I finally, finally, got to watch it in theaters. On the way home, my playlist rotated to GIRLS’ LEGEND U by chance. This is how it feels, again, to wait and finally fulfill that desire.
It didn’t occur to me at first that the Umamusume feature film, Shinjidai no Tobira, was something you had to see in theaters. I blame that on being exposed to so much lead-up marketing to the film, that desire to watch it as soon as possible–which, with a VPN on U-Next solved a few months after it hit the screens in Japan. I didn’t expect it to be a film that stretches into the contemplative. I would had thought it followed the fierce desire of its protagonist, Jungle Pocket, but the movie was a beast of its own.
Now that it’s finally a thing, which marks the 4th time I’ve watched the film, first I just want to thank REMOW/GAGA for making it happen, and it was not a 1-night event like many other anime movie screenings out here. Pretty sure I missed the last 7 or 8 out of 10 of those in my area, because they’re always happening on a weekend I’m out of town.
Second, as a part of the movie promo, the director, Ken Yamamoto, has done some interviews. I quote the Crunchyroll one here because it’s to the point:
With the mobile game launching in English, the Cinderella Gray anime airing and this film now coming out overseas, Umamusume has had a big year for fans around the world. How does Beginning of a New Era build upon that?
Yamamoto: Since this project was specifically made for the big screen, I feel there is profound meaning in fans experiencing Umamusume in a cinema, especially as a point of connection for fans coming from the mobile game, manga, stage plays, anime, and live concerts.
The world of Umamusume is incredibly vast; how it is perceived can change drastically depending on the lens you view it through. I hope this film contributes to that ever-expanding breadth and offers a new perspective on the franchise.
Having watched it on a PC, a TV, and on a tablet, none of it made as much sense as watching it in theaters. Everything just made the visual language click better, from the sound design to the contrasting lightscapes between the race track, Tachyon’s lab, and Pokke’s memories.
Unfortunately, like most people I don’t have access to Japanese films all the time at my local movie theaters. It seems like half the time I need to watch the said film in Japan, and that really comes down to timing. In this day and age of Netflix and what have you, it’s nice to see that the medium is still the message even if streaming has become the norm. I mean, I don’t need to bring up Cho Kaguya-hime here? Anime in movie theaters is for sure, still a large chunk of that pie, but we’re still not really established in terms of exporting that chain outside of east Asia maybe. When I visited Taiwan earlier last month I realized many Japanese works can be seen in theaters. I don’t mean just normal Japanese movies–that’s actually quite spotty–but things like the HypMic screening that happened recently, various live viewings, and other niche content with established fanbases. America is way, way behind on this front, despite how much we proclaim we may like anime and anime-adjacent media.
Heck, the fact that I had to watch the new Gundam Hathaway chapter in Japan is a huge sign that things are not doing as well as we could, not by a long shot. That said, review to come soon? I don’t know.
PS. Here’s a spoiler-lite quickie on the Hathaway film. Long story short, it’s a good second act in the story where Hathaway drives the camera time but the development is on what depicts the complicated life that Gigi lives. I did think the final scene/sequence was gratuitous in that they had to have that to relieve tension and give the movie something with oomf. It also would be cowardly to do things this way. I thought it would have been fine to have a quiet second act, for a proper SF-y story about the son of Bright Noa and the current-event-y themes this film tackles.
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