Giniro no Kami no Agito

Having heard great things about Origin from various sources, I jumped at the chance to purchase the DVD cheaply on Amazon. When it arrived, I was excited, the blurb on the case leading me to remember the hype when it was first released; 'dreamily beautiful,' 'breath-taking,' 'almost painfully beautiful,' one couldn't blame me for expecting a lot from the film, and I couldn't help but expect a lot, with Neo's feature on the film in mind which compared the film to Ghost in the Shell: Innocence! Now, I'm not an enviromentalist by any means, so I do admit I was skeptical when Iread a lot about the film being heavily involved in such themes, but what the Hell, I thought, a great film will always be great even if I don't agree with its agenda; the Battleship Potemkin was voted the greatest film of all time and it was a propaganda piece for the USSR! The problem with Origin, however, is that it is NOT a good film. Ignoring my own frustration at the plot's subservience to nature over man (I'll leave this out of the review, but honestly, place a human figure in place of 'the forest' and you have a tyrannical regime that limits resources to retain obedience), the story is disjointed and poorly paced. Rather than the characters developing at all, they are mere mannequins forced into various situations, insanely scaled to advance the plot with no little hint of deus ex machina. Relationships blossom without so much as a word or meaningful conversation between characters, and the viewer is left wondering why, and did they miss something? In trying to pretend its artistic and intellectual value, Origin has missed out on coherence, instead feeling like a rushed project cobbled together from a collapsed series (indeed the story might be better served within such a setting). This might all be partly forgiven had the film measured up on another count, but the visuals in Origin were nowhwere near as spectactular as I had been lead to believe. The CGI, which in films such as Innoncence fitted perfectly with the subject matter, clashed horribly with the organic design, and the characters were poorly designed, with expressions and shadow seemingly omitted. Most offensively, smoke stacks (of which there were undue amounts in the film) were represented as completely static for the most part, even in lingering shots. This I might expect from a series, but in a feature? The only element which Origin managed to pin down was the music, which worked well in the admittedly brilliant opening sequence (one feels the critics watched this part of the film and nothing else when writing their reviews). Overall, however, I'm just glad I bought the film cheaply, because if this is the best modern anime has to offer, I'm not convinced. A coherent plot, less static art and adult character design are demanded, especially if a film is expected to live up to comparisons with Miyazaki and Oshii.

After reading the synopsis, you would probably think this movie was something for Studio Ghibli to create. And the truth is, it's not just obviously inspired by Miyazaki's [early] works—it feels more like the creators were moved by Laputa, Nausicaa, and Princess Mononoke so much they tried their best to outright rehash their story and some of the characters here. Which, admittedly, was a decision that both made the movie as good as it was, and ironically, hurt it the most. The similarities are in fact so intense it would be easy to confuse with the aforementioned movies. We have here a remarkably comprehensive reproduction ofMiyazaki-specific clichés, from the brave and selfless protagonist down to a confrontation between natural and industrial civilization (with the usual "we should embrace the nature" undercurrent). Now this doesn't make this movie bad or uninteresting per se, but you have to consider the glaring lack of originality and, perhaps more importantly, proper explanation for many events that didn't quite made sense—up to the point where it leads me to believe the screenplay writer was so obsessed with some aspects of the story they decided to postpone explaining the rest until it was too late to explain anything. It's mildly fun to watch, but not anything we haven't seen before—more precisely, it contains just about zero original ideas, and its only saving grace in this respect is choosing good enough ideas to borrow. To move on to the better aspects of the movie, let's say the animation is brilliant—and it really is. I would love to see a little more detail in character design, but the rest was very good: lush landscapes, fluidly animated machinery, and everything in general being a treat for the eye (make sure to watch it in HD!). To put it shortly, everything visual was superb—no complaints here. Sound work was alright, but nothing to write home about. It matched the visuals convincingly and did well to represent them, but wasn't otherwise memorable. Character development is by far the weakest point of the movie, being next to nonexistent, and the characters themselves are utterly bland and uninspired, as is par for the course in movies like this. After all, many Ghibli characters are easily interchangeable as well (and I'm not talking about their face design here). For that exact reason, and in order not avoid spoilers, I will abstain from any further comments on that part. Let's just say I was completely disconnected with the characters, so there weren't really any moments that touched me or evoked strong feelings towards them. At the same time I would lie if I said it wasn't an enjoyable watch, either. As a whole, I regard this movie, give-or-take, as worthy of your time if you want to see something reminiscent of the classic Ghibli output... On the other hand, you'd probably be better off watching the actual Ghibli movies instead. Yeah, go do that.

