Sing a Bit of Harmony is a bit cute, a bit funny and kind of a bit more insane than I expected. Satomi is a high schooler, an honour student and also nicknamed Princess Tattletale by everyone in the school because of something she did in the past. She doesn't seem to have any friends. She checks her mum's schedule for the next day and notices that there's an AI Test coming up and it shows a photo of a human-like robot in the calendar. When the same robot shows up the next day at school, she realises that her mum's experiment involves her and her mum's job could be on the line if it fails.
As always with new anime productions, the visual style and animation quality is absolutely top notch. I loved the backgrounds, the character designs (simple, realistic, even a little goofy - specifically how Toma has big, paranoid eyes and he isn't a typical "cute guy" in an anime), the attention to detail (background characters doing things when other characters are in dialogue) and the other visual effects utilised (like fireworks, for example). It was engaging, bright, colourful and enticing! I also felt like each character fit obviously into their archetype - Aya the popular girl, Goto as the school hunk, Toma as the computer nerd, Thunder as the jock/wrestler and Satomi, honor student and loner. I also liked the designs of the adults - you could see how Satomi and her mum were clearly related - and how the bad guy in Hoshima was clearly the bad guy (narrow eyes, sly voice).
The voice acting was pretty good and I really liked the vocal quality - the singing is so clear and rich; it really came through well in the cinema experience. The songs were decent, though a bit corny and shallow, as expected given the plot and background of the character, and a couple of the non-vocal tracks did definitely feel like they belonged in a Final Fantasy game. I would probably never Spotify any of them but they were fitting.
The story itself was decent. I could never have expected it from the poster - and I really felt quite emotional in some parts of it. I do have a few criticisms though - without Shion, would any of the characters been able to achieve anything? I understand she is the protagonist, but really she is basically a deus ex machina to facilitate communication. In the most glaringly terrible use of this, she literally sings a song about the rainy sky and hope that the two people will hold hands and shelter under an umbrella until the sky is clear again - and this somehow leads to Aya and Goto making up with minimal dialogue. These developmental scenes between the two are also only shown twice in flashbacks - given that they're such minor characters, it may have been unnecessary to do that at all and just have it be part of the natural dialogue seeing as Aya's friends constantly pine over Goto and tak about how amazing he is.
Despite that, I really do think that Goto himself was a really well-developed side character, over Aya and Thunder (who seemed amost completely 1-note the entire film). I really liked the growth of the characters Satomi and Toma and the history of their friendship. It's tough to balance so many main characters, but the movie really did its best.
Review by CatsyBlockedParent2022-01-30T06:20:12Z
Wow, such an unexpected cinema release!
Sing a Bit of Harmony is a bit cute, a bit funny and kind of a bit more insane than I expected. Satomi is a high schooler, an honour student and also nicknamed Princess Tattletale by everyone in the school because of something she did in the past. She doesn't seem to have any friends. She checks her mum's schedule for the next day and notices that there's an AI Test coming up and it shows a photo of a human-like robot in the calendar. When the same robot shows up the next day at school, she realises that her mum's experiment involves her and her mum's job could be on the line if it fails.
As always with new anime productions, the visual style and animation quality is absolutely top notch. I loved the backgrounds, the character designs (simple, realistic, even a little goofy - specifically how Toma has big, paranoid eyes and he isn't a typical "cute guy" in an anime), the attention to detail (background characters doing things when other characters are in dialogue) and the other visual effects utilised (like fireworks, for example). It was engaging, bright, colourful and enticing! I also felt like each character fit obviously into their archetype - Aya the popular girl, Goto as the school hunk, Toma as the computer nerd, Thunder as the jock/wrestler and Satomi, honor student and loner. I also liked the designs of the adults - you could see how Satomi and her mum were clearly related - and how the bad guy in Hoshima was clearly the bad guy (narrow eyes, sly voice).
The voice acting was pretty good and I really liked the vocal quality - the singing is so clear and rich; it really came through well in the cinema experience. The songs were decent, though a bit corny and shallow, as expected given the plot and background of the character, and a couple of the non-vocal tracks did definitely feel like they belonged in a Final Fantasy game. I would probably never Spotify any of them but they were fitting.
The story itself was decent. I could never have expected it from the poster - and I really felt quite emotional in some parts of it. I do have a few criticisms though - without Shion, would any of the characters been able to achieve anything? I understand she is the protagonist, but really she is basically a deus ex machina to facilitate communication. In the most glaringly terrible use of this, she literally sings a song about the rainy sky and hope that the two people will hold hands and shelter under an umbrella until the sky is clear again - and this somehow leads to Aya and Goto making up with minimal dialogue. These developmental scenes between the two are also only shown twice in flashbacks - given that they're such minor characters, it may have been unnecessary to do that at all and just have it be part of the natural dialogue seeing as Aya's friends constantly pine over Goto and tak about how amazing he is.
Despite that, I really do think that Goto himself was a really well-developed side character, over Aya and Thunder (who seemed amost completely 1-note the entire film). I really liked the growth of the characters Satomi and Toma and the history of their friendship. It's tough to balance so many main characters, but the movie really did its best.
Worth a watch, such a charming film!