Highlights
- Yuzuru Tachikawa, recognized for steering Mob Psycho 100, is making his North American debut with the visually beautiful movie Blue Big.
- Blue Big follows the journey of Dai Miyamoto, a self-taught saxophone participant who goals of turning into the world’s best jazz musician.
- The movie options Grammy award-winning jazz composer Hiromi Uehara’s charming music, together with spectacular animation that superbly captures the power and emotion of the performances.
Yuzuru Tachikawa is a reputation that ought to be very acquainted to anime followers after his three seasons directing Mob Psycho 100, to say nothing of a positively glowing profession apart from it. His latest movie, Blue Big, is quickly making its North American debut courtesy of GKIDS, and whereas it won’t be as grand and bombastic as Mob Psycho, it appears to be like fairly attractive.
Based mostly on the award-winning manga from 2013 by Shinichi Ishizuka, Blue Big was launched in theaters in Japan on February 12, 2023, animated by Studio NUT (Saga of Tanya the Evil, Deca-Dence). GKIDS introduced its acquisition of Blue Big earlier this 12 months and on September 13, 2023, launched a brand new trailer asserting that it’ll come to theaters on October 8 and 9.
What’s Blue Big?
Blue Big follows Dai Miyamoto, a center faculty basketball participant whose life is modified endlessly when his pal takes him to a dwell jazz efficiency that connects with him like nothing else. Regardless of his lack of ability to learn sheet music, a lot much less any form of tutelage, he decides to begin enjoying the saxophone, and goals of turning into the best jazz participant on this planet.
Self-taught and going it alone, his journey to turning into the very best takes him to Tokyo, the place he befriends pianist Yukinori Sawabe and drummer Shunji Tamada. Whereas it takes some convincing, they type a gaggle and face the pressures of the best levels within the metropolis whereas looking for their rhythm collectively, confronting their self-doubts and limitations.
Jazz and anime have gone hand-in-hand over the a long time, notably the works of Shinichiro Watanabe akin to Cowboy Bebop or the Studio MAPPA interval piece Youngsters on the Slope. Moreover, there are the soundtracks of works like Durarara or ACCA-13. For a narrative all about jazz, the bar is about fairly excessive, however Blue Big‘s composer is poised to boost that bar.
The Manufacturing Crew
The movie consists by Grammy award-winning jazz composer and pianist Hiromi Uehara, who gained Finest Modern Jazz Album in 2011 for her work with The Stanley Clarke Band. As credited in GKIDS’ latest trailer, Uehara herself can be performing the piano, whereas jazz musician Tomoaki Baba will play the sax, and percussionist Shun Ishiwaka will play the drums. Further music is being offered by Kazuma Jinnouchi (Suzume, RWBY: Ice Queendom)
That is Yuzuru Tachikawa’s second time directing a full manufacturing for the studio, the primary being 2020’s Deca-Dence. He is joined by chief animation director Yuichi Takahashi, who held the identical function on Vivy: Flourite Eye’s Music, and the upcoming Mononoke film. His work on Vivy, specifically, may give audiences a good suggestion of what to anticipate from the movie’s performances.
Vivy‘s artwork model was well-known for moments of impeccably detailed photographs, particularly in the best way the sunshine performed off of reflective surfaces and cloth. In Blue Big‘s case, through the top of the performances, the lighting, element, and character appearing splendidly convey the exertion by the musicians. The myriad folds and creases in Miyamoto’s shirt underneath the cruel highlight give him the look of a person drenched in sweat, placing every little thing into his act.
The animation appears to be like to not solely categorical itself by means of realism but additionally some extra summary expressionism. Try the above clip and spot the ways in which the power of the music is visualized by means of the lightning results coming off the saxophone or the colourful bursts popping with every hit of Tamada’s drums. When somebody says “a jazz anime by the director of Mob Psycho,” that is precisely what one ought to think about.
The one factor that may take the viewer out of it’s the CGI and this is not the primary music-oriented anime with to be slowed down considerably by 3D animation. Given is among the most beloved music anime in recent times and lots of of its live performance scenes are 3D. This is sensible as a result of it is cheaper and since hand-animating the sort of articulation that goes into enjoying devices is tough and costly.
Even with some CGI, nonetheless, this movie total appears to be like attractive, from the performances to the nighttime cityscapes, to the pencil-drawn look of shadows over the characters’ faces. Whether or not as a lover of jazz or a fan of Tachikawa’s work, to see the place this director goes subsequent, Blue Big has rather a lot to be enthusiastic about.
