Anime Review: Goodbye, Don Glees!

Goodbye, Don Glees! is Madhouse’s newest anime movie that tells a coming-of-age story in regards to the lives and adventures of three highschool teenagers and mates. Ryoma; is the timid pillar of the group who at all times appears to restrict himself; Toto, the sensible one within the group with ambitions that aren’t absolutely his personal and Drop, the latest however most cheerful member of the group who has a mysterious previous and unhappy circumstances. After a frantic night time of celebrations with drone flying and fireworks, the trio is unjustly accused of beginning a forest fireplace that simply occurred to happen close by on the identical night time. So to clear their title, they head out into the woods to hunt out their misplaced drone in hopes that it’ll comprise the very important footage of that night time that can clear their title.

A Heartwarming Journey

In fact, the story shortly goes past this because the characters uncover extra about themselves throughout their journey. They share their emotions, crushes, hopes, and extra and uncover what their very own “journey” is in life. The trio’s experiences and adventures evoke extremely nostalgic childhood reminiscences of hanging out with mates, constructing secret bases, goofing round, and doing stuff you most likely shouldn’t have that the majority adults most likely have. That feeling was portrayed and displayed excellently on this movie.

Whereas the movie’s opening minute seems like a slice-of-life anime with actually humorous moments and takes time to flesh out its characters, this side solely lasts mere minutes because it shortly jumps to the group’s journey, the place every character is then highlighted individually and collectively. The movie follows the three protagonists from begin to end and goes by way of their adolescent years and closes off with a incredible callback and a grand, tearful journey. 

Atmospheric and Lovely

My solely challenge with the story is that whereas it manages to focus on every character, it fails to point out a lot change within the characters after their grand journey collectively. It’s revealed in a while how little or no that point collectively affected their every day lives, a minimum of up till the ultimate twenty minutes. And whereas we be taught quite a bit about Ryoma and Toto, the identical can’t be stated for Drop, as what we learn about him is considerably lower than his mates, which is unlucky.

Manufacturing-wise, whereas the character designs are fairly simplistic, Madhouse introduced its A-game with the movie’s extremely atmospheric dynamic artwork path, exhibiting off every thing from moody skies and putting lighting to enchanting waterfalls and plush forestry. That is additionally paired nicely with its glorious soundtrack, partaking ambiance, and very good sound design. That is accomplished so nicely, actually, that it evoked my nostalgic emotions of watching the equally themed film The Secret Lifetime of Walter Mitty.

Remaining Ideas

Total, Goodbye, Don Glees! is a strong anime movie that may be advisable to only about anybody. It tells a really emotional story with the themes of journey, friendship, and loss. If you happen to’ve watched and loved an anime like A Place Additional Than the Universe, then you definitely’ll love this movie as it’s virtually the male-focused counterpart of that anime and shares a lot of its foremost workers.

A screener of this movie was supplied by GKIDS for this evaluate.

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