#janimation

This will be the beginning of my super late reviews AKA i kept putting off my review for the movie or book or whatever and so im kind of like an unreliable narrator here except instead of narrating i am reviewing.

A local animated movie that isn't entirely for kids! How i fucking cheered when i first heard the news. I first saw the poster art and then i saw the teaser trailer thing where the animation looked absolutely sick so ofc i was hooked. I'm also a sucker for the design because i like cool things.

STORY

It was actually engaging for me despite me not understanding a few things (possibly because i'm not entirely used to watching Indonesian films). Just like the whole story of the MC its your usual main character looking for revenge story, what makes it interesting is the fact that its indonesian and has some indonesian shit for the world n stuff (though its still very heavily inspired by avatar i think). I enjoyed the not so black and white use of black and white magic.

CHARACTER WRITING

This is where i felt the most unsatisfied.

Panji: he's not too bad, just a pretty typical main character looking for revenge. I think his guilt for the massacre of his village being partly his fault is nice.

Murni: female character whose whole purpose is to act as the motivation behind the main male character.

Gantari: my first impression was ok tough girl character and then she actually fucking dies to act as a martyr for Panji's final fight. FUUCKKKK DUDE. FUUCKKKKKKKK. If im not wrong, her character was actually kinda going somewhere but then she just became Murni V.2.0.

Kalawereng: typical goon badguy.

Lembugiri & Bramantya (i forgot the third one): im actually interested in the three brothers' relationship with each other n the magic stuff. Probably the character dynamic i enjoyed the most from the whole film.

Kuwuk: uhhhggggh theres something with indonesians and having to include a comic relief like him. With the tone they're kinda going for, i think he was not needed at all or at least he couldve been made into an actual character instead of just a comic relief soundboard.

ANIMATION & ART

For the most part it was far from MAPPA levels of animation ofc, not bad for Indonesian 2D animation but not that good either. Though its you can definitely see its mostly an issue of budgeting cause during the important fight scenes (especially the final fight), the quality was pretty damn good. I'm fond of the weighted lineart style they did, it makes the film look unique but at times it does make the animation look less "polished". I remember clearly that they used two toned cell shading which i think is not needed because must've costed them more time and effort just to get something that didn't end up looking too flattering. I'm just saying.......simpler shading can be infinitely better esp if done right..... The difference between how the males and the females are drawn is quite jarring. Both the faces and the bodies.

What i do like about the movie is how you can see what inspired the artists and animators of this film like i'm guessing street fighter and definitely avatar though i wish they curated more of their own style and designs to be more #indonesian instead of animations from outside of this country. I also like the use of traditional indonesian instruments for the soundtrack and last but not least I LOVE HOW BARA THE CHARACTERS ARE LMAOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO THAT WAS SO ENTERTAINING TO WATCH FUCK.

the whole flood thing

an "abandoned" civilization, the domestic cats and dogs living in the wilderness. i dont think it was that long ago since the flood that first killed the humans there happened, mostly due to the dogs. theyre very social and seem to already be acquainted to humans (ex: asking the other animals to play w em), which means they at the very least spent their childhood under human care.

so how did the animals survive but not the humans? maybe they all got sacrificed, there are boats, yet no human survivors. so it seems the most plausible to me, but, why?

the buildings made by the humans dont look to be destructive to nature at all, there isnt any advanced technology made by them. so it cant be for that reason.

the sculptor seemed to love cats a lot, maybe the humans there loved nature way too much. did they sacrifice themselves to stop the flood, or was it to start the flood instead?

(continued months later)

Animation

fuckingggg beautiful. i love seeing water in video games. im kind of obsessed with it actually. so. a whole movie with lots of realllyyy nice water physics is a treat for me.

Also the whole cast of this movie is comprised of animals. That's quite impressive to animate isn't it? When animating humans, people like to record their own reference videos. But these are all animals! that means they gotta use videos they can find on the internet right? which means they cant exactly always have a perfect video to reference from so i wanna salute to the animators for pulling all of the character acting really well. Cause again, they're all animals who don't talk. So ALL of the acting relies on how they behave and move.