User reviews

Despite the baffling title, Fireworks, should we see if from the side or bottom? is very much a simplistic tale about two young star- crossed lovers with a magical gimmick thrown into the narrative. Though it's essentially a remake of a 50-minute live-action TV movie made in 1993 by Shunji Iwai (Love Letter), fans of last year's megahit, Your Name will be curious to check this one out.

Norimichi (Masaki Suda from Gintama) and Yusuke (Mamoru Miyano) are two best friends who both developed a crush on their classmate, Nazuna (Suzu Hirose from Let's Go, Jets!). With the intention of eloping with the one she loves on the night of the annual fireworks festival, Nazuna has quietly chosen Norimichi to be the fateful one. However, Nazuna's plan is thwarted by her mother and Yusuke until Norimichi figured out the only way to escape is to make use of the strange orb which Nazuna has picked up from the beach earlier.

Last summer, Makoto Shinkai's hit body-swapping, time-travelling animebrought a new viewing experience especially to non-anime fans. Your Name was funny, throughlyengaging from start to finish and utterly touching. No doubt, Fireworks attempt to embark on the same formula though this time, the narrative is tedious, repetitive and mostly frustrating to last a mere 90 minutes.

The title refers to a running gag by Norimichi and his group of class buddies, a pointless argument about whether fireworks are round or flat when see from the side. It's very much a side gag just like the one about their form teacher's bust and her underground relationship with a fellow colleague. The gist of the story revolves around Nazuna, the torn teenager who refused to move to a new place with her mother who is remarrying for the third time.

The strange magical orb is an unexplained gimmick or device to allow Norimichi to relive the day with Nazuna else there wouldn't be much of a story to tell. By throwing the orb into the air, Norimichi is able to turn back time and changed their ending. The time spent with Norimichi and Nazuna however happened to be the most meaningful aspect of the anime as we get to learn more about the struggle and backstory of Nazuna, an angst teenager who dreams of leaving her current state to be a pop idol and wondering if she is following in her mother's shoes as she eloped with Norimichi.

Unfortunately, the narrative makes little effort to delve more into it and instead of giving the story a more rounded emotion feel, the anime is contend in delivering outstanding visual and breathtaking effects and colours especially during the fireworks climax. It's definitely a good thing for SHAFT Studio which is renowned for their acclaimed technicalities though not anyone will appreciate the blending of 3D objects and traditional 2D animation.

After two recent satisfying animes, Your Name and A Silent Voice, Fireworks turned out unexpectedly to be a huge disappointment. Suzu Hirose is pefect as the voice of Nazuna, Masaki Suda on the other hand sounds way mature for a junior high student. I for one have no problem with the sometimes photo-realistic often visually striking animation and the mesmerizing theme song by DAOKO. It's the somewhat disjointed and unfulfilled message that disappoints.

I believe this movie deserves a better score. I didn't quite understand it myself when I watched it for the first time, but I slowly digested it. The core of this story is "if" and "pity". We miss so many chances in our lives, we feel sorry, we regret, and we cry. This movie gives us a chance to catch all the "if"s and correct the unconscious mistakes. However we'll never be able to correct all the mistakes and we even make more new mistakes during this process. We feel empty and lonely. This is life, the mistakes and pity make life what it is. There's always beautiful scenery on the way besides the fireworks. When we become peaceful with life, we grow up.

I must admit I've watched amazingly executed animated films but this one unfortunately doesn't make the list. The story: It had a lot of potential but even though the story was okay, it had a lot of twists and turns that could've been taken just a tad slower, but overall it wasn't terrible.

The p.o.v's: In case you haven't watched it to me it felt like the perspectives were jumping from one character to another plus I think the movie experience would've been a little bit better if they added Nazuma's perspective, since it felt like her point of view in this was basically missing.

Character development: Personally these characters felt pretty undeveloped if I could get at least some more insight on why the mc really liked the girl so much, and maybe a little more information on the little ball instead of it remaining a mystery

"Leave it to the imagination": Throughout the beginning when trying to figure out how the ball ended up there, to the end trying to figure out why the two weren't in class. I've seen other movies do this before but for a movie that had such great potential had a bad time trying to do this in my personal experience.

Overall: 6/10

Fireworks falls short in most aspects. The characters and their relationships are very underdeveloped, the unique plot hook is not fleshed out, and the animation, while very lovely, is riddled with stilted 3d and consistency errors. I also had problems with the direction at times. Things like the way that some scenes are lit and the audio tracks being an unnatural volume took me out of the film. The latter could be chalked up to the dub or the theater I saw the movie in so I won't count it against it. Overall it seemed generic and did not live up to the importance the movie put on itself.

First off, the animation is absolutely beautiful and if it weren't for a few seconds of really terrible CGI I'd say that the animation would be perfect. The music was also nice.

With that being said the film was so boring, and melodramatic, and dull, and just a complete waste of time. Which is sad being the story seemed kind of interesting. The exacution of the story however was poor. Skip this film and watch Your Name or The Girl Who Lept Through Time instead.

This whole movie is just a high school boy's wet dream. And watching it is just as awkward as that sounds. The boy is fantasizing about this girl he has a crush on. He gains supernatural time reversal powers which he uses to spend more time with the girl. The girl changes into different outfits and sings songs to him. The main goal of the protagonist is just to ogle this girl. The dialogue between the two sounds like a self-insert fan fiction a horny high schooler wrote.

Outside of that, the driving force of the narrative is deciding whether fireworks are round or flat when they explode. This movie is pretty dumb. Much like being in any stranger's dream, it is really awkward, and I immediately want to leave.

