"Yesterday's Blue Sky" is a milestone in domestic animation

Note: The main text of this article only discusses the anime "Yesterday's Blue Sky" and does not involve the original manga.

A digression to begin.

Those who are mean, flippant, and obviously tinted with colored glasses on certain sites are reviewers. While attacking "spicy chicken fast food movies" and accusing "small fresh meat", they refused to vote for a seriously produced, artistic, innovative, bland and fresh domestic animation film.

Is it disdain for "animation", or do you not understand it at all?

What has been precipitated by time is the classic, but the classic is precipitated from the beginning of the new life. At the same time, a new form always takes time to explore. The mediocre will always be the same, and once someone proved "good", he can find "good" from it. In the face of unfamiliar things, they will only "go with the flow" to degrade.

After all, the probability of today's work being "scum" is always greater than the probability of "being a masterpiece".

body:

Synopsis

Regret is a bookmark of youth, sandwiched in the most painful page. - Episode "Too Late to Be Brave"

"Yesterday's Blue Sky" uses Tu Xiaoyi's memories to recount the story of the third year of high school, when he accidentally intersected with Yao Zhetian and Qi Jingxuan, and finally separated.

Yao Zhetian is a typical contemporary Chinese high school girl, who is dominated by her parents and follows the path arranged by her parents. In school, he is a good student with excellent learning and outstanding strengths.

Qi Jingxuan is a rebellious youth who is somewhat cynical or even clumsy on the surface, but under the rebellious appearance, there is a mature, gentle and delicate heart.

And Tu Xiaoyi in the story, like many of us at that time, had his own hobbies and strengths but did not have a clear goal, and he was a little weak in nature, as if he was confused.

The 3 people who should not have intersected in the first place were accidentally brought together because of the production of the blackboard newspaper, and spent a short and happy time.

And this happiness eventually evolved into a regret, and they each had a different path in life. The college entrance examination was over, Qi Jingxuan left, and Tu Xiaoyi went to Shenzhen to pursue his future.

For them, perhaps separation is an inevitability, and encounter is an accident. Everything is only driven by time, and everything is also determined by fate.

More than ten years later, Tu Xiaoyi returned to his hometown and recalled this past, everything seemed to have become flat, leaving only a faint regret.

a feeling of thought

The emotion of "Yesterday's Blue Sky" is relatively realistic.

What does most people's youth look like? Passionate? Is it ups and downs? Probably bland. In our youth, although we are rebellious and simple, our thoughts have gradually matured, and we have gradually got rid of the impulses of our youth. When confronting things, we begin to think rationally and endure. That collision of inner impulses and reason creates the general problem of adolescence. This is the metamorphosis of adolescence, when reason matures and suppresses sensibility, youth is over.

At such a stage, many things in life will always cause the inner touch, so we become sentimental; and reason and reality make us have to suppress this throbbing, so we can only sigh. The agitation is buried in the heart, and life is flat. In the process of this, we spent that time, leaving behind a lot of regrettable regrets.

The film shows the inner fluctuations of the characters very well, and the plot also shows the blandness of life and the regret that is finally left behind.

At the same time, the idea of "Yesterday's Blue Sky" is also mature.

Films with youth themes often define the audience as viewers who are about the same age as the characters in the works. Therefore, it is often by exaggerating a certain emotion excessively, smearing a certain type of crowd or advocating a "rebellious spirit" to bring pleasure and resonance to the audience to please the audience. So much so that films often lack real ideological connotations. Such a movie is essentially no different from "divine drama" and "cool film". At the same time, this also makes youth-themed films labeled as audiences of a specific age.

What this film shows is not a single one-sided passion or sadness, but after everything has calmed down, it is re-examined and carefully recalled. There are impulses and patience, there are joys and sorrows and regrets, and there are mixed tastes. This is the true original appearance of youth. It can be said that ideologically it truly embodies the true essence of the theme of "youth".

Artistic features

"Yesterday's Blue Sky" is a prose poetry film

The prose narrative technique, the plot is more loose. The relatively loose plot structure gives the film more space to depict things outside the plot.

A large number of scenes and detailed scene depictions in the film create a fresh and natural artistic conception, making the film as a whole show a fresh sense of beauty.

The rational application of "stream of consciousness" makes the connection between plots smoother, and at the same time more naturally shows the inner emotions of the characters.

