I haven’t seen so much symbolic bird flight since Oniisama E. ^_^
Liz and the Blue Bird is a complicated and fascinating look at the habit of loneliness, obsession, affection and human relationships. If you were paying attention last summer to Japanese theatrical releases for animation, along with Asagao to Kase-san, you’d have come across Rizu to Aoi Tori (リズと青い鳥 ), which often shared a theater with Kase-san. Liz and the Blue Bird is the official release of this movie from Eleven Arts.
The movie follows two young women who play woodwind in their concert band as the band competition nears. Nozomi is popular, easy-going and wears her position as sempai to the flute section comfortably. On oboe, Mizore is a loner who avoids any connection with the other double-reed players, leaving the undergrads wondering what they are doing wrong. They are doing nothing wrong, Mizore simply has no room in her existence for anyone but Nozomi. As pressure is put upon them to play the key movement in a competition piece called “Liz and the Blue Bird,” based on a children’s book of the same name, Nozomi’s and Mizore’s relationship starts to buckle.
The movie’s structure is complex, with two stories-within-a-story, three separate animation styles and acting parts for the voice actors, the foley and the music.
I said in yesterday’s news report that you could, if you were so inclined, see Mizore’s relationship with Nozomi as Yuri. In fact, its hard not to, as Mizore declares that Nozomi is everything to her. That said, this is not a romance and this obsession Mizore has with Nozomi is not the end goal, but an obstacle that must be set aside for them both to thrive. To do so, Mizore is required to break out of the habit of loneliness that she has developed for herself as an identity.
The characters outside Nozomi and Mizore are excellent. We don’t spend much time with them, but we get to know a fair number in that short time. I liked them all, from Yuuko, the band leader and Natsuki, another third year, to the first-years, especially Kenzaki Ririka, the only other oboe in the band, and the amusingly bad-tempered library club member.
Nothing in this movie is simplistic. The children’s story of “Liz and the Blue Bird”, it’s relationship to Mizore and Nozomi, their relationship to one another and to the people around them are all fully developed and realistically complex. In fact, after watching this movie through once, I went back and watched it again to pay attention to details I knew I had missed the first time, especially in the animation and soundtrack.
I had gone into this movie cold, with absolutely no knowledge that it was part of the Sound! Euphonium franchise. Once I did, my sole complaint about the movie was instantly given context. So many people I know and trust have told me I would enjoy Sound! Euphonium, but I was unable to get through the first episode, as we spent almost the entire time watching the girls’ legs. In Liz and the Blue Bird, the one thing I found distracting and, ultimately exhausting, was the way the camera dissected the characters, separating out body parts endlessly, so we watched legs, then arms, then an eyeball so close we could see the curve of it, then feet, a lap, rinse, repeat almost as a non-stop compulsion, which if we weren’t also moving back and forth through the fairy tale would have been as intolerable as I found the Sound! Euphonium anime. It was so much of a problem that the few times the “camera” backed up in order to show us a whole person, it was a physical relief. This is not an animation style I enjoy and I will be very glad when it falls out of favor.
The three animation styles are, as I mentioned, wholly unique. The main story is the kind of thing Kyoto Animation is best known for, with higher production values than a TV series, and faces and bodies that are mostly similar, with realistic backgrounds (although thankfully not hyper-realistic which would be out of sync with the character designs.) “Liz and the Blue Bird” is told in an animation style that is strongly reflective of a children’s picture book come to life. Any frame of that animation could have been used as is in a picture book. It was very fitting to the tale and fun to watch. The third animation style comes in later in the narrative and is abstract, colorful and modern, and wholly suited to the scenes in which it is used.
The soundtrack was my favorite part of the movie. As a former woodwind, it’s nice to hear them get some love in the music. ^_^ But more importantly, the climax of the movie is not only centered around the music , it is a moment in which this viewer suddenly realized that the best acting of the movie had come from the musicians playing the piece, as they had throughout the movie played it wrong every time. Not, badly, not broken, they’d hit all the notes…it was just wrong. It was a masterful performance and one that I hope you will appreciate when you watch it.
Ratings:
Art – 9
Story – 10
Characters – 9
Yuri – 3
Service – 6 That whole bodypart-staring is a form of service which I do not care for. It feels dehumanizing to me.
Overall – 9
In the end, I think the thing that best captures my feelings about this movie is that it was worth watching a second time and that second time made me appreciate it more.
When I commented about Mizore’s lengthy gazes, those ‘bodypart-staring’ moments were what I was talking about, since I remember some having been from Mizore’s POV. Of course, as ‘Super’ commented that may well not have been the conscious intent, but my point was those specific moments made it understandable why it came across as yuri to some viewers. Either way, you truly nailed what made this movie stand out in a special way.
Well, as I said in the last discussion, romantic metaphors and homoerotic subtext are intentional on the side of Yamada. She sees this as a kind of “poetic” description of female adolescence. However, if, in the case of Reina and Kumiko, it has an openly metaphoric-platonic meaning, pairing NozoMizo remains ambiguous, as Yamada, deliberately avoided a direct response to the nature of their relationship.
On the one hand, her interview about this film doesn’t betray any intentions of promoting this film as romance, on the other, Yamada openly expressed a desire to see these two “married forever” (I heard that in Japanese it can be pronounced in a metaphorical sense, but I don’t know). Add to this that this film is a “victim” of the hottest lovers vs friends of disputes among fans of the franchise and you will understand what I want to say.
From my own experience and considering all the information available to me, I personally would say that this film is something like MariMite in a modern way, in fact, like most of the Eupho franchise, if you recall how in the first volume Kumiko directly discusses the reason for “girl x girl of admiration” in band.
