'Promare' Review

To talk about Promare, the new anime film from Studio Trigger (makers of Gurren Lagann, Kill la Kill, etc.) I have to start at Anime NYC. I went to Anime NYC this year and Promare was everywhere, from cosplays to posters to fanarts. I actually cosplayed as Kamina from Gurren Lagann and had a few people call me Galo from Promare. Needless to say, I was a little interested to see it. I wasn’t totally sold though. Fast forward to the past few days: Promare was coming back in theaters, December 8th for the sub and December 10th for the dub. My friends were going to the subbed version, and when one couldn’t go last minute, the ticket practically fell into my lap. There I was, walking in blind to this movie with no sense of what I was about to witness.

How much did I enjoy this movie? Well, I walked out of the sub and immediately went home and bought tickets for me and a friend to see the dub. I saw the dub and immediately came home to write a review, ignoring my bedtime and thus resigning myself to a caffeine-driven morning tomorrow at work, because this movie is in my top three of the year.

I don’t even know where to start! To give a super basic overview of the plot, the story follows the conflict of regular people contending with the Burnish, who are people with the ability to literally shoot fire from their bodies. Our main character is a firefighter, Galo, who lives with a burning (pun intended) passion to put out fires and save lives. Problems arise when he has to face the ugly truth that the Burnish are really people like him, harshly and unfairly discriminated against and hunted down. From there, mech-action and incredible fights ensue, but the morality of the story makes it really compelling. It’s super relevant to a lot of struggles today in America; I think for an anime about giant robots fighting and interdimensional alien-flame-things, the issue was handled very well.

I also need to give a massive shout out to the voice acting in both the Japanese and English versions of the movie. I found out that the Japanese actors for Lio hasn’t done too many roles before this, and he was great. I’m more familiar with the English voice actors, so once I searched for who the English cast was, it made up my mind that I would see the dub. Super strong voice actors like Erica Lindbeck, Johnny Yong Bosch, Yuri Lowenthal, and Matthew Mercer were awesome to see on the big screen. I was particularly excited about Billy Kametz in the lead role as Galo, because I absolutely loved him as Josuke in Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure. He was great, and probably my favorite part about the dub. He got Galo’s personality across perfectly. The same goes for Johnny Yong Bosch, who I’m always happy to hear. I liked his Lio, and it gave a nice glimpse into some of what we can expect from him as Broly in Dragon Ball.

In general, everything about the movie was really strong. The animation was super awesome, and if you get a chance to see this movie on the big screen, you need to do it. It was visually striking. The colors are fantastic. The flames are this mix of pink and yellow, and it was super unique. They also manifest as snakey-dragon heads, and it looks amazing. This was a bright movie, and the color palette deserves all the appreciation in the world. The use of shapes is also incredibly smart, with the firefighter's weapons and firepower shown as cubes whereas the fire is triangular and jagged. Little stylistic things like that made it stand out, and I’m sure I’d pick up even more details if (haha, I mean when) I watched Promare again.

They also use a blend of CGI, 3-D looking models along with 2-D. It makes the action more tangible and the movement flow really nicely when there are intense fight scenes going on. For example, (to not spoil the scene this is from I’ll be a little vague) there’s this crazy shot of the camera doing a bunch of 360 spins around a building before zooming in to the building right up to the character Kray Foresight. It’s all 3-D, but when he speaks, it takes a turn to 2-D animation for his face. It was so flawless and couldn’t figure out where the different styles ended and began at some points.

To mention the camera part of the animation, that may have been my favorite. So many of the fight scenes are fluid and cover lots of ground, and the camera mimics that. There’s aren’t too many still frames, but you never feel motion sick or anything when watching the action. I love the way it captured the first fight between Lio and Galo at the very beginning. The two are crashing in and out of buildings, fighting through different floors of a building, flying through the air, etc. I never felt lost with what was going on, but I could feel how powerful each of them was and how they maneuvered around each other. It might sound a little strange to talk about camera work with no live action, but it’s still an art, and kudos to the team that pulled it off, because they should win an award for their work.

I also need to mention the overall style and tone of the movie. A lot of my favorite anime have similar vibes: serious things can be going on, but things are still strange and the anime doesn’t take itself too seriously. Case in point, some of my favs I’ve mentioned above, like Jojo’s and Gurren Lagann. Both have some heavy things happen in the shows, but neither one wastes time on making anything seem super realistic or care about certain plot conveniences. Promare is the same way, with the characters still managing to be hilarious while fighting for the literal fate of the earth. Galo has easily become one of my favorite anime protagonists, because he’s funny but he’s also honest and dedicated. He represents that sweet spot between serious character and complete idiot, and I loved every second of it.

To explain a little more of what I mean about the vibe of the movie, I’m going to spoil something here, so if you don’t want to be spoiled, skip to the next paragraph. There’s a moment when Galo and Lio are stuck and have no way to defeat Kray (who turns out to be the villain, told you there were spoilers) and are stuck in the bottom of a lake. Kray’s mentor, whom Kray killed, has a secret bunker under the lake where his consciousness lives on as a computer. This guy shows up in the third act, no explanation, and gives them a mega powerful robot to fight, named the Deus X Machina. I can’t stress how funny this is. A. Literal. Deus. Ex. Machina. Shows up so they can win. Even when I knew it was coming on my second viewing, I almost cried it was still so funny. The audience got a kick out of it too. I think in both of my shows, that line got the most laughs out of the whole thing. It’s little, stupid and cheeky things like that that made me enjoy Promare so much. It makes watching it fun, like it’s something you can turn on and forget all your worries for two hours while you’re watching.

Have I convinced you that you need to see Promare yet? Hope so! I sat there through both showings forgetting to go to the bathroom both times because I couldn’t leave. That’s right. I held in my pee for a total of four hours for this movie, so you know it has to be great. I’m one million percent going to purchase this movie and add it to my small yet mighty DVD collection. One thing I didn’t highlight was the music, which was killer. I have headphone when I’m at work, and when I tell you the past two days have seen me bopping to the title track, Inferno, on repeat for hours, I mean it—

Wait.

Why are you still reading this and not watching Promare?