The harmonious use of the three modes of expression gives the film a sense of fluency and beauty like a lyric poem. The whole film, in this sense of fluency and beauty, presents the simple beauty of youth, expresses the remembrance of youth time, and a faint regret and regret.

Milestone significance

In terms of theme, "Yesterday's Blue Sky" is China's first successful theatrical version of the animation with a youth theme. It can be said that this is a major breakthrough.

Animation has always been implicit in the mainstream impression of "sub-supply"; at the same time, under the influence of China's cultural market environment, the works emphasize cultural self-confidence and identity, and always want to reflect distinct "Chinese cultural characteristics". Therefore, in the selection of materials, it is more inclined to history and mythological stories. However, this choice of subject matter is seriously out of touch with the social and contemporary environment.

The more repeatedly and excessively emphasize the characteristics, the more it shows the inherent "disapproval" and "lack of self-confidence". The use of commonly used, popular themes reflects the confidence in their own production level and culture. At the same time, it also completely broke away from the label of "sub-supply" and further expanded the audience.

In terms of artistic expression, "Yesterday's Blue Sky" is the first domestic animation that reflects a perfect and mature artistic technique, and it is also the first domestic animation to adopt the form of "prose poem".

The work successfully handles the blending of characters, events, and scenes. At the same time, the plot of the film under the prose structure, the beauty of the scenery and the harmony of emotional expression are achieved. On the other hand, the grasp of "stream of consciousness" is also very good, showing the mental activities of the characters, and at the same time, it is not out of touch with the overall atmosphere of the film, which has played a good effect for the performance of the film.

The most important thing is that the work shows for the first time the artistic carrying capacity of the carrier of "animation".

Through a bland but vivid and realistic plot, the work shows the simple emotional beauty from the heart that is unique to youth; at the same time, the depiction of the environment and scenery, the portrayal of the character and temperament of the characters, make the film present the fresh, idyllic and subtle cultural beauty unique to the small town of Jiangnan.

This is also the meaning of the role of scattered cultural techniques, focusing not only on the plot, but also on the presentation of thoughts, emotions and beauty.

Ideologically, "Yesterday's Blue Sky" is the first domestic animation work with mature ideas.

What is shown in the work is a more mature, complex and realistic thought and emotion. It is a good way to get rid of the overly single, one-sided and exaggerated emotional performance that often appears in the works of youth themes; it also abandons the "fairy tale" emotional expression in traditional domestic animation.

At the same time, the maturity of thought is not only reflected in the thoughts and emotions expressed in the work itself, but also in the production of the work. The production of this film does not focus on the market, but on the embodiment of beauty from reality, in the expression of emotions, and on art.

What is the reason for the frequent appearance of bad movies lately? It is fundamentally about the positioning of the film. Producers position their works as commodities and themselves as merchants. This positioning has led to the production of the film is mainly guided by the market, and the starting point of the film production is to please the audience. But the essence of film and television drama is the carrier of art, is the work of art. The work should consider the audience, but not only the audience.

"Yesterday's Blue Sky" may not be welcomed by some audiences because it does not meet the needs of some audiences. However, it returns to the essence of creation in terms of production ideas.

Reflection and miscellaneous

It is undeniable that the problems in "Yesterday's Blue Sky" are still very obvious. The most obvious is the collapse of the painting and the dubbing of the scene, which directly affects the viewing experience. (Especially the part that sends the heroine home, the character plus the dubbing are played together, and it looks awkward to be unable to do it)

I would love to say, "Give Guoman some tolerance." "But it's a form of indulgence.

I personally hate using the word "stream of consciousness." Because there is no clear definition of what "stream of consciousness" is in itself in a work of art, it is just a reference to psychological terminology. At the same time, the inappropriate use of "stream of consciousness" often produces the effect of "stream of consciousness" (taken from Xu Song's "Artists"), and "Fireworks" is a good example. But the use of this game has really produced good results.

About the comparison between this game and the original. It is true that the magic reform, but I think this kind of magic reform is benign and reasonable, and the reason has been explained in the main text. The rebellious spirit in the original work is indeed not a theme worth advocating. Nevertheless, I have to admit that the emotion of the original is indeed more moving.

Finally, I recommend two songs to everyone: Eason Chan's "Falling Flowers and Flowing Water" and Xu Song's "Artists"

Another thing is that the voice actor of the heroine is really good, and it is very in line with the temperament of the heroine.