Interesting that someone else had the same idea. I don’t think the TV series managed to convey it well, but the Euphonium novels I’ve read so far really felt like a latter-day Marimite. In the beginning, Kumiko is a kind of anti-hero version of Yumi and Reina starts off as a haughtier but more unpredictable Sachiko.
Kumiko also has a pretty serious case of the “ossan gaze” in the books. The anime kind of failed to convey this too and ended up feeling servicey.
Well, none of the stuff said that it should be perceived as an S-type relationship in one sense or another, but personally for my POV, Eupho can be easily perceived as MariMite in a modern setting. The scene where Kumiko indirectly compared the school band with the girls school only strengthened me in this thought. She only needs to call Reina as Onee-sama and and figure out how to play a duet on one euphonium, lol.
Maria-sama ga Miteru is set in a modern setting. The school is old-fashioned, but it’s set in contemporary Japan. ^_^
And I gently remind you that you are not in the position of telling people whether they should interpret things one way or another. Everyone is free to determine meaning for themselves. There is no should.
In any case, regardless of the “true nature” of their relationship, the authors were definitely not least focused on yuri community. as you already mentioned this film was often broadcast together with Kase-san, from myself I can add that the booklet of this film was the first time when KyoAni even mentioned about shiping tropes. I don’t want to guess about the intentions of Takeda x Yamada duo, but I can say for sure that even if the film did not advance like a romance, KyoAni was definitely attentive to those who wanted to ship Nozomi and Mizore together.
Thanks for the review, Erica! As always, you give me the most interesting and unbiased reviews on yuri and yuri-ish content.
Thanks for reading, as always.
I apologize if it could look like this, but I didn’t even think to say that someone should interpret the show in this way. That’s why I mentioned that none of the stuff said anything about it, because this interpretation is pure speculation on my part.
However, thanks for the clarification, I was so carried away by reading your posts about the historical and cultural context of MariMite, that it began to seem to me that they themself was in the 20s. I apologize again.
Liz und der Blaue Vogel (German). Localised DVD and Blu-ray disks. Release date 20. September 2019.
Liz et l’oiseau bleu (French). Localised DVD and Blu-ray disks. Release date 17 September 2019.
Lovely!
I’m not aware of a German language preview clip at the moment but French spoken as well as French subtitled preview videos were made for Liz. Sounds quite good, I think.
Clips embedded: https://www.studiojmproduction.com/2019/04/02/studio-jm-production-partenaire-du-film-liz-l-oiseau-bleu/
“Solitaire”.
I also quite like how many French reviewers have casually mentioned Maurice Maeterlinck in their fairly extensive coverage of the theatrical run in France.
For example: https://www.lemonde.fr/culture/article/2019/04/17/liz-et-l-oiseau-bleu-deux-ados-desaccordees_5451381_3246.html
“I haven’t seen so much symbolic bird flight since Oniisama E.”
Spoilers – For Ayano Takeda’s novels and animated adaptations up to and including Chikai no Finale (Our Promise a Brand New Day), the film to have a brief theatrical run in the United States of America first, followed by Canada in this July. North American premiere today, Saturday July 6, 2019, at Anime Expo. With guests.
Not -yet- available in English translation from Yen Press, Takeda’s novels covering the final high school year for Mizore and Nozomi, Kumiko’s second year. In the first part of which she explicitly references, arguably, the most recognisable pair of contrasting birds in the history of staged musical performance.
Novel: 響け! ユーフォニアム 北宇治高校吹奏楽部、波乱の第二楽章 前編 (chapter: 嘘つきアッチェレランド), page 314:
黒鳥[with furigana オデイール]を思わせる黒のワンピース。その薄いレース生地からは、くっきりと鎖骨が浮き出ている。
https://tkj.jp/book/?cd=72748901
“Bonjour à tous,
Tout comme vous, nous avons été bouleversés chez Eurozoom par L’incendie des studios de Kyoto Animation.
Comme vous le savez, il faut laisser aux personnels et aux families le temps de se reconstruire et faire face à cette horrible tragédie.
Nous avons évidement stoppé tout porcessus de validation en cours avec le studio et nous ne pourrons hélas procéder à la sortie du DVD/Blu-ray et du coffret collector de Liz et L’oiseau bleu à la date prévue.
Nous vous informerons dès que nous serons en mesure de fixer une nouvelle date.
Le film est déjà disponible en VOD depuis le 1er août, sortie prévue depuis longtemps, déjà validée et qui ne pouvait être decalée.
Nous vous remercions d’avance de votre compréhension, Toutes nous pensées vont vers Kyoto Animation et leurs proches.
Eurozoom”
https://twitter.com/infosEurozoom/status/1159143973388214272
“Liz et l’Oiseau Bleu (French). Localised DVD and Blu-ray disks.”
Several online stores now list October 15 as the release date.
19 November 2019 – the latest date for “Liz et l’Oiseau Bleu (French). Localised DVD and Blu-ray disks.”
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EDy72lIX4AEv4ol.jpg
https://twitter.com/ameleurozoom retweeted
“Liz und der Blaue Vogel – Synchro-Premiere” [German]
https://animagic.de/animagic2019/liz-und-der-blaue-vogel/
Fantastic!
“Liz und der Blaue Vogel (deutsch/german Trailer FSK 0)”
https://youtu.be/sdvzy4k1dwI
Argentina [possibly a single showing at a single venue]:
https://www.eventbrite.com.ar/e/proyeccion-liz-to-aoi-tori-cine-kawaii-tickets-76910047021
Liz e l’uccellino azzurro is the latest release in translation.
Italian trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76nB6dXk_18