Goodbye, Don Glees!

Roma and Toto grew up in a small town and named themselves the Don Glees, a group of two. Toto is studying in Tokyo and comes back for the summer; there is distance between them now. They take on the fireworks at the summer festival, and a forest fire starts the same night. Thinking they will be blamed, they head into the hills to look for proof, along with a boy they have just met called Drop. Atsuko Ishizuka directs. It was made at Madhouse. The shape is a journey story and a classical one: the summer a childhood friendship ends. The film does not hide it and does not mind being familiar. Ishizuka was known for the series A Place Further Than the Universe, and uses the same method here, keeping the everyday talk long and holding the emotional peak for the end. The visual side is the strongest thing in it. The drawing of the landscape is detailed, the colour is bright, and the night scenes are almost abstract. Drop is the key to the narrative and the film withholds information about him deliberately; the second half changes tone accordingly. The Iceland section stands surprisingly well inside the narrative, and the farewell of the title attaches there. Who it is for: viewers who like youth anime and journey stories built on friendship. Who it is not for: the template is familiar, the emotional pitch rises very high in the last section, and the first half hour is slow.