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REVIEW: Kaina of the Great Snow Sea: Star Sage Anime Film Review




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Glordit



Joined: 11 Sep 2020
Posts: 635
PostPosted: Mon Jan 29, 2024 3:20 pm Reply with quote
I'm just happy it got a conclusive ending. It did what it needed to do and didn't outstay its welcome. Though I do agree that the villain was cliched. Some of the shots, cinematography towards the was really well done too. I look forward to Bloody Escape.

Sad, that they didn't use GReeeN again for the ending, would have been perfect.
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Gnarth



Joined: 06 Oct 2023
Posts: 175
PostPosted: Mon Jan 29, 2024 3:51 pm Reply with quote
This series is the textbook definition of "wasted potential". The start hooked me with its original, strange and interesting world, and I was incredibly excited about all the possible directions it could've gone in. Unfortunately all of it was wasted on the sloppiest, terminally cliched plot with the most generic, cookie-cutter and bland characters, uninteresting conflicts and 3rd grade level black-white morality.

And the only thing that remained possibly interesting, the world and its history, was never explored until a three minute exposition dump at the end of this mess that can be summed up as "something that you'll never know caused this but don't worry all the work is already done but also actually we want you to say a word otherwise how can we justify the story".

As someone who believed in it at the beginning, seeing such a cool premise get thrown away in a script that could rival those 20-word-titled isekai shows was downright infuriating. At least the OST is good.
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Thesarum
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Joined: 25 Mar 2022
Posts: 480
PostPosted: Tue Jan 30, 2024 2:55 pm Reply with quote
This was... okish? Like everyone else says, it has some great ideas for a world, but pastes a pretty lacklustre story over the top of that. It's not actively bad... but like the snow sea itself seems to be comprised primarily of matter with no actual mass.

I think in the film Kaina is even more of a dunce than in the series, and spends basically all his time some combination of confused and oblivious. Ririha is a little more clued in, but still essentially passive as the plot sorts drifts on past around her. The sum total of our lead duo's contributions is the startling insight that killing all the spire trees seems like something that might not be a good idea probably maybe. And that the guy whose entire personality is "Messiah Complex" possibly shouldn't be trusted (though that he has his own villain entry music play over tinny little speakers at his castle is a genuinely hilarious touch). Much as I'm pleased to see more of Amelothée (and would totally watch the prequel about her doomed fight to save her own Spire Tree nation) she's not really supposed to be the most interesting, active and decisive character in the show.

Still, I'm happy to see a story reach a conclusion, and our leads get their happily ever after (as vanilla and muted as it was).
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Hiroki not Takuya



Joined: 17 Apr 2012
Posts: 2632
PostPosted: Sat Feb 03, 2024 12:41 am Reply with quote
Well, the only good thing I can say is there was some dramatic tension borne of yelling at Kaina to not be an idiot and give the egomaniac the one thing he needed to end the world. But he does and stupidly, it turned out the egomaniac was right! Confused Just that he didn't know how to do it right, which is what only our protag couple can because, they're in love and the spirits love them too...Dudes, "two factor authentication" does NOT mean "two people say the same phrase in unison" despite what they did in Laputa. If you want to do that right, see what was done in Last Exile...

The young couple get married after the melodramatic finale and everyone lives happily ever after, the end, good riddance. What a botched set of ideas, could have been good but...
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