Sayonara no Asa ni Yakusoku no Hana wo Kazarou

Maquia is a member of a special race called the Iorph—mystical beings who can live for hundreds of years and remain separate from the lives and daily troubles of mankind. However, Maquia has always felt lonely despite being surrounded by her people, as she was orphaned from a young age. She daydreams about the outside world, but dares not travel from her home due to the warnings of the clan's chief.

One day however, the outside world finds her, as the power-hungry kingdom of Mezarte invades her homeland. They already have what is left of the giant dragons, the Renato, under their control, and now their king wishes to add the immortality of the Iorph to his bloodline.

The humans and their Renato ravage the Iorph homeland and kill most of its inhabitants. Caught in the midst of the attack, Maquia is carried off by one of the Renato that has gone berserk. It soon dies, and she is left deserted in a forest far from home, now truly alone save for the cries of a single baby off in the distance. Maquia finds the baby in a destroyed village and decides to raise him as her own, naming him Ariel. Although she knows nothing of the human world, how to raise a child that ages much faster than her, or how to live with the smoldering loneliness inside, she is determined to make it all work somehow.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Maquia Main

Iwami, Manaka Japanese

Ariel Main

Irino, Miyu Japanese

Leilia Supporting

Kayano, Ai Japanese

Lang Supporting

Hosoya, Yoshimasa Japanese

Izol Supporting

Sugita, Tomokazu Japanese

Krim Supporting

Kaji, Yuuki Japanese

Mido Supporting

Satou, Rina Japanese

Barlow Supporting

Hirata, Hiroaki Japanese

Medmel Supporting

Kuno, Misaki Japanese

Racine Supporting

Sawashiro, Miyuki Japanese

Horikawa, Kenji Producer, Planning

Takenaka, Nobuhiro Producer

Kyoutani, Tomomi Producer

Endou, Naoko Producer

Reviews

Mar 8, 2018

lunark

Recommended

Let's start with the obvious: Yes I did give this movie a bold 10/10.

I wasn't sure how to feel about it so I watched it twice in cinemas in Japan with a one week cool-off period in between both viewing.

Honestly, the first time it simply blew me away and stayed in my head non stop for like 3-4 days. This is a heavy statement but it is indeed one of the best animated movies I've ever watched. The second watching was in order to try to find flaws and to focus a bit more on small details of the plot and the music.

Let's structure ... a bit the mess in my head, here goes:

Story:
Well, Mari Okada all right. She is known for her emotional stories and this one indeed enters the category just fiiiine!
The movie feels very long in a good way: The story, the world and places, the character development, the sub plots... All these elements adds up and fill the ensemble to the brim giving the impression to have lived and discovered a lot with the characters ; and that is one of the main strenghts here. Everything is well rounded and the difference of pace in the various plot elements do not leave any space to get bored. There is a well-balanced mix of emotional moments, intense action and everyday life organized in a non generic narrative structure, which I find very refreshing.

The theme developped is that of the relationship between mother and child. It is not a very common subject developped in detail and I really enjoyed the depth and various angles the movie takes to treat the subject.

Art:
Here, we have a very prestigious staff making characters and backgrounds.
For the characters, Akihiko Yoshida character designer on Final Fantasy and Granblue Fantasy did a great job in creating the various types of characters. Even with the adaptation done for animation, you still see his strong influence, especially on the astounding work done on the clothes that are very stylish, diverse and inspired. The resulting chara design is very simple and round on the faces which can be a bit unsettling at the beggining but very cute nonetheless.

About the background: the most prestigious animators of PA Works created incredible places helping to create a very rich world to discover. It is without a doubt the most impressive visual aspect on my end.

To conclude this section, the CGI: globally well done and integrated, some rare sequences stand out too much but it isn't much of a problem in my opinion.

Sound:
Kenji Kawai is quite recognizable as a composer and you get that very easily here with the usual sound and instruments used. Nonetheless it is a very inspired soundtrack that come and goes with some very insistant themes that really shape the movie and the emotions. Also very well paced and used.

Character:
I am not gonna go in too much detail here because I don't wanna spoil the story but once again the characters are very well made, the vast majority of them are very logical in their motives, development and thought processes. The whole focus of the movie is obviously Maquia and Erial (or Ariel whatever) and their relashionship. So much so that you may feel that some secondary characters / subplots are not developped enough... Well it is indeed an argument but remember: It is the story of Maquia and Erial, so it is good the movie doesn't dwelve too much in various directions.

