Hyakuemu.

100 Meters is a very personal piece of media.

As a big fan of Madhouses adaptation of the author’s other work, Orb: On the Movements of the Earth, as well as a longtime former Track and Field athlete, my expectations for this movie were high. Somehow, they were all shattered by the time I finished the movie.

The cinematography is amongst the best I’ve witnessed in the medium; the statement “these characters behave like real people” has never been more applicable to an anime. Conversations flew naturally as characters dynamically interacted with each other, sprinkled in with subtle character movements. During the race and training sequences, each ... runner had a slightly different running form, each character mounted into their blocks at the start of the race at slightly different ways and cadences, and each character had unique running shoes that corresponded with brands that I used to look for in Footlocker myself years ago. This is all thanks to an unbelievable usage of rotoscoping technology placed on-top of stellar, hand drawn looking background art, a feature sorely missed in many modern anime. These kinds of things culminate in a very particular scene (you’ll know it when you watch it) depicting the preparations a set of runners perform up until the moment before the race starts; the entire scene a single, jaw dropping shot in the likes of which have not been seen in any animated media I’ve consumed.

The cinematography could not be complemented better by the narrative told within it. The story centers around the athletic journeys of the sprinters Togashi and Komiya. The former is a natural athlete with an unheard-of proficiency for the 100 meter sprint, the latter a promising athlete with an undisciplined technique. The two bond over their shared passion for the sport but eventually go their separate ways.

Where the interesting themes of the narrative start to shine begin when the two begin high school. The philosophies the two runners develop to tackle the sport begin to flourish as they encounter success and tragedy as they compete. Komiya focuses on results, statistics, and performance, Togashi however, is purely driven from his success. Once Togashi begins to fail to perform, his mentality towards the sport drastically changes. This mentality towards self-betterment is examined thoroughly by the film; this is also when the movie began to feel personal. Togashi spends a fair amount of his future career “getting by”, competing but not performing. Running to pass time, not to learn and improve.

The idea of putting so much time into something you love, only to end up going through the motions of what used to be why you shot out of bed in the mornings is a terribly disgusting, yet horribly relatable feeling. Countless sports, arts, hobbies, and interests of our youth tend to be forgotten or set aside as we age; much of this stems from hitting “the wall”. That time you fail to attain in the 100-meter run, that drawing technique that seems to escape your abilities, that level of proficiency you just cannot seem to achieve when learning a new language. The wall presents Togashi’s first feeling of true defeat, much like you and I. How Togashi overcame the wall will differ from how you and I might overcome the wall, but to do so requires reawakening the discipline, fascination, and love you had for this activity when you started, just like Togashi did. After all, his final race in the film finishes with a smile.

Thank you for reading.

This is honestly just a great movie in general, I'd recommend it to anime fans and non-anime watchers alike.

The cinematography is great, there's an amazing long take that is really captures the essence of the whole film (you'll know it when you see it, absolute Cinema). There's a lot of rotoscope animation which is characteristic for this director and really helps the scenes feel even more realistic. The animation style jumps around depending on the feeling of the scene, which was unexpected but not jarring. If anything, the different styles helped emphasize the emotions of each moment. CG was used for most of the actual ... races, and it looked phenomenal. There was only one short moment throughout the whole film where the CG didn't look great, and it wasn't during any sort of action scene. Also, the motion blur lines when they run look heckin' fire.

This is a pretty dialogue heavy film, and each character has really intense philosophies about life and their passion (running)—not in an edgy way like Blue Lock or something, but in a way where you can understand where the characters are coming from, and even though you probably won't relate to them entirely, you are still able to rethink how you view your own passions and goals in life. And while there's a lot of dialogue, all words disappear once they start running.

The film is basically split into 3 arcs, and the pacing and character development felt really nice throughout. My biggest complaint would be that the last arc felt a bit stagnant and confusing compared to the others at first (which looking back kinda relates to the main character's emotions), but after that, the final act was nothing short of perfect.

Personally, I found it really easy to forget that I was watching "anime". I tend to separate anime from other media in my head, either because of the tropes, or the animation style, or the fact that it's in Japanese. But this film really just washed all that away for me.

I went into this movie with a lot of excitement coming off of the adaptation of the author's previous work, but unfortunately came away disappointed.

First thing's first: the animation. I'm not staunchly anti-rotoscoping, and when I heard they used it here, I assumed it would just be used for the running scenes. I was wrong. The first 15-20 minutes or so that show the childhood of the main characters together is beautifully animated and uses little to no rotoscoping as far as I could tell. After the time skip, 95% of character animation is fully rotoscoped, even in scenes with characters walking or talking. ... It isn't shoddily done, but I found it very jarring and distracting after such nice animation in the beginning. On top of that, the anime heads slapped onto realistic rotoscoped bodies and clothes looked bad to me. It made the proportions look very off, particularly in the part of the film when the characters being depicted are supposed to be high schoolers but look more like they're in their mid to late 20s. There are a few very well animated parts in the later parts of the film, but they're few and far between and almost all of them are in the trailers.

As for the story, like Chi: Chikyū no Undō ni Tsuite, this story is more about philosophy than it is about actually running track. The problem here is that while Chi had 25 episodes to explore a variety of character philosophies and how they clash and interact with one another, Hyakuemu only has an hour and forty-six minutes. Things feel incredibly rushed, and there isn't anywhere near enough time to really flesh out the different philosophies of the characters beyond a scene or two for each of the major players giving the SparkNotes of their perspectives. I haven't read the manga, but it feels obvious there there was more fleshing out of each of these characters in the original story, and how each of them influence the people around them, but it just isn't present in the film because there isn't enough time for everything in the narrative. This would have benefited greatly from a proper anime adaptation.

The best thing about this movie is the music and sound design. Both were excellent, and I wish the rest of the movie was as good. The performances by the voice actors were also outstanding.