Suki demo Kirai na Amanojaku

My Oni Girl is nothing amazing. But still good. Its about a shy boy Hiiragi Yatsuse who always goes out of his way to help others in order to make friends, but is very unappreciated. One day he encounters a girl Tsumugi who looks like she's in trouble, so he offers to help her. Turns out she is an oni (a demon) in search of her mother. Hiiragi decides to run away from home in order to guide Tsumugi to the Hie Shrine where she may find a lead on her mother's whereabouts. On their journey they encounter kind, helpful and generous people. Tsumugi also seems to be pursued by strangeseemingly demonic spirits who cause snow to fall (despite being summer) whenever they are near. I wont spoil it but the plot does evolve into something more. Altough all the characters are written fine i do have an issue with Tsumugi. She's not badly written but can act stubbornly stupid at times. She doesnt seem to know what she wants. The kind of person who will ask for your help one minute. But then afterwards tell you to go away she doesnt need your help. She's a very cliche "i need to do this myself" type character. But this makes no sense considering what is happening does have an effect on others and that this isnt just about her. Its a character who thinks they are being brave when they are really just being selfish. Another disappointment is how uninteresting the onis are. They are no different from humans, except they have horns. Apart from that there is nothing interesting or different about their culture, language, they even wear the same clothes, but they live away from humans just because. This is very similar to a Studio Ghibli movie (kinda like Spirited Away) just lacking that charm. The animation is fine but nothing is visually spectacular. And it lacks the interesting relationship from the main characters that you'd get in a Ghibli film. The story feels nonsensical at times. Like things are just happening for the sake of happening. But the story isnt written interestingly enough that you care that much about the stakes in the end.

Studio Colorido is getting good at making mid movies with somewhat good visuals here and there. The character designs were pretty generic but the white hair and oni horns were a nice touch to make them stand out. Why this movie was mid? Well the pacing was out of the place, it would have worked better if it was a whole slice of life/fantasy series where they could have fleshed out the adventure aspects of it while also explaining the whole narrative better. Well, here's hoping that their future works get good, this was better than A Whisker Away (same director) but not Penguin Highway (same screenwriter,but not the actual author).

I was quite surprised to see that quite a few people didn't like it. Indeed, story-wise, it was too normal and had nothing that stood out. However, I feel that this anime isn't that bad after all! Throughout the story, we will be presented with beautiful animation and some touching scenes. Moreover, this anime teaches us to be open in everything, and also indirectly gives a message that communication is very important in life. If we suppress our feelings too often, bad things will happen. In this anime, the "bad" thing is that a small spirit will appear from the human body that can invite snow spirits.Then, the human will become a target or prey for the snow spirit. Well, overall, this anime is recommended. Not bad, and not too good. So, let's just say that the quality is somewhere in the middle. Oh yeah! The scene at the end of the anime is a moment that gave me sudden goosebumps. I don't know what happened, but seeing it made me feel touched. Or maybe... It's because I'm not feeling well, so I'm a little emotional? Haha. Sorry if my typing seems very stiff and uncomfortable, this is because I use translation.

My Oni Girl is the second release of Studio Colorido’s three film deal with Netflix, and it’s a moderate step up from the first. It is, as their previous few films have led me to expect, an exercise in convention. Its plot and themes are basic, and obvious. To briefly summarize, our MC is a pushover, and over the course of the film he grows to be more confident thanks to the help of an oni girl, who’s tied to supernatural phenomena that represent his character flaws and the film’s themes. It’s the type of story that’s unlikely to reveal additional depth on repeat viewings,and is pretty predictable. That will make or break the film for you; either you’ll find a comfortable sense of warmth in its familiarity, or boredom in its predictability. If you’re in that second camp, you probably already know it and aren’t expecting anything. If you’re in the first, you should absolutely watch this movie. I’m firmly in that first camp. I could watch a million films like this and never get bored. I have, almost; there’s hardly a conventional coming-of-age anime drama I haven’t watched, and in watching them I’ve become adept at identifying what exactly makes one good or bad. So, that said, how does this film stack up? It certainly passes in terms of animation, though its visuals aren’t perfect. This, like Colorido’s previous effort, makes heavy use of CGI, which looks good, but isn’t seamless. What is and isn’t CG falls exactly along the lines you’d expect (vehicles, environments in scenes with complex action, buildings), as do its issues. Moving CG objects sometimes appear to be moving at a lower framerate than 2D objects. Environments and 2D characters are not seamlessly composited. This is to say, it’s always obvious (sometimes distractingly obvious) what’s CG and what isn’t. The 2D animation is film quality, and is most impressive in moments of detailed character animation. The visual style is where the film runs into some issues. Some scenes are underlit (or at least, they look underlit on my display). Colorido’s usual style is as close to neutral anime film aesthetic as it gets, and this film employs that style without alteration. It’s nice to look at, but doesn’t have a unique identity. The filmmaking is competent, but never mind blowing. Like, in one scene the two main characters are working at a flea market stall. They’re under a tent, in shadows, while the customers are in sunlight. The main characters are lit like this to represent the MC’s lack of assertiveness — they’re only working here because he feels he owes a favor to the guy running the shop, if he was more confident he’d probably have turned him down. Across the market we see another character, also in shadows, implying she’s also not so enthusiastic about being here. Ideas like this are the fundamental building blocks of good filmmaking, and plenty are incorporated across the runtime. It’s a solid, well made film, but it’s only that. The score is never applied in a super interesting way, no cuts particularly impressed me (there is one aggressive sequence of match cuts at the very beginning, which kinda doesn’t work, but I’m a Kon fan so I’ll let it slide). Information is sometimes delivered in questionable ways. At the beginning, the film needs to establish that the main character isn’t assertive enough, and does so in five separate scenes. He wants to talk to someone, but doesn’t because they’re in a conversation; he can’t find a partner in class, so he ends up with the teacher; he offers to help clean up after class, but gets left with all the work; a girl asks him to pretend to be her boyfriend, and he goes along with it; some classmates didn't do their homework, so he lets them copy his. Later we see his dad forcing a decision on him without even considering his opinion, suggesting where he might have gotten this trait. All that’s fine, but could have been streamlined a bit. Just using one or two of those scenes would have had the same effect as showing all five. We even flash back to them less than twenty minutes later; even accounting for the slow kids in the back, the audience doesn’t need this spelled out a sixth time. It’s not as bloated as some other genre films (including Colorido’s last Netflix film), but isn’t perfect either. This is all to say, the filmmaking and overall visual style meet the demands of the conventional story, but don’t elevate it. A director like Shinkai (with Shinkai-level resources) could probably elevate this script to greatness, and indeed, a film with an identical plot structure by Shinkai (Suzume) did just that. The output of all this is a good film, one that’s worth watching if you’re into the genre, but doesn’t have much appeal outside of it. It’s comfortable. It’s competently produced. It’s not too heavy or emotional. It’s not too profound or thought provoking. It’s not too stylistically ambitious. It's a perfect movie to watch on a weeknight. If you need something to watch tonight, this isn’t a bad pick, though it’s one of a hundred “good picks” just like it.

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