Day 1: Origin: Spirits of the past Take two of Miyazaki’s greatest classics, "Valley of the Wind" and "Princess Mononoke". Put them in a blender with choice elements of "Titan A.E". and "Ferngully: The last rainforest" pulse a couple of times, strain and call it a film. That is pretty much about what Gin-iro no kami no Agito or Origin Spirits of the Past is. I have heard that every so often an anime company will try their hand at making a story that is reflective of the works of Studio Ghibli. This is I’m sorry to say is apparently Gonzo’s attempt as well asGonzo’s first attempt at making a theatrical film. It’s hard to find the words for how to describe this film and how I feel about it. I had wanted to like this film and do like it…sort of. Unfortunately this film is also a great disappointment which most people who have seen this anime can attest. Yet while it’s easy to say that I like something or I don’t like something and then praise it or bash it accordingly, I’m going to go out on a limb and also offer some justifiable defense for this film. To be perfectly honest this film isn’t one of my favorites, but it is far from the worst anime I’ve seen. Disagree with me if you wish, but please hear me out. While visiting the official Funimation website for this anime, I came across a quote from Scifi.com that says “Origin is almost painfully beautiful.” This statement is rather astute on two counts. In the good points of this anime I have found the animation and scenery to be beautifully done all though blindingly garish at moments. The CGI is on par with Gonzo’s standard fair which you may take or leave as you will, and the music by Kokia is astounding. However as beautiful as the music and animation is, the plot is unfortunately quite painful. Overall the pacing of the story is rushed, the plot is so thin and convoluted that it can give you a headache to even attempt to make any sense of the story. It’s also extremely difficult to even care about any of the characters. I can sort of sympathize with Toola somewhat, because even I would find it hard fathom what it would be like to wake up and suddenly find everyone and everything you knew was gone. However most of the time I wished someone would just run up an smack her one whenever she went into one of her “I want the world to be normal again” moments. So while it is clear this film wanted to be good; and it even tries to be good, the overall story results in an epic fail that no one really cares to watch. I’m not all together sure that Gonzo had honestly intended to make this into a Studio Ghibli-esc film. It certainly does attempt to contain and promote the messages of environmentalism that is shown in some of Miyazaki’s more prominent works. But it also lacks the depth and drive that made people fall in love with Miyazaki’s classic stories begin with. It feels more that Gonzo was trying too hard into making this into a Studio Ghibli-like film rather then letting it be its own story. Also the 94 minute length may have been a strike against this anime as a whole. Gonzo did honestly have something with this story and they certainly could have done alot more with it. The plot of the story feels as though it could have worked better as a 12-13 episode series at least. The movie itself comes across as though it expected the viewers to have some understanding of the back story and over-all personality of the characters and the world they currently live in. This leaves the viewer feeling as though they were thrust into a middle of the story with no idea as to what is actually going on. If it had been a series rather then a film, perhaps there could have been more time to explain some of the excluded back-story and concepts that were never explored.

Story: Honestly, good animes aren't based on art but story - how their tale enthralls and awes viewers with a the story that lingers long after the end. This story was indeed interesting with the plant-apocalypse, robots and superhuman hybrids. Wait what!? Really!? And a volcano weapon!? It's like Saturday cartoons all over again but this time there's a twist! It's prettier. Art: The art is beautiful almost comparable to a Miyazaki film. The cg/anime hybrid was worked in well. Unfortunately the art begins to degrade as the movie goes on. In the beginning, they do a great job immersing the viewer in a fantastic newworld but towards the end you almost always see lots of desert, metal walls, or tons and tons of green blurs (forest). Sound: The music for the movie is great. But like the art, it becomes more bland towards the end. The sounds used for gunfires, explosions and buckets are very well placed. Character: I've seen plenty of anime movies but this one is completely ridiculous. The character development here is close to non-existent. Halfway through the movie I was confused as to what drove the main character Agito to do what he did. Outside of the 2 main characters and the antagonist - the rest you don't even care for. Enjoyment: At first it was great. I was drawn in. As the movie went on however, I became more and more confused, frustrated and bored as to what was going on. Overall: It has great art and music, both of which are amazing at first but become poor at the end. The story and characters... don't even get me started. Oh, might as well. The story and characters sucked. Period. You can find a similar post-apocalyptic setting and pre-pubescent characters in other anime. However in other anime, you actually understand their motivations and their significance.

Merchandise

Links may contain affiliate references

Studio

Producers