Every now and again, anime gets a chance to impart some wisdom or express a valid point of view. Hayao Miyazaki is a master at making highly entertaining anime which doubles as commentary. His movies have a clarity which is subtle and obvious, depending on how you view them.
Origins: Spirits of the Past, feels much like a Miyazaki film. But it only feels….
plot summary
In a bid to tame the harsh climates of uninhabitable planets, scientists on the moon created trees capable of living in any environment. They succeeded far beyond their expectations as the experimental forests grew wildly out of control and escaped their confines. The renegade trees descended to Earth and nearly destroyed all of humanity. Now the forest has become a sentient creature living side by side with the remnants of mankind.
Agito lives in Neutral City, on the edge of the forest. The city and the forest have had a harmonious relationship for decades. That is until Agito awakens an ancient from her three hundred year slumber. Toola, a young girl who’s physically Agito’s age, comes from a time before the forest dominated the planet.
Toola’s presence angers the forest as she represents a threat to the forest itself. But a young man from the military state of Ragna, Shunack, eagerly seeks Toola out. Shunack believes Toola can help him destroy the forest and bring back the past glory of humanity, a glory Toola misses.
Agito and Toola become entangled in an age old battle between nature and humanity. Will Toola bring harm or harmony to the forest Agito holds dear?
review
Origins is a movie about the respect and balance we should give and have with nature. But it was merely good, not great and I didn’t really walk away with a sense that the movie was about nature itself. The storytelling was average and while it had a message, it could have had a stronger delivery and more impact. The movie wasn’t preachy, but it had no edge to it either. I wanted that edge, I wanted the movie to harp a bit on the sorry state of the planet, and how as humans we’re responsible for its maintenance and upkeep. This was a perfect opportunity to point a few fingers and to subtly shake heads at industrial waste and so forth.
What I got from Origins was: Genetic engineering is bad. Let’s all live in harmony with this freakish forest that wants to fertilize itself with our decomposing bodies. The messages were mixed, if there were any at all.
Origins was an entertaining movie, but it lacked something which would have made it something beyond mere entertainment. It had no heart, no depth, no soul or spark. I didn’t feel drawn in at all, the anime didn’t even attempt to engage me.
The pacing was off too. Ideas were hurriedly told while certain unnecessary nuances were given more time than they should have. Things I felt should have been expounded on were tossed out and in a flash, disappeared. More time, more time! Is what I kept repeating over and over again as some point of interest flared up and was gone. The ideas for Origins would have been better suited as a series, where these ideas could be carefully plotted out. Either that or cut some points out, one or the other, can’t have both.
Character Development
I felt little to no connection with the characters except for Toola and Shunack. These are the only two people who have passion and vigor. Agito seems a bit lost in comparison to the clarity these two have. When Agito finally does start to get passionate about something, I almost don’t care since the whole scene is hurried. Why are Toola and Shunack rounded out but not the hero?
Character Design
Origins is a beautiful movie. The forest is threatening as is the state of Ragna. Both represent extremes and are depicted as such in the overly organic and and mechanical designs for each. The trees’ roots are blood red and shout, stay away! and Ragna’s giant tanks are covered in rust as red as the tree roots.
The druid girls have a highly H.R. Giger flavor, and I wanted to see more of that throughout the anime. Nature never looked better, nor more menacing.
The realism of Neutral City was depressing. So this is what a future without technology looks like? The remains of the old civilization were used to create the new, technology free one. The eerie beauty of the forest couldn’t offset the decrepitude of a fallen era. It’s a glimpse of what the planet will look like when we’re all dead and gone.
Animation
Gonzo did a superb job animating Origins. The animation was impressive, though the computer graphics were distracting at times. Most of the CG was well done, but when it was off it was off. All I can say is: volcano on legs. Overall, the animation stood out as flowing and natural. Background nature shots were gorgeous, though some shots of people were out of focus and lacking details.
Music
Origins opens with a haunting song,”Chouwa Oto“, by Kokia. It’s beautiful and simultaneously chilling. The soundtrack throughout had an air of high drama. It fit, though it was too grand at times. The ending wrapped up with the lovely, “Ai no Melody“, also by Kokia.
Voice Acting
Although the English voice cast isn’t horrible, I much preferred the Japanese voice cast for the movie. The Japanese voice cast emoted better, and suited the movie more than the duller English cast.
Production
Spirits of the Past comes with a DVD full of extras. The disc includes never before seen visuals, interviews, trailers and TV spots.
conclusion
Origins: Spirits of the Past is a good piece of entertainment. However, I feel it lacked something which could have given the anime a sharper focus and clarity. Truly great anime all have that focus which make them more than anime and more than entertainment. But Origins is only a good anime and merely entertaining; perhaps that’s all it ever wished to be.
Rating
Origins: Spirits of the Past gets 3 outta 4 Hammies!
Retail Info
- Publisher: Funimation
- Release Date:March 4, 2008
- Retail Price: $39.98
- Number of discs:2
- Run Time: 150 minutes
- Rating: TV-PG
- Language: English, Japanese
- Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
- Format: Animated, Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
excellent review – seems like a interesting film. I’d probably watch it just for the quality of character design and animation.
Wow that definitely seems good. Especially the animation. You were very good with your review, I’ll be sure to watch this one someday lol. Thanks again, ciao
@Spyhunter, Thanks! I wouldn’t discourage anyone from not seeing Origins, but it does fall a bit flat. It was pretty, and worth seeing for the landscape shots.
@watch free anime, the animation is really good, beautiful even.
Thanks for Origins, Spirit of the past.
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Well it does sound like an interesting story plot. I surely would like to see this. thx for the review.
Gotta disagree here. I thought it was really really disappointing.
The art was gorgeous, the budget was obviously ample. The animation was good, and the CG use fit well. The premise was good, but the story was appalling. There was next to no character development at all. It felt rushed and very incomplete.
I think it could have been a great 12 episode series. As a movie, it’s got some eye candy going for it, and that’s it.
@Alex, I agree with you on all the points you make except for the story being appalling. I thought it was OK, not great, just OK. The premise was a good one, but they could have definitely given it more thought on the angle they took with it in the time frame available to them. Why it felt rushed was because they crammed so much info in the story without much thought as to whether it was a good idea to do so. That peeved me too. And I totally agree this woulda made a potentially fantastic series.
Thank you Rachel for posting this review up, I looked at the beginning and whether or not you liked it and then commenced watching it. I actually thought it was one of the most epic love story’s ever told and it was still able to dazzle your mind with special effects and great plot telling, I was completely intrigued throughout the movie. For instance I had completely **** SPOILER ALERT*** no idea how he was going to kick the older enhanced guys ass but he surprised me that aspect of literally tying in what it means to be all “one” and the fact that they were becoming enlightened and the fact that becoming one with nature is having peace.
Seriously I thought it was great and my girlfriend is going to love this movie when I show it to her.
Thanks again.
I thought the film was ok. the animation was great and the scenery was fantastic. te story was a bit of a rip off of nausica of the valley of the wind but still really interesting. I watched it on the special two disc version and when i watched the original traler there seemed to be alot of scenes cut of maybe it was a trailer for a sequal. who knows any ideas?
@ed, Origins feels like Nausicaa, but it really wasn’t even close. Nausicaa had a lot of effortless depth, this tried the same thing and failed.
I don’t think there’ll be a sequel, or at least I hope not!
ok does anyone know who made this seris plot so maybe we could find away to write them email info to me at bwillms0999@hotmail.com