Enjoyment + conclusion:
Well I suppose this is clear enough already!
I very deeply enjoyed this movie that awed me and obsessed me for days on end. It has a compelling story with a not so common theme in a fantasy setting including memorable scenes and very well developped characters with whom you grow fond of very quickly. It gets very emotional towards the end, all thanks to that very well paced development and evolution throughout the film.

Beware, it is indeed a tear jerker and both times the whole room was crying at the end.
Also, in case it isn't clear enough already, this is not a family oriented movie, it is geared towards adults and some themes and element are quite dark and mature.

I've been trying to find flaws but putting aside very minor stuff, I don't see any major problems. Add to that the overwhelming impact of all the goodness I developed above and you get a masterpiece to be remembered. Hence the 10/10.

Not everybody is gonna like it the way I did but if you are okay with emotional stories and fantasy, please give Sayoasa a go without hesitation and you won't be disappointed.

Thank you for reading!

Reviewer’s Rating: 10

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Nov 5, 2018

Barasmin

Mixed Feelings

Back when the first trailers dropped, I was pumped to watch this movie. The artwork looked so stunning, the premise felt original and full of potential. After waiting for half a year until it finally became available to watch, I have to say it didn’t live up to my hopes.
This review will contain marked sections with minor spoilers, mainly to illustrate certain points that contributed to the overall stale taste that the movie left in my mouth.

The story itself is pretty interesting. A clan of near immortal beings, weaving history into pieces of cloth. A neighboring empire that, when their power fades, tries to obtain ... that longevity to regain its foothold. A young girl, that gets caught up in that conflict, is driven from her home and has to find a new place to belong in an everchanging world.
The world design is fantastic. It feels like an actual place, not a set piece. It is well thought out, colorful and an overall joy to see unfold. I found the character design beautiful, though I know that is up to individual taste. The occasional CG used for the dragons is forgivable.
It’s a real shame that despite its stunning visuals and sweeping orchestral music, the movie is lacking relatable characters and a cohesive script.
Maquia is kind of meek, cries a lot and is shown to be burdened by her loneliness. This doesn’t fundamentally change throughout the movie.
Ariel, her adoptive son, is aged up through time jumps so sudden and inconsistent, that it is incredibly hard to grasp his personality or motivation. Some of his actions really came out of nowhere for me and were hardly ever explained.
The bond between mother and son is the main focus of the movie, but with the few glimpses of their relationship shown between the time jumps, it doesn’t feel like they have actually gone through anything together. It’s more of a laundry list of events that gets checked off as the story rushes on.

Mild spoilers in the next paragraph: Neither of the two main characters felt relatable, mainly because their actions often didn’t make sense in the context of the story. Maquia never once tries to go back and find out what exactly happened to her home and her people, which bothered me immensely. Important parts that could have defined their relationship and help the viewer understand Ariels feelings and motivations, like him finding out he is adopted and what Maquia really is, are glossed over quickly. Also, his behavior changes dramatically after the time jump into early adulthood, with his reasoning for lashing out towards his adoptive mother being questionable at best.

The backdrop of the story, more precisely the conflict between multiple nations (which were non-descriptive at best and cartoonishly evil at worst), should have been more important. With all the focus on Maquia and Ariel, the surrounding events that had a lot of potential just got used as a facilitator for an underwhelming finale.
Also, beautiful as the world and the multiple locations shown in the movie are, there is a definitive lack of explanation as to where everything is in relation to each other. People are transported from place to place without establishing from where to where the journey leads, sometimes in between time jumps, so the viewer just gets utterly confused as to how they ended up there – or where “there” is. This becomes worse leading up to the final conflict.
A lot of lore is touched on, but never properly explained or given context. The plot is rushed so much that the whole thing falls flat in the end, since it was – at least for me – hard to become attached to any of the characters.
I think the story would have made a great series instead, with 12 or more episodes to flesh out the characters and their relationships, establish the geography of the world and to give equal importance to the overarching plot of the conflict between the warring nations.

It’s not an awful movie by any means, but it is one with a lot of wasted potential, which sadly leaves it at an average level.

