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As is usual with Studio Colorido, their stories blend fantasy with the problems of everyday and social life in Japan, offering a very specific portrayal of the country’s more rural culture. The result is works that feel like a warm hug to the heart. This time, they collaborate with Twin Engine’s new studio, Studio Chromato, which so far has only participated in this film.
It is a wholesome story, carrying a message of hope deeply rooted in the Japanese idea of moving forward together and avoiding escape through isolation. The protagonist is a young woman who refuses to run away, show weakness, or allow herself to ... slow down. Forced into independence by family pressure, she finds rest in a fully sensory virtual reality world.
When it comes to animation, it is practically some of the best of the current era, easily standing its ground against the finest animated moments in One Piece. There is an explosion of colors, creative use of perspective, detailed architecture, expressive framing, beautiful and carefully crafted line art, and a gorgeous color palette that supports a fun and imaginative concept.
The music is lovely, but if there is one aspect that truly stands out, it is the characters. They overflow with personality, constantly keeping a smile on your face. The humor—while not a defining trait of the film—caught my attention and genuinely won me over.
Without a doubt, this film is a success. If it’s your kind of story, or if you simply want to give yourself a bit of personal time, I highly recommend watching it.

Indefensible. That’s what defines this movie. Whether I liked it or not is irrelevant, but it’s full of things that would normally make a movie good, and for some reason they exist here and instead turn it into a piece of shit I don’t want to recommend.

I liked the protagonist; I liked him as a character. I do feel he delivered the exact message the story wanted to convey. He’s relatable: when you don’t know what to do with your life, when you think about death as a game, when you say things you don’t even mean and never actually try. You just do whatever ... you think will make you happy while your life slips away. Until someone, through a simple action (just doing whatever comes to mind in the moment) captures the essence of what you’re missing to truly live fully.

The timeline is shit. I’m not going to analyze whether it’s narratively correct; you simply can’t tell a story that way in a movie. Either you make it clear what you’re trying to tell, or you don’t tell it at all.
So you’re telling me that when the protagonist’s father found the girl and then died, the movie was still taking place during the protagonist’s youth, and it’s not until halfway through the damn movie that they tell you this? They don’t explain for over an hour that they’re frozen in time, and after seeing the combined actions of all the characters who did contribute something to the story, what one would expect is that at the end we’d learn something about them: their final moments. What happened to the villain? What did the uncle say to his brother’s wife? What the hell happened to his other selves from the other reality? Did the girl stay that way? Did she become a child again? Did she reunite with her parents?
I went from watching the protagonist’s romantic feelings and how he felt, to suddenly there being this brat with an Oedipus complex out of nowhere, without showing even a shred of romantic or sexual development, anything that would justify when she decided she loved the protagonist and how it affected her so much that she was willing to say “fuck the world.”
And first of all, why did the gods bring the girl in the first place?

The female protagonist was weird, yes, but they dump way too much shit on her. Look at her father: how he treated her and what he asked her to do. I feel her behavior is completely justified, because at no point did she actually treat anyone badly; even when it seems like she did, it turns out she didn’t. I guess she just has an unbearable personality.