I'm not gonna say this is a great movie. It kind of suffers from the same standard sins of plenty of anime out there, some jokes don't always hit, parts seem taken from a basic "how to make a successful anime" guide, over-stylised action, and the writing sometimes suffers from first-draft syndrome with a visible lack of polish. However, I'd also be lying if I said I didn't enjoy it.

The animation and music are both incredibly gorgeous. Not exactly on the level of Studio Ghibli, but it's not really trying to be, it feels like it's more often trying to be it's own way. I also found myself interested in the plot throughout despite the aforementioned shortcomings, and some of the characters ended up growing on me. I also enjoyed the tone, which managed to stay consistently emotional throughout.

So, is it a perfect movie? No, especially when compared to the aforementioned Studio Ghibli. But is it an enjoyable one? I think so. Not for everyone, but not terrible. I certainly found myself enjoying it much more than Sword Art Online.

This film tells the story of a school girl who finds a pretty transparent ball by the sea. She plans to run away from home to escape from her unhappy home, but her escape fails until her friend finds out the supernatural power that the transparent ball has.

"Fireworks, Should We See It from the Side or The Bottom?" is so different from what I thought. It is in fact not really about fireworks, but a science fiction story that is akin to the previous animation "Your Name". The story is sad, especially when I hear Nazuna's wailing cries, which are very depressing and spine chilling. I sympathise with her situation. Her plan to make money in Tokyo is even more upsetting, which indicates that her home situation must have been very bad.

The story is quite easy to understand, and is interesting. The Seiko Matsuda song that is sung in the tram is really beautiful, I should check it out. The very final scene is a bit puzzling, and is open to interpretation. I heard people discussing about it, which is a good sign because it means people liked it enough to talk about the film.

I walked in to this movie about 10 minutes late, and I thought maybe I missed something important, but I looked it up online and I didn't really miss anything. The films by this company are normally all very good, and this one looked promising, but looks aren't everything. The storyline seems simple enough, but once they throw in the magic/sci-fi aspects, it becomes very confusing to follow. The characters flip flop between being sympathetic, and seeming to have ulterior motives. I wasn't sure if Yusuke was a nice guy or a jerk, if Norimichi actually cared about Nazuna, or if Nazuna was a sweet girl or hidden psychopath. Once the plot point is shown, there is one ending that the characters could choose that would make everyone happy and fix everything, but it never came to mind. The ending is very confusing and threw too much at the audience. I really wanted to like this movie, but in the end it didn't affect me as much as Your Name or Girl Who Leapt Through Time.

Visually emotive. But nothing magical about the story if we're being honest.

-Beautiful colors -Excelent animation -Incredible ambient design -Poor plot, even cliché -Beautiful soundtrack -Boring, repetitive characters with unclear motivations -Very poorly told story that, due to the complexity of its theme, leads you to expect plot twists and complications that never happen or never resolve.

In summary: Disappointing and poor writing for a project of great audiovisual wealth.

It was very beautiful, the scenery at least. I watched it with my mom and she cried, I didn't understand why she was crying though. I guess I'm just not old enough to understand why she was crying. The concept is good but they could've elaborated on a lot of topics some more. The animation was beautiful in my opinion. It's worth a watch even if you don't quite understand it.

This is one of the worst animated movies I have ever seen. (and I only watch animated movies) A complete waste of my morning. The producer thought this would be a hit after he produced Your Name I guess. It is garbage.

You know, I like anime. Actually scratch that. I LOVE ANIME! More particularly anime movies. I barely see a bad anime movie and when I see one, I quickly forget about it. But something about Fireworks made more think twice on that notation. I don't know if it's the boring story, uninteresting characters, or that hilarious subtitle, but this is a new standard of terrible anime films. This is one of the worst anime movies I have ever seen for the reasons I mentioned. But wait it gets better as the film goes on, in that it gets stupider and stupider and stupider to the point where anything that happens just makes me laugh for all the wrong reasons. Even the above average animation can't save this terrible movie. 5.5/10

So I know a lot of people are saying it didn't explain stuff (which I won't get into) but this is a awesome movie and I thought the idea was very interesting and hadn't seen anything like this before.

*Fireworks* is a visually stunning anime that dives into the world of youthful love and the mysteries of "what-if." Directed by Akiyuki Shinbo and Nobuyuki Takeuchi, the story follows Norimichi and Nazuna as they explore alternate realities using a mysterious orb that rewinds time, giving Norimichi chances to shape the perfect day with Nazuna.

The film combines romance with a touch of fantasy, capturing the beauty of fleeting summer nights and the emotional pull of young love. While *Fireworks* may leave viewers with more questions than answers, its dreamy visuals and unique storytelling make it a memorable experience, ideal for those who enjoy anime that takes creative risks.

I have no idea why they love each other, they never explain what the stupid orb does, not even visually good, terrible CG, terrible CG bikes, what the hell was the message of this film, I got nothing from this movie.

Two boys like one girl. Girl likes one boy. Girl plans to run away with boy. Runaway plan goes awry until supernatural events intervene to allow boy to replay day's events. From that point, viewers will have radically different satisfaction levels with plot development. This anime is a blend of sci-fi, alternate realities and romance. Great soundtracks make up for plot not being fully realized.

Animation out of Japan has been in a rut the past decade. Same old tired stories of high school & lower grades' students seeking a love interest. Usual added supernatural element. Usual fixation w/female breasts; short skirts; unrealistically skinny everywhere else. Add in the usual stilted 2-D quality animation w/flat backgrounds.