"Let's Decorate the Promised Flowers in the Morning of Farewells") is an animated Japanese Low Fantasy film and directorial debut of Mari Okada (a veteran anime screenwriter, mainly of Anohana The Flower We Saw That Day fame). Maquia: When the Promised Flower Blooms (or Sayonara no Asa ni Yakusoku no Hana o Kazarō, lit.
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Overcome by her loneliness, she chooses to adopt Ariel as her son, setting off a generation-spanning saga between a girl who never ages and a boy who will continually grow up a story that teaches what relationship means in a world where nothing lasts forever. Maquia is separated from her home, her one-sided love Krim and her friend Leillia among many others, before finding an infant boy who lost his parents in a nearby forest. But that very night, troopers from Mezarte Empire attack the village with their legendary Renato dragons, seeking the way to attain immortality. Thankfully, the story’s good enough to overshadow these shortcomings.The above was told by clan elder Rachine to the lonely Maquia, a 15 year old girl born to the Iorph tribe, those who while away their days weaving their reclusive near-eternal life into Hibiol fabric. I haven’t consistently seen it here, though. I believe that it is possible to make either look good, and, hypothetically, you can make both look good together. This scene in particular really shows the how these two different types move differently.
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In Maquia there’s a scene where Maquia flies away from her homeland on a dragon-esque beast. While this may not be accurate to the workflow, it is important to highlight that the nuance between making the two styles move believably is different. In Richard Williams’ book, The Animator’s Survival Kit he analogizes 3D animation to puppeteering. The problem is that they don’t move the same way. The animation team used 3D models for almost all of the backgrounds and the stills look great, honestly. The backgrounds look beautiful, until they move. The characters were also kind of flat they didn’t have a lot of form. Most didn’t really have noses, which isn’t a big deal, but it makes the characters all look the same. The characters also didn’t have a lot of detail. The line work does look a little thin whenever the characters were at a distance though.
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The lighting in a lot of the scenes was interesting and fairly well thought out. It’s incredibly fluid and overall well done. Speaking of looks, it’s a modern, glossy anime. The writing re-orients you very well though, by quickly reintroducing the characters with their new looks. Since you’re following the life of a character who lives for centuries the life of a human can seem very short. The last thing I will say about the story is that the time scale can be disorienting. So, if you intend to show this to kids be prepared to possibly explain a few things. Since that’s not a main theme, they never really resolve it or make any moral statement claiming that people shouldn’t act that way. Part of the setting of Maquia is that humans are racist against the Iorph. There are also some off-color comments about the Iorph sprinkled here and there. For one, the reason Mezarte invades the Iorph homeland is so that they can find a suitor for the unwed prince and intertwine the royal bloodline with longevity of the Iorph. Since it isn’t rated by the MPAA, I will state that it does cover some fairly adult topics, so spoilers ahead. However, it is anime, so you kind of expect the characters to be monologuing. Some of the characters almost have to monologue for you to understand what they’re supposed to represent. They tackled a lot of big themes: motherhood, the way different people respond to tragedy, the cyclical nature of life, and probably some more.
MAQUIA WHEN THE PROMISED FLOWER BLOOMS PREGNANT FULL
The run time is almost two hours and they jam pack it full of content. Maquia adopts the boy, Ariel, as her own and ventures forward into a strange new world that will test the power of a mother and son’s love for each other.” – Official Synopsis Torn from her people and her home, Maquia is overcome with grief when she finds an orphaned boy, just as lonely as she. One fateful day, the peaceful lives of the Iorph are shattered when the kingdom of Mezarte invades, seeking the secret to the Iorph’s long life. “Hidden away from the eyes of men, the Iorph live out their peaceful lives that span centuries, never aging beyond adolescence.