Reviewer’s Rating: 5

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May 7, 2019

Love_Story

Not Recommended

[Warming Spoilers]

I went into this movie with high expectations, after all, it has incredibly high reviews and as of this review is the 21st highest ranked movie on MAL. While others seem to think this movie was incredible I for one was unable to be moved. I want to focus this review on the three main parts of the movie I found to be its downfall; characters, story, and pacing.

Characters:
This movie is at its heart a character drama dealing with the feelings of love and loss. Because of this it is incredibly important to write your characters in a way that makes them worthy of ... the audiences attention. This movie fails to do that. The main reason behind this in my opinion is lack of character development. Our main cast is never properly developed throughout this movies 115 minute run time. The only decent piece of character development we get happens in the first scene of the movie where Leilia jumps off a cliff into the water and Maquia refuses to follow, while Krim lectures Leilia for slacking off. This scene shows us that Leilia is an easy going carefree girl while Maquia is scared and timid and Krim hard working and disciplined. Yet these personality traits are never again exemplified in any of these characters. Through the rest of the movie these characters dont seem to show any unique traits to themselves nor any reason for us as an audience to be invested in them.

Story:
For me story was by far the part of this movie which dragged me out of it the most. The overall plot is not my issue but rather the writing and characters motivations for their actions. Throughout this movie many changes in the story are brought upon by a characters decision to do something. Yet, nearly none of these actions seem to make any sense in relation to the characters interests nor do they show any semblance of rational thought. Below are a few examples of awful writing that took me out of the movie.
- Leilia refusing to escape after being rescued by Maquia. She decides this under the guise that Krim wouldnt be able to look at her again, but for her to think this about being pregnant with a child that was forced upon her (and conceived through rape) is nothing but thick plot armor.
- Maquia deciding not to return home to Mido after failing to capture back Leilia. This would have been the objectivly best decision for the welfare of her child and would have avoided the hard grueling life her and Ariel led thereafter.
- Ariel leaving his wife to fight in the battle. This mans wife is nearly expecting to have a child which he himself calls his future, yet he is more than ready to give that all up to risk his life as a foot soldier for a regime which is made clear to be the wrong side of the fight throughout the movie. Usually in a movie if your main character is going to risk their life in battle it should be for something, not at its behest.
Speaking of Ariel leaving, Ariel's ability to leave right before something horrible happens to those he loves most is so timely that it borders on comedic. Whether its leaving Maquia to join the army only for her to be kidnapped minutes later or leaving his wife to fight in the army right before she goes into labor Ariel has a knack for leaving his loved ones when they need it most. For a character whose desires are to be there to protect the ones he loves, he fails at it in the worst ways possible every time.

Pacing:
The last major issue I had with this movie was the pacing. For a movie that covers such a long period of time with a large cast of characters spanning many locations to work the pacing must be effective. This movie fails to do so. Often times I found myself wondering where or when I was at in this stories large world due to the seemingly random cuts in it. These cuts prevent us as an audience from knowing much if anything at all about characters feelings or motivations behind the actions we see them participating in. This is a major error which took greatly away from the flow of the film.

In the end I feel there was lots of room for potential in this story. The world building and animation were incredible and the narrative was quite touching. If PA Works had instead decided to make this story into a TV show with more time to develop their characters and fill in the story I am sure we would have been left with a far greater final product.

Reviewer’s Rating: 4

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	Poll: Sayonara no Asa ni Yakusoku no Hana wo Kazarou Episode 1 Discussion ( 1 2 3 4 5 ... Last Page ) Kisaragi - Feb 24, 2018	333 replies	by Galaxy_Naaa »» Nov 5, 7:46 AM
	Help me understand the point. luksthefool - May 17	5 replies	by Janethan23 »» Sep 3, 10:08 AM
	Ariel x maquia anyone? ( 1 2 ) Shiyuru99 - Nov 1, 2018	61 replies	by Zarutaku »» Mar 6, 12:45 AM
	Only reason it isn't perfect. Kamikoto_kl - Apr 18, 2022	6 replies	by Glgwn141 »» Jan 26, 11:14 PM
	Question about what happened to Maquia during the time she got "imprisoned" by Krim. aLotQuestion_ - Dec 23, 2018	14 replies	by Blacklotus011 »» Nov 5, 2024 9:41 AM