Categories
Anime Reviews Film Reviews Reviews

Anime Review – Liz and the Blue Bird

Mizore Yoroizuka and Nozomi Kasaki are a pair of best friends in their final year of high school. They’re both obsessed with the school’s brass band club. With Mizore on the oboe and Nozomi on the flute, they spend their days in happiness–until the club begins to practice songs inspired by the fairy tale Liz und ein Blauer Vogel (Liz and the Blue Bird). Immersed in this story, Mizore and Nozomi begin to realize that there may be no such thing as being together forever.ANN

Release: Limited Theatrical Release. Available on Disc from Shout! Factory in March, 2019.

Source: Spinoff of Sound Euphonium

Episodes: 1 (film)

Review: Please be aware, this review contains spoilers of the film, as well as of season 2 of Sound! Euphonium.

It’s often said that, if you truly love someone, you need to be willing to let them go. The other half of the saying suggests that if the relationship was meant to be, then person you love will eventually return to you. But what about the sometimes transient relationships that arise out of a particular moment’s necessity? There’s nothing that says friendships built around shared employment, a similar class schedule, or even an after-school club membership can’t last well beyond the time and place of their creation. But more often than not, it seems as though once the experience has ended and the opportunity for shared strife is gone, a relationship that may have seemed rock-solid suddenly might start to lose its context and fade away.

Categories
Previews Reviews

Winter 2019 Anime – What I’m Looking Forward To

It’s that time again – time to look ahead at the wonderful potential of the season to come. Once again the Northern Hemisphere, and specifically my part of the United States, is entering into a snowy deep-freeze. While there’s little reason to brave the outdoors (unless you like skiing, ice-fishing, sledding, or skating… which I don’t), it’s a great time to stay in the house under a blanket, watching all the wonderful animated content that Japan has to offer.

As usual, I want to be clear in stating that this is just a preview; aside from sequels or anime for which I’ve experienced the source material, I don’t have much to base my opinions on other that my sense for what I might personally like. I’m usually disappointed by a few of my picks, and there are often several anime that fly completely under my radar, but which later turn out to be favorites. Much like the week between Christmas and New Year’s, the time between anticipating new anime and finding out about its reality is a magical time of being suspended in a state of perpetual possibilities. Whether it pans out exactly as anticipated is probably not even that important, to be honest.

Note: As with my previous posts on this subject, I’m using the Western (English) titles when possible, though those sometimes don’t solidify until after simulcasts are announced.