Welcome to The Space Show
Original: Besamemucho
Supervision: Takaji Shōnen (God is a middle school student, reading or dying)
Script: Hideyuki Kurata (Recently my sister is a little weird, a world that only God knows)
Animation: A-1 Pictures
Release date: 2010-06-26 (Japan)
CV: Kurosawa Tomoshi, IkugetsuBuka, Shotaro Ubizawa, Ring Matsumoto, Takuto Yoshinaga, Keiji Fujiwara, etc
"Do children's films look good?" Of course it looks good! ”
Regarding "Welcome to the Cosmic Show", the first sentence that popped up in my head was this sentence. This theatrical version of the anime supervised by Takaji Yuki, although the plot looks a bit sub-directional at first glance, is a work that will make children happy to watch, but also will not make adults bored. It couldn't be more appropriate to think of it as a summer family fun movie.
Released in 2010, "Welcome to the Cosmic Show" is not only the first theatrical animation to supervise Takaji Yuki, but also the first animated film of animation production company A-1 Pictures. In fact, before that, Takaji Yukinari, who was born in 1965, had been in the animation industry for a long time, starting from animation at the age of 20, and then from splitting and acting, to becoming a more active OVA supervisor in the 1990s. However, it was not until 2001 that the OVA adapted from the light novel of the same name by scriptor Hideyuki Kurata, "R.O.D.-READ OR DIE-" (read or die), made Takaji Yuki no Seiji well received praise for the good response, and thus became the supervisor of the TV version of "R.O.D". Later, because there was no other suitable job, Takashi Tsunari made an original project with Hideyuki Kurata and Yurakoshi Hiroshi, "かみちゅ!" This is 2005's "God is a Middle School Student." Completely different from the magical girls often seen today, the middle school girls who have become "gods" are still middle school students, and the life under the identity of the fantasy "immortal" is still ordinary and daily, even in the school girl theme has been played in today's colorful point of view, it is still a very interesting healing work.
After "God is a Junior High School Student" won the Outstanding Award from the Animation Department of the Japanese Agency for Cultural Affairs, the trio decided to cooperate again, and at the moment when they did not know whether to continue to do OVA or TV animation, as a producer, they made a theatrical version. Takashi Must Use Elementary School Students as the Protagonists, and Luo Yue proposes to do SF themes, what kind of elementary school students are science fiction up? "The trip to the universe is not bad", so the cosmos study trip of 5 elementary school students took shape. If you have watched "God is a Middle School Student", you will find that "Welcome to the Cosmic Show" has a clear continuity relationship with it, both of which extend the non-daily in the daily life, but the former finds the non-daily as a concoction in the daily life, while the latter pursues the most common emotions in the daily life in the non-daily environment. The protagonist of "R.O.D" is an adult, the protagonist of "God is a middle school student" is a middle school student, and when he becomes a primary school student here in "Welcome to the Cosmic Show", it seems to be getting younger and younger, but in fact, the range of people that the story can affect is getting larger and larger step by step. After all, the threshold of narrative perspective of elementary school students is low enough for audiences of all ages to understand the content, which is suitable for such an animation that initially uses family orientation as a starting point.
The story told in the animation is very easy to understand. In Murakawa Village, a small village far from the capital, elementary school students Xia Ji and cousin Xiao Zhou, as well as three other small partners Xiao Qing, Lun Zi and Kang Er came to the school for summer accommodation. In order to find Xiao Zhou's lost pet rabbit, the five people go deep into the mountains, but accidentally save a puppy - Poqi, who claims to be a Wang Xingren and comes to Earth to find extinct plants. In order to repay the children's life-saving grace, Pooch and the crowd flew to the cosmic city hidden on the far side of the moon, and a cosmic show that adults could never imagine began. However, the accident happened at this moment, the happy children who were playing on the moon learned that the passage back to the earth was forbidden, and the same thing that Xia Ji brought with him was also targeted by the cosmic people, and under the crisis, the road home was getting more and more difficult...
Viewers who see Welcome to the Cosmic Show as an orthodox science fiction genre will probably feel that it is not worthy of the name, which is more like a growth story dressed up in SF than labels such as "universe" and "exploration". Five primary school students living in an ordinary village are fortunate to have a magical experience comparable to urban weirdness, and they find the meaning of growth in this unusual experience. Unity, friendship, affection, hard work... These universally recognized values are expressed in a very simple and straightforward tone, and the ending does not need to be thought about, and it will inevitably end in a big victory over the villain. It does seem like a setting that is not very innovative, but if you look down on this film because of this, it is also a bit sloppy.
The so-called "cosmic SHOW" that makes people unconscious is not simple. In addition to the above content that is obviously infectious to children, at the end of the war, there is also a proposition from the villain Cosmic Man and Pooch arguing, which is a bit intriguing - the future of the universe, whether to save the weak or survive on their own strength. "The universe is one, everyone is brothers", will this fantastic slogan bring about an idealized new world? This question is certainly not for children to consider, as adults, how will you choose?
The entire animation lasted 4 years from the time the plan was proposed to the completion of the production, and the painting accounted for about 3 years. There is an unauthorized speculation here, presumably XiaoJi still has some ambitions for this work, which can be seen only from the high level of painting. Fictional and realistic, grand and meticulous, whether it is the idyllic style in the small village of the earth, or the dazzling outer space planet, several spatial transformations have no sense of violation. The superintendent and the personnel were all served by Masashi Ishihama, and the original painter team was the strongest in that year, Kensei Matsumoto, Keishi Hashimoto, Yasuki Miyazawa, Yuhiro Kishi... The entire row of staffs at the end of the film is full of familiar names. The most surprising thing should be the opening of the cosmic SHOW, the original paintings of the storyboard performance are all by Masaaki Yuasa, and the style is so distinct that it can be almost recognized at a glance.
Children in Japanese animation often ask their real peers to voice them, and "Welcome to the Cosmic Show" is no exception, and the five elementary school students in the film are also children in the three dimensions at that time. One of the characteristics of Takashi Yuki is that she is very good at shaping the image of young girls, and among the five children, the focus is undoubtedly on being a cousin Natsuki, whose voice actor is Kurosawa Tomoyo, who has now become a new generation of attention, which is her debut. Ryuko's voice actress child star Matsumoto Huanji is also a familiar face, starring in the childhood of many popular Japanese drama heroines. In addition, yasuo's voice actor Takuto Yoshinaga, who is still active in the animation industry, will welcome "DAYS" starring him in July.
The most difficult height to reach in sub-supply animation is probably to be able to do it for all ages, and "Welcome to the Cosmic Show" should be a reference in this regard. The plot is light and cute, the scenes are good and sensual, for such a quality of all-age animation, there is only one five words to say: please more, the better! (Text/213)
The original article was first published in Anitama
http://m.anitama.cn/article/50a9a50929a5c18f