星を追う子ども

HOSHI WO OU KODOMO

MOVIE

MOVIE
Dubbed
SOURCE
ORIGINAL
RELEASE
May 7, 2011
LENGTH
116 min

DESCRIPTION

Strange sounds in the darkness... Unearthly music from an old crystal radio... These are all the warning Asuna Watase has before a simple walk to her clubhouse catapults her into a nightmarish adventure that will take her beneath the Earth to a lost land beyond the realm of legend! Attacked by a strange monstrous creature, rescued by a mysterious stranger and pursued by a relentless enemy, Asuna finds herself enmeshed in a centuries old mystery that will bind her to a strange young defender and lead her inevitably, towards a secret that may hold the key to life itself!

(Source: Sentai Filmworks)

CAST

Asuna Watase
Hisako Kanemoto
Shin Canaan Praeses
Miyu Irino
Ryuuji Morisaki
Kazuhiko Inoue
Mimi
Junko Takeuchi
Shun
Miyu Irino
Mana
Rina Hidaka
Lisa
Sumi Shimamoto
Watase no Chichi
Takeshi Maeda
Roujin
Tamio Ooki
Soldier
Kenji Hamada
Watase no Haha
Fumiko Orikasa
Seri
Kanae Itou

RELATED TO HOSHI WO OU KODOMO

MANGA AdventureHoshi wo Ou Kodomo

Cover Art for Hoshi wo Ou Kodomo: Agartha no Shounen

MANGA AdventureHoshi wo Ou Kodomo: Agartha no Shounen

REVIEWS

LinClick

75/100

A tale of death and moving on (Spoiler free, w/tldr)



Name: <a>Children Who Chase Lost Voices / 星を追う子ども</a>
Type: <a>Movie (1hr 56min)</a>
Studio: <a>CoMix Wave</a>
Director: <a>Makoto Shinkai (Your Name, Weathering with You)</a>

*As I just recently watched it, thought I’d make the review as soon as possible~*

<img width='500' src='https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/979404812435214366/1064575599995256842/My_Firsts__1.png'>

**Summary:** 
Asuna’s (MC) favorite pastime is to frequently visit a nearby mountain to listen to the radio. One day she encounters a mysterious beast who attacks her. She is saved by a strange boy, Shun. Little does she know, this encounter would lead her to a world of myth, Agartha.

<img width='500' src='https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/979404812435214366/1064575726541602826/My_Firsts__2.png'>

**Art:**
- Scenery: Can you spell beautiful? It’s absolutely gorgeous. The clouds make a good aesthetic with the rest of the scene. But it doesn’t have much detail.

- Character: Hmm… Not as good as the scenery honestly. If I had to say, it looks like a cross between the old anime art style and the newer ones. The line art resembles the former. While the coloring used is more like the latter. It’s still nice to look at though. But it’s especially pronounced when the character is miniaturized in the scene. The monsters aren’t set to look “majestic” or like how you would expect them to, but instead looks… normal? Well, like what a normal monster might look like. With some weird tattoos.

<img width='500' src='https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/979404812435214366/1064576301517770792/My_Firsts__3.png'>

**Story:**
Captivating. It was well written with due attention given to even small details, like her classroom and how the students behave. It manages to keep you hooked while still being at a slow pace. But during action scenes, that are well-choreographed might I add, it can get fast-paced almost immediately. And even though set in a fantasy world, it keeps the story real when it comes to humans and does not show much of the fantasy genre. Except for the occasional monster that is used as a plot device to move the story forward. The only monster worth paying attention to is Asuna’s pet, MiMi. And unlike usual, they reveal the main theme of the story halfway through the film or so. 

<img width='500' src='https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/979404812435214366/1064576943506325605/My_Firsts__4.png'>

**Characters:**
Yeah, there’s character development. Especially since the meaning of the story is so huge and all. Although the destination is almost the same. And there are only three characters so… Well it’s still pretty interesting. Although they all have varying starting points. Asuna, herself faces loneliness due to her dad having passed away when she was very small and her mother almost never being home due to her work. 

<img width='500' src='https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/979404812435214366/1064577147815084062/My_Firsts__5.png'>

**Animation:**
Honestly the best thing in this film. Unlike usual animations where scenes are often skipped to save budget or stuff, this one has very, and I mean very, smooth animations. And on the scenes where she’s eating, well, those are absolutely amazing. 

<img width='500' src='https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/979404812435214366/1064577533431005214/My_Firsts__7.png'>

**TL;DR:**
 Good:
Animation
Art
Attention paid to small details
Simple but effective meaning

 Bad:
Simple characters
Cliche ending

<img width='500' src='https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/979404812435214366/1064577264085385347/My_Firsts__6.png'>~~~

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elitera
65/100
A visually good animation, but tries to mimic Miyazaki's style in some parts. (Spoilers-free with TL;DR)
Children Who Chase Lost Voices is an okay-ish movie. The art is amazing, all the animations are smooth and pleasant to watch, the characters' and monsters' designs are good and there was a lot of attention paid to small details. While the eating scenes cannot be compared to those animated by Studio Ghibli, they have good art and animation. If my score for this movie was based solely on these points, it would be an easy eight or nine out of ten. The world building is great, but it isn't one of the best of Makoto Shinkai works in this aspect and it lacks some more originality when compared to similar stories in the fantasy genre. However, it is really captivating and interesting. I honestly liked a bit more the fantasy in the world of _Suzume_ and how it was developed.
Quick tangent: Did they really needed to include Hitler and Stalin in that scene with the explanation about the past of Agartha and it's relation with the external world? In my opinion, the scene would be able to pass the message "humans suck and are selfish" yadda yadda without needing to add this visual "aid". It was really unnecessary, every other element in that scene was already enough to convey that message.
Even being a overall visually good movie, it lacks a good sense of story progression somewhere between the beginning of the second half and the third quarter of the movie, and a bit later in the story, where the "plot" starts to feel kind of rushed, like the script is begging to get to the ending faster. Also, in my opinion some of the connections made in the last quarter or so were kind of "forced", or I just wasn't able to understand it. I was expecting a better ending with more impact, but I think it was too cliche for me in some aspects. While it's still a good ending, it felt kind of blend.
While the scene with Shun and Mimiwas kind of nice, we could've seen a bit more of it than just a glimpse when Asuna's soul was already leaving to go back to her body. A longer interaction between her, Shun and Mimi would make that scene a bit better and aggregate to the viewer's experience.
In the end, _Children Who Chase Lost Voices_ feels like an attempt to make a movie similar to some of the stories written/directed by Hayao Miyazaki: a story of an extraordinary world where magic forces reign and are the foundation of the place in some way, but are kept hidden for some reason unknown by the protagonist. Sometimes it really felt weirdly similar to something directed by Miyazaki, but it didn't keep the similarities for too long, and this feeling kind of came back and forth quite some times throughout the movie. __TL;DR:__ The movie has good animation, art and attention to small details. However, the world building could've been more original, the plot could've been more developed and the end is a bit too cliche.
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