Forum - View topicThis Week in Anime - Maquia Will Make You Cry
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lemurs
Posts: 102 |
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I first saw this when my dog was dying of cancer and didn't have a lot of time left, and a story about a parent outliving her child hit especially hard.
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MagicPolly
 Posts: 1577 |
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Mari Okada seems to get a lot of shit but I honestly always seem to be able to fall for her melodrama. I remember watching Maquia on a whim a couple years ago while stuck in quarantine and absolutely falling in love with it. Even just reading through this article and reminiscing had me tearing up. I should really give it a rewatch some day.
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crazieanimefan1
 Posts: 409 Location: Auburn, AL |
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As a mother, this movie touched me in ways I didn't think possible. I could only watch it once since I became very emotional with it. It's a film for moms, like a love letter to the sacrifices we make to our children. It left its mark on me, that's for sure.
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Spike Terra
 Subscriber Posts: 358 Location: Maryland |
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I remember seeing Maquia at Anime Boston in 2019. Before the movie, the presenter remarked that he was surprised so many people woke up early in order to cry. I realized he wasn't joking pretty quickly. As a film it's a masterpiece and Manaka Imai's performance for it is just so damn perfect. I bought a copy as soon as I got access to the dealer's room.
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invalidname
 Contributor Posts: 2444 Location: Grand Rapids, MI |
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I just finished reading Mari Okada's autobiography, which delves deeply into her years as a truant/recluse and her troubled relationship with her own mother, and it's impossible to ignore how that weighs on this story.
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anpansparking
Posts: 40 |
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I watched this on a plane ride to Japan, and wound up in tears by the end. I was very grateful that I had a window seat, so people were less likely to notice me bawling my eyes out in public. Now that I am a mom, I'm honestly kind of scared to rewatch it, since I'm sure it would affect me even more strongly.
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JustMonika
Posts: 962 |
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One of my earlier exposures to anime when I was becoming a fan. This made the name Mari Okada stick in my head ever since. I wish Her Blue Sky would have gotten a North American release.
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Lord Starfish
Posts: 154 |
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This is one of those movies where it's like... I almost like it more than I feel like I should. Because quite frankly, it's pretty messy. I do think it tries to be too many things at once. The central relationship between Maquia and Ariel is wonderful, but I do feel like it tried to bite off more than it could chew with all the political drama surrounding it. The best example I can point to of this being Krim, who seemingly goes through so much off-screen development that he's essentially a different person every time he shows up.
...It's kind of a shame that this is just a movie, really. I feel like there was more than enough story here to support a series, and it might have been better for it. That said, what we did get does still have a lot to like, and the final scene does hit like an absolute sledgehammer. ...Also I adore the film's soundtrack. It is gorgeous. |
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DamianSalazar
Posts: 720 |
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I watched this film last month and even though I didn't cry through it, I could tell that this feature was made with a lot of love and care during production. I loved the relationship between Maquia and Ariel, as Mother and child respectively, as Ariel grew over time. I loved how the film portrays immortality as something tragic rather than something to strive for. I also remember the suffering from Leilia being very significant in this film, spoiler[she had her whole race massacred in genocide, was r**ed and impregnated with a child repeatedly, and was forbidden from seeing her daughter after her birth.] I remember genuinely feeling sorry for her.
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KlarkKentThe3rd
Posts: 108 |
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I heard that the regular single disk US Bluray release has burned in subs AND a version of the movie without the subtitles. Both video files burned into the same disk, leading to bad compression. That true?
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FireChick
Subscriber Posts: 2392 Location: United States |
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No. The DVD release only has the English dub with burned in captions for some reason. The blu-ray version, both the regular and SE versions, are fine. |
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KlarkKentThe3rd
Posts: 108 |
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So did Anime World Order lie to me? |
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lemurs
Posts: 102 |
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No, they didn't. The original Shout Factory Blu Ray release of Maquia does have hardsubs for the Japanese language track and a separate video encode for the dub, both on the same disc. The Limited Edition version published later has proper software-generated subtitles like virtually every other anime release. |
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FireChick
Subscriber Posts: 2392 Location: United States |
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Oh, I didn't know that. My mistake. |
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kotomikun
Posts: 1205 |
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I guess it's a testament to Mari Okada's skill that she has written a movie freakishly precisely tailored to my own life experience (the title is left as an exercise for the reader), and Maquia, the complete opposite of that... and yet, I can't say which one hits harder.
Like, I don't know if "the greatest film sequence in all of anime and possibly all of cinema" was meant to be hyperbole, but as far as I'm concerned, it isn't. A movie scene that successfully combines uncertainty over whether things will turn out okay for the heroes with genuinely making you care about the outcome isn't something I get to experience very often. Suspension of disbelief isn't as automatic as they make it sound in English class. That trailer linked towards the end looks completely bonkers and potentially hokey, but if that team can spin an inane-sounding concept like "immortal mom melodrama" into one of the best anime movies ever, it's clearly got plenty of potential. |
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