Hinata no Aoshigure

There are some quite over-the-top and unnecessary tropes, so even this time this is "a Japanese classic." Still, it has a respectable amount of emotional depth. I enjoyed the use of swans as symbolism for choosing a mate for life. The animation and soundtrack were also good again I would have enjoyed it a lot more if Hiroyasu Ishida had left certain things out, like shots of panties, upskirting, and crap like that. He should have focused purely on the narrative and the emotional aspect. It would have given the audience as intense an experience as possible (which means not making everything unnecessarily overstated and exaggerated, even though I guess it does not matter so much if it is an expression of childhood fantasies). It would have deserved more than just 6.2/10. (30.12.2016)

If you were already impressed by the subject matter of Ishida's first movie, Fumiko no kokuhaku (Fumiko’s Confession), but would like to watch something more serious, you may find your wishes granted with this movie. Once again, Ishida serves up a movie featuring two little schoolboys who blush a lot, go through dramatic emotional outbursts, embarrassing declarations of love, frantically running away from stuff, and flying through the air. However, this time it is much more serious and somewhat more poetic than before. I would say, however, personally that Ishida's poetics again somewhat passed me by. Although the movie is audiovisually well-done, and many might say that in its simplicity it is actually a real beauty to listen to and look at, I simply cannot squeeze more than a slightly better 2 stars out of myself, because the movie would have to appeal to me in some way, and that just did not happen. In the field of short films considerably shorter than 18 minutes, I have seen much more imaginative, interesting, and engaging works that were also free of unnecessary pathos, and yet we do not even have to go very far to find them – see for example Ishida's previous movie Rain Town. However, if, unlike me, you are into expressive outpourings of emotion, screaming, and pathetic scenes, you might like Sonny Boy and Dewdrop Girl. (22.06.2015)