Nerawareta Gakuen

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Audience Member Describing the experience of "Nerawareta gakuen" (translated to the irrelevant, but cooler sounding title "Physic School War") is similar to the same way of a gamer feelings playing Dice video-game Battlefield 4. Allot went into the look, but lacks substance to justify how much went behind a broken product. Bland characters in an overly cliche story, and a sense of awe that something so shallow has so much care put into it. Nerawareta Gakuen (Physic School War in English) is about Ryouichi Kyougoku, a mysterious time traveling psychic from the future where the world ended in the future and humanity settled on the moon, and transfers into the 8th grade to awaken as much psychics in the present. Effortlessly combining high school romance with time traveling, physic powers, and impending apocalypse into an overly complicated mess. If the story only desired to be a high school romance it would have been a sensible, easy to follow bland story. Spending the first two act developing the romance (to a disappointing climax that avoids resolving conflicts) and a considerable amount of characterization is somewhat defeated. Somewhat since the central characters are all bland anime personalities; Kenji Seki is a dumb teen who has bad luck and oblivious to the fact his childhood friend Natsuki Ryouura loves him, Natsuki Ryouura is the typical girl next door who picks on Kenji to hide her true feelings from him, Kahori Harukawa is created to advance the plot in the form of a love triangle or having her start a conversation relating to their feelings, and finally Ryouichi Kyougoku who's the popular mysterious teen with an hidden agenda. Four characters all of which aren't interesting because what the story does with them is highlight their weaknesses. Sure the characters are given depth, but what the writer do with them gives off the wrong impression. Natsuki Ryouura for example clearly likes Kenji, but upon meeting her characters she in a single minutes teases him, punches him, and calls the police. Like everyone in the story Natsuki matures, though the way she acts towards Kenji is the same. That's just the characters not working on their own imagine the rest of the film. Being split into a supernatural drama and slice of life romance never does it become good at being one thing it sets out to be. On one hand the romance doesn't work because of the bland characters and the cliche route it takes. This being the real meat of the film story it's disappointing what little is done with it amount to no reward. Then comes the supernatural drama aspect which is completely pointless. It's so far removed from the central story that it's unneeded fluff. Keeping things vague physic powers play by rules the writers make up in order to spice things up. Leading to plot holes and a muddle set of rules that makes it needlessly difficult to understand what actually happen no matter how basic it appears. Now something I left out, just like film, has something to do with it odd hatred towards cellphones. At first it appears it was going to tackle what it means to be social in a society that relied technology for interaction, but nope it reappears to amount to nothing. It's just mention just for the sake of it, but it becomes a plot point. What is done with the cell phones plot point amounts to a character saving his childhood friend from a debate about having cell phones in school in his underwear. I'm not kidding that's exactly what the whole cell phone angle amounts to. It can't do a proper ending either leaving you scratching your head in confusion in what resulted from the climax. Abandoning plot elements and subplots like there's no tomorrow Nerawareta Gakuen (Physic School War) never feels as ease to watch even when it barely works. The production values of the film are best thing about this movie. Ryosuke Nakamura eye for details rivals of that of director Shinkai Makoto. A lot of attention is paid in the meticulous details of the visuals from the cherry blossom petals being blown in the breeze to the gleaming rays of light shining through classroom windows. Another outstanding feature is the use of color hues and tones to accentuate and render scenic clouds and evening skies. Character animation is smooth, lighting effects work nicely with the watercolor-styled backgrounds, and the film manages to build a lifelike environment and atmosphere much like in Shinkai's films. Furthermore, director Nakamura Ryousuke throws some laid back, carefree spirit and lovable appeal into the mix, which ends up covering a whole lot of the movie's failures in other areas. Voice actors give life to what little personalities their characters have. They have the right of playful and serious nature making its character progression seem natural. Music is downright forgettable. Having checked out the film soundtrack this is perhaps one of the laziest compilation of music for any animated film. Most of the soft piano ballads so sound similar to one another that they all sound like minor variation of one track. Songs mostly are slow, low key wanting to get across a sentimental feelings of youth. However, the more you listen to it the more you began to pick up it's more fitting for a commercial than a film production. Nerawareta Gakuen is pretty to look at and that's about it. Bland characters fall into the category of being annoying taking part of a story that amounts to a whole of nothing in confusion at its ending. Whatever plot and subplots it build up ends with lackluster resolutions that bring no closure to them. Abandoning and retreating ideas will make it difficult for viewers to maintain focus because it's all over the place. Once you take away the detail visuals all you're left with is disappointment having seen a shallow film more concern about it looks than having its own unique personality. Rated 2/5 Stars •  Rated 2 out of 5 stars 02/11/23 Full Review Audience Member The art/sound really compensated for everything else it lacked to be a great film. I was immensely disappointed in this film. Rated 2/5 Stars •  Rated 2 out of 5 stars 01/25/23 Full Review Audience Member visualnya kerenn bgt, namun ceritanya terllau banyak plothole, bingung. romance nya agak hambar. overall film ini cuma bagus di visualnya c. sisanya biasa. Rated 2.5/5 Stars •  Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars 01/24/23 Full Review Audience Member Touchant et magnifiquement réalisé, un bon anime! Rated 4/5 Stars •  Rated 4 out of 5 stars 02/02/23 Full Review Read all reviews

Nerawareta Gakuen

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