sing a bit of harmony review
Date: 2022 Jan 24 19:12
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The anime film Sing a Bit of Harmony will be released in cinemas across the UK and Ireland from Friday 28 January 2022. The film tells the classic story of a Japanese school girl who meets a robotic AI, bringing glee and pestilence. We have been lucky that we have already caught it. So read our review to find out what we thought.
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Sing a Bit of Harmony is the latest cinematic offering from Funimation. The film is written and directed by Yasuhiro Yoshiura, who is known for the enjoyable Patema Inverted and Excellent Time of EVE.
Set in the near future in a world where robots and similar AI are becoming an emerging technology. The film tells the story of Japanese schoolgirl Satomi. She lives in a community heavily influenced by the large AI corporation Hoshima. They have testing areas for farming robots and self-driving buses are common, along with AI assisted running shoes and all kinds of other gadgets being tested. Satomi’s school is part of the testing program, in which students are able to use an app to report problems with worker robots that collect garbage and perform other basic cleanup tasks.
At school, Satomi encounters a mysterious transfer student, Shion, who becomes popular among her classmates. Satomi and her friends learn that Shion is actually an AI who is in a late testing phase to see if she can mingle with society! It seems that Shion’s mission is to please Satomi. The only trouble is that Shion’s real life experience is limited so takes a computer-based algorithmic approach to the task. Then the chaos and hilarity ensues.
While watching this movie it didn’t help to think about the eve of time and in many ways it feels so. Both are set in the near future in a robot aided world that seems plausible. Both also explore various “what ifs”.
The animation is consistently of a high standard, but overall it is a mid budget film. There aren’t a lot of locations used, and there aren’t that many characters in the movie, nor are there many moments that feel big budget. It’s not really a film that you just have to watch on the big screen to get the full impact.
The song and dance routine in both the original Japanese and English dubs is nice and enjoyable. Funimation has made an extra effort to re-record the songs in English and it works and sounds natural (which is not easy to do). The big-bang song ‘Lead Your Partner’ sounds particularly fitting in English.
Sing a Bit of Harmony is a light-hearted anime with comedic moments. Although it is not unprecedented, it determines and achieves exactly what it intends to do. It’s enjoyable, light-hearted entertainment at best. This is one of those movies that I will happily re-watch and buy a home video release.
The film is actually a co-production with Funimation. We think it’s great that they are investing in the production of anime and we look forward to co-producing more anime in the future.
Sing a Bit of Harmony will be released in cinemas across the UK and Ireland from Friday 28 January 2022. You can now buy tickets online,
Source: Otaku News