Wonderful Days Anime Review

Overview

By the year 2142, the Earth has been devastated by pollution; the once blue sky has been obscured behind thick black clouds. A self-sustaining city, dubbed ECOBAN, is created which draws upon the pollution for fuel. In theory, this should clear up the toxins, but greed takes hold of the city’s inhabitants. They turn away masses of immigrants seeking to escape the pollution, who retreat to a city called Marr.

The Marrians are put to work keeping ECOBAN in operation. As civil unrest among the Marrians seethes in the cities below, ECOBAN scientists conclude that in order for ECOBAN to survive, it will be necessary for them to perpetuate the toxic stew which provides the city with the energy and resources it needs to thrive. Working alongside the mysterious exiled ECOBAN scientist Dr. Noah, a resistance fighter named Shua breaks into the ECOBAN data core, stealing important data which details ECOBAN’s predicament.

As fate would have it, Shua encounters a lost childhood love named Jay, who has become a law-enforcement officer for ECOBAN. Jay must choose between her duty to ECOBAN and her feelings for Shua, while Shua struggles to thwart ECOBAN’s plans and perhaps restore Earth’s former beauty.

Review

Wonderful Days is just that, Wonderful. This is what the Final Fantasy: Spirits Within movie should have been like. The movie has the most superior animation to date, it’s untouched. It can compete with Ghibli Studios’ Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away.

If you’ve read others reviews and they trashed this movie, then I trash them (please, no assassination attempts). Seriously guys, if you have any sci-fi interests at all, check this out. It’s beautiful, exotic, and the tech is through the roof. James Cameron should take a look at this flick for ideas for his own work in progress Avatar.

Review by David Marini
www.everythingevangelion.com

Additional review

Where do I begin?

If this review was only on the animation of Wonderful Days then this would be a glowing review. Wonderful Days manages to mix 2D and 3D art fantastically and both are used to create some absolutely stunning sequences. Some of the exterior shots of one of the main characters, Jay riding in her motorcycle are breathtaking. The people behind the art of this film went a long way to make everything look superb. Unfortunately this isn’t just a review of the animation.

Where Wonderful Days fall short for me is in the story. The bigger story of the film is the conflict between the Ecobans and the Marrians but the deeper story is that of lost love and of a boy that wanted to see the sky. Now I am not trying to trick you. This may sound like a great movie and for all purpose it should be, but somehow it failed. I hardly cared about any of the characters in the movie and I wanted to! There is a convoluted love triangle between Jay, Shua and security chief Simon that after the movie was over I was left unsatisfied. I wanted to feel something when Jay followed the love that she thought had died so many years ago. I wanted to feel something when she finally caught up with him on the abandoned tanker. I wanted to feel something during the ending sequences. I felt nothing but marvelled at the artistry.

I don’t know what could have made this movie a better one. Maybe more dialogue between Jay and Shua? If a better bond was created between Noah and Shua? Maybe if the plight of the Marrians was made more human? I have no idea. I do know I had to constantly ignore the fact that the planets sky is blocked by thick pollution even though Ecoban itself feeds off of pollution.

I recommend this movie only for the more hardcore animation fans. I can’t imagine anyone else getting enjoyment out of it.

Review by Noel Ruiz
www.everythingevangelion.com