Forum - View topicNEWS: Mamoru Hosoda's Scarlet Anime Film Reveals Trailer
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EmeraldSaucer
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The backgrounds look like default UE5 assets and there are multiple parts of this trailer that have the stiffness and lack of impact you'd expect to see in Berserk 2016 (that clothesline...) It's sad to see the fall of a once cherished creator in real time along with the steady bleed of talent from Chizu
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Silver Kirin
Posts: 1763 |
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Gotta be honest, while there're some nice shots in the trailer and I don't know if in some parts the characters are traditionally animated, the CG/cel-shaded animation does feel kind of weightless, that's one of the main problems I have with CGI anime. I believe some Japanese animators should take inspiration from recent Western animated movies like the Spider-Verse films, K-Pop: Demon Hunters, The Bad Guys and Puss on Boots the Last Wish on how to make 3D animation look more stylized and, ironically, feel more like an anime, and the thing is that there's some great CGI anime films, like Lupin III: the First that managed to capture the look and feel of 2D in 3D, Toei's The First Slam Dunk and Dragon Ball Super Hero also looked great. The problem I have with Scarlet's trailer is that it looks almost like a video game cutscene, and not from an AAA title.
Last edited by Silver Kirin on Fri Aug 01, 2025 8:54 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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OtomeGay
 Posts: 263 |
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It's interesting to look at the contrast between English-speaking fans, who don't seem to have a lot of hope for the film, versus the comments I'm seeing on the trailer in Japanese, which are more mixed (they seem to like the animation and art direction, with critiques being more focused towards the writing/screenplay).
I do agree with the sentiment that more CGI anime taking inspiration from recent Sony Animation (as well as others with similar styles, like Nimona or Puss in Boots) could have a positive impact. |
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EmeraldSaucer
Posts: 938 |
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Once we get more info I'm sure the latter will become more prominent, we already have the ingredient of Bland Genericman who is here to calm down the overly emotional woman (weird how this and the oddness of Belle all happens once Hosoda drops a female co-writer, can't imagine why) |
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Fichinescu
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I actually interviewed him a couple of years ago for an Argentine magazine about Belle, and I asked pretty much that exact question: how it was writing a teenage girl when it was his first female-centered screenplay without Okudera. I don’t know if it was the question itself or the translation, but he bristled, almost offended, saying all characters are just characters to him and you don’t need to be a woman to write a woman. I was honestly surprised, because I thought it was a pretty innocent question. But yeah, judging from this trailer, there’s definitely a pattern forming that seems to lean into that Von Trier film trope where a woman’s constant suffering becomes the central focus of the story. |
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MFrontier
Posts: 20003 |
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Seems like they're trying to blend a 2D/CG style...I can't quite put my finger on whether it works for me or not.
Kind of surreal to see the male lead is the typical Isekai protagonist. I guess because he's a medic he's meant to contrast with Scarlet's quest for vengeance and all the violence and brutality going around him. Also of course she gets the classic character development haircut. |
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Fanen
Posts: 27 |
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I am sure the movie will be fine for what it is, but...
It feels like overall Hosoda just wasn't interesting since Wolf's Children. Myself, I think he is really at his best when he is given to direct movies, or episodes of some well known franchises, like Digimon, or One Piece in his own distinctive way. |
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Xristophoros
 Posts: 156 |
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what a disappointment! as a big hosoda fan, i was looking forward to the trailer but the cgi animation is quite pitiful. it might look decent in still shots, but in motion it looks jenky, something you would see in a video game such as the recent metaphor: refantazio or subpar berserk adaptation.
my biggest fear of all, however, is whether or not hosoda has given up on 2d animation for good or if this is just a one-off disaster of an experiment? why go this route at all, though? is it merely another cost saving measure disguised as an art style he thought worth pursuing? well, they aren't fooling anyone here. it looks cheap and third rate. surely not a hosoda production. also, outside of the pink haired protagonist, you couldn't come up with blander character designs if you tried. classic sadamoto this clearly is NOT! |
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Cardcaptor Takato
 Posts: 5966 |
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I've enjoyed plenty of CGI anime over the years and I'm not inherently opposed to CGI anime but even putting aside the quality of the animation the plot of this seems like generic fantasy and not the quality I expect from a Hosoda film.
