Urarochi Diamond
Before I start with this review, I wanted to make a small announcement: today is my last day of holidays. What does this mean for this blog? Well, there will probably be no changes in the series I’m currently blogging, apart from a few delays here and there, perhaps. However, I sure as hell won’t be able to watch one movie every evening anymore. I’m not sure how frequently I’ll be able to post a movie-review; that’ll depend on how busy I’ll be with my studies, and I can’t really make any predictions about that yet. Don’t worry, though: I’m not inclined to quit watching different anime-movies. I haven’t even reached the good ones yet. :)
Anyway, about the review. I wanted to finish my holidays with something special, and then Urarochi Diamond, a production by Studio 4C, suddenly popped up on Tokyo Toshokan. It turns out that I got something entirely different from what I expected, when not only did this turn out to be a wrongly-labelled raw movie, but it’s also one of the most unorthodox ones out there.
Basically, Urarochi Diamond is a minimalist movie: the production-values can’t be smaller than what we see here. There is no animation, and the entire movie consists out of minute-long gray-scale pictures of random people, living their lives in modern ghetto Japan through voices in the background. Basically, if you bought a text-less picture-book and turned on a drama-cd, you’d achieve the same effect. Amateurs with the right tools could have made this just as well.
Regarding the different stories: they’re basically minutes of the life of random unrelated people. There is no plot, no recurring characters, nothing that connects these together. Still, I can’t say I was edging for Alt-F4 throughout the entire movie. There’s one thing these shorts all benefit from, and that is realism. The entire thing is simple, yet believable.
Still, I can’t really recommend this movie, unless you’re into artistic stuff. It’s an interesting production by Studio 4C, but it’s not exactly straightforward entertainment.
Weird stuff. can you even call that a movie? it’s looks like some kind of an experimental production.
Anyway, good look with your studies, and don’t forgot about the blog :)
Comment by arcanes — September 3, 2007 @ 0:10
Looks and sounds a lot like my old comics from when I first started to try to draw in anime style in the fall of 2005.
And roughly what rating would you give this movie? Unsure? 50/100?
Comment by Dookers — September 8, 2007 @ 15:55
Hmm, good question… 50/100-60/100 indeed comes close. It’s below average, but still worth watching…
Comment by psgels — September 8, 2007 @ 16:35