally strong throughout this enterprise, and colors are bold and striking. Backgrounds are often just this side of Impressionistic, but still retain vivid detail and an often lustrous palette. Character designs are very distinctive (especially once we get underground in Agartha). This is simply beautiful animation delivered beautifully by this high definition presentation. Any Ghibli fan is going to be very well pleased by the look of this film.
Both Children Who Chase Lost Voices' original Japanese language track as well as a very good English dub are presented via lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mixes. The dynamic range on both of these mixes is exceedingly wide. We get everything from the soothing buzz of cicadas (a sound that flits around the surrounds with lifelike vigor) to the roar of the Quetzlcoatl beasts. Immersion is very well handled, both in some subtle ambient environmental sounds (which are virtually nonstop throughout the film) as well as more obviously directional discrete foley effects. Dialogue is very cleanly and clearly presented and the film's charming underscore also sounds fantastic.
It's been kind of a rough fall for this reviewer, what with one lackluster anime offering after another. But maybe there's hope after all: just in the past week I've had the pleasure of watching both C Control The Money and Soul of Possibilty: Complete Series and now Children Who Chase Lost Voices, two radically different pieces that have nonetheless restored my faith that there are actually anime creators out there dedicated to providing quality product. It's kind of interesting that both of these pieces, as different as they are, are somewhat derivative in either content or style, but that doesn't diminish the impact either had, and in fact seeing Children Who Chase Lost Voices in a sort of meta-Ghibli context only helps to appreciate it more. This is a wonderfully told story with absolutely gorgeous animation. Highly recommended.
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