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SinisterOracle
 SubscriberPosts: 861 |
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Oh my. This does not look like a hit to me. Some scenes were good but others had the impact and animation of a wet hamburger. Perhaps Hosoda-san can take some inspiration from donghuas that do a fantastic job mixing animation styles.
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whiskeyii
 Posts: 2465 |
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I won't blame Hosoda for trying something new. What I will blame him for is not seeking out better talent in the animation department. When we have stuff like Girls Band Cry and Studio Orange's output, I feel like my tolerance for "just okay" 3D anime is getting less and less.
Of course, this could very well be the result of that extremely good interview about how the animation mentoring process has just kind of fallen apart these days, and aspiring 3D animators just kind of *can't* find a way to be trained by folks who have picked up a lot of these higher skill-sets in Toei and Orange, but maaaaan, the industry as a whole would gain SO MUCH by just letting all of their 3D staff study under those folks. |
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Bonham
 Posts: 439 Location: NYC |
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I found Belle (narrative diversions and crazy resolution included, though I'm not sure where the "oddness" characterization comes in) to be his strongest since Wolf Children; admittedly, that's not a high bar to clear, with how rough those The Boy and the Beast and Mirai are, and I'm also not as big on Summer Wars as many are. I also really can't agree with the von Trier comparison at all. That's such an extreme and baffling way to frame the exploration of trauma in Belle, and it takes a further leap to read any sort of morbid, emotionally fetishistic fascination of female pain on Hosoda's part with that and this trailer. That said, I will agree that he definitely that Hosoda has missed Okudera. This Scarlet trailer also inspires no confidence in him choosing to go with a lackluster attempt into 3D. A few spare shots of good art direction and a semblance of texture don't outdo the impersonal and lifeless animation. The presence of the male nurse also seems like nothing but a negative, both visually and for the narrative. Still waiting and hoping his One Piece movie gets licensed and released... |
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EmeraldSaucer
Posts: 938 |
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By oddness I was referring to the film's inability to pick a lane between the 5 or so different conceits Hosoda came up resulting in issues such as the protagonist's trauma ultimately being subsumed and rendered peripheral as of the third act by the trauma of the child who she has an ambiguously strange quasi-romantic quasi-maternal relationship with, even by the end when they know one another's real world identities |
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AsleepBySunset
Posts: 315 |
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I actually think one of my problems with this is something fundamental, when you put 1000 people in a shot, and not 100 people in a shot, it starts to trigger that "1000 peoples death is a statistic" effect where the emotional impact is actually lost... but the plot/movie doesnt really acknowledge the lost emotional impact.
I think they're are so many flaws with scarlet based on the trailer that it almost feels amatuerish, and all the root problems are not just bad cgi or bad shaders, but honestly down to the roots, bad story, bad characterisation, bad storyboarding (again the empty characterless vistas and crowds of so many people the people may as well be props, there's nothing to focus on visually because everything is demanding your attention). It's a fantasy story but all the fantastical elements have been done a hundred times over. |
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Bonham
Posts: 439 Location: NYC |
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The movie definitely is being pulled in too many directions at times, but Suzu's own trauma isn't sidelined in the final stretch by the Dragon's. You have a digression from the focus on her trauma and lingering effects as she investigates his identity and situation, sure. Yet the climax only happens, and happens as it does, because of how Dragon's situation echoes with her own trauma and conflicted, confused feelings in how she's struggled to process it. The pain of spoiler[opening herself up with her identity], as well as the realization and acceptance of spoiler[her mother's actual motivation in saving a stranger, which is hammered home], is an appropriate follow through of everything the movie's already done with her gradual recovery in singing and socialization for the rest of the story.
To be fair, from just a trailer and not having seen the movie itself, we have no idea if the movie will or will not acknowledge that angle. But I honestly don't expect it to. And I agree with what you said in general. It's also as much of an issue as Hosoda moving away from his real world settings (with frequent magical realism) into something more genre oriented while seemingly doing nothing but clichés of modern fantasy epics. I hope Scarlet is just a temporary diversion for Hosoda, at least aesthetically. If not, they really need to improve on the animation for whatever he directs after it. |
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