BODY SWAP ANIME SERIES
BODY SWAP ANIME TV

They can range from the macabre to the quirky or cringe-worthy to brilliant. Only occasionally does a more painterly touch transport us, as when a Butch-Cassidy-style him-and-her bike ride pans out against a landscape that seems painted in watercolours on handmade Washi paper.Just like bodies, no two examples of body swap fiction are exactly the same. ItвЂ™s a manga-style premise that chimes with the charactersвЂ™ big TV-anime eyes and gurning вЂsurpriseвЂ™ or вЂembarrassmentвЂ™ faces.

BODY SWAP ANIME SERIES

The voice casting is spot-on, with Suzu Hirose (who played the younger half-sister in Kore-edaвЂ™s Our Little Sister) giving Nazuna a dreamy sensuality and Masaki Suda (Norimichi) hitting the balance of awkwardness and sensitivity that first attracts his classmate.ДЄ mysterious prismatic globe that Norimichi finds in the sea looms large in FireworksвЂ™s core business - which is to take a shy young teen boyвЂ™s вЂњwhat if I had another chance with her, what would have I done differently?вЂќ, and grant the wish via a series of magic time-rewinds. This is what prompts Nazuna to run away, with Norimichi as her chosen partner in elopement вЂ“ and possibly also what persuades her to do the bunk in traditional clothes, a rebuke, perhaps, to an older generation she sees as trite and bereft of values. Generational conflict also gets a look-in: NazunaвЂ™s mother is about to remarry for the third time and move her daughter away from her school and friends. ItвЂ™s also good on how 14-year-old girls are so much more mature than their male peers - not just in terms of cool, but physically too (Nazuna is almost a head taller than Norimichi). Fireworks is good on the undemonstrative nature of male friendships at this age (Yusuke declares his interest in Nazuna, Norimichi never does - but he doesnвЂ™t need to, as he knows Yusuke knows heвЂ™s equally besotted).

Norimichi is a smart but tongue-tied boy with a shy tousle-haired charm, Nazuna is the pretty classmate he and his best friend, the more confident and wordy Yusuke, both have a crush on. There are more engaging fireworks, or at least small sparks, when the film begins to dig into the feelings, friendships and jealousies of its two main protagonists.

The nub is: вЂњare firework rocket bursts round or flat when you see them side-on?вЂќ Subtitles are going to have a hard time with that, of course, so there may be more depth to the discussion in the original, but thereвЂ™s no mistaking the fact that a potentially intriguing discussion about points of view never really goes anywhere. What the title refers to is an argument that will recur with baffling frequency throughout the film, between a group of male classmates at a believably real provincial high school in some unnamed seaside town.

BODY SWAP ANIME TV

The filmвЂ™s bizarre, lost-in-translation title is shared with its source material, a 1993 live-action TV series by writer and director Shunji Iwai, which many Japanese thirty- and forty-somethings still remember fondly. Anime aficionados may also turn their noses up at the filmвЂ™s odd and sometimes jarring mesh of 3D and 2D animation. In Fireworks, instead of the teasingly and evocatively developed boy/girl body-swap premise, we get a Sliding Doors time-travel trope that feels more laborious than charming. Other Asian territories should respond warmly to the its tender and refreshingly realistic portrayal of high-school love, but here and elsewhere it will suffer by comparison with Your Name. There are more engaging fireworks, or at least small sparks, when the film begins to dig into the feelings, friendships and jealousies of its two main protagonistsДЇireworksвЂ™ fair to middling Japanese box office result since its 18 August release seems about right for a fair to middling anime that packs a lot of cuteness into its regulation 90-minute running time, but delivers little of Your NameвЂ™s gender- and generation-bridging magic.

Signed once again by hot young producer Genki Kawamura, and backed by the distribution muscle of mega studio Toho, it too debuted on home territory in the teen-friendly school summer holiday break, one year on from Your Name. Fireworks too centres on a shy high-school love story with supernatural elements. One could be forgiven for assuming that this clumsily-titled animated feature is an attempt to cash in on Makoto ShinkaiвЂ™s gender-swapping teen romance Your Name, which since its August 2016 release has become the biggest selling Japanese anime film of all time. Fireworks, Should We See It From The Side or the BottomДir: Akiyuki Shinbo, Nobuyuki Takeuchi.

Body swap anime