Seven kids, one abandoned apartment complex, an endless body of water, and a single goal- get back home. Drifting Home is the coming-of-age story of this summer. Let’s check out what it is all about in this review!
Drifting Home Overview
Drifting Home is a fantasy adventure coming-of-age story produced by Twin Engine and Netflix and developed by Studio Colorido. Colorido is known for its Original Net Animations (ONAs), including the highly popular A Whisker Away and the spiritual successor to Bleach, Burn The Witch. The movie is known as Ame wo Tsugeru Hyouryuu Danchi in original Japanese and is directed by Hiroyasu Ishida. Ishida is known for directing anime movies like Penguin Highway and Fastening Days.
– Ame wo Tsugeru Hyouryuu Danchi Review does not contain any spoilers –
Drifting Home Review- The Plot
In Leisurebyte’s Best Anime of 2021 list, the number 1 spot was given to (Spoiler Alert) Sonny Boy, which I am surprised to be talking about again. The show appeared as a dark horse pick in many fans’ best anime lists as well and earned Crunchyroll Award nominations (For all that’s worth) for two of the most prestigious categories, Anime of the Year and Director of the Year. It is safe to say that despite not being a popular choice, the show found its way into the hearts of many, including this writer. It is just a fantastic anime that deserves way more recognition than it currently has.
Why bring that show up now? Well, for one, both of them get their inspiration from a singular piece of media, a horror manga called The Drifting Classroom. The premise is also similar, with a group of kids getting suspended in an endless void they find themselves unable to escape from. Both events are triggered due to an emotional outbreak from one of the children and their having to overcome their mental barriers to escape that place. Both stories are also essentially coming-of-age tales that teach these kids how to come to terms with growth.
So, the big question here is- Is Drifting Home good? Yes, it most certainly is. It is not perfect and has a lot of flaws that we will discuss in a bit, but it was a very pleasing experience overall to go through it. The movie had a vision that it stuck to firmly throughout its runtime and told a very complete and fulfilling story. The writer had a vision from the start that he wanted to see come to the screen, and he did everything in his power to make it as coherent and linear as possible.
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The movie was big on themes and stuck to the various themes it had decided for its characters. Growth and learning to deal with change were some of those themes that our main characters dealt with throughout the runtime. They lose someone very close to them, which causes them to also lose their relationship with each other. The movie was extremely realistic in the way it portrayed you acting around someone who you think you have wronged but lack the courage to do anything about. I was not expecting a show with children as main characters to go this deep into the human psyche, but I’m glad it did.
The dialogue here, despite being in a different language than what most of us speak, felt like it came very naturally to the characters that were speaking them. Maybe it was because they were all kids, and the dialogue was simplistic, but it helped with the immersion of the movie. It also helped to have the kids deliver impactful dialogue without sounding too corny and making people cringe. There was still some cringe here, just not as much as one would imagine.
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The other theme of Drifting Home was grief and the detachment /attachment that causes inside a person. Grown humans have trouble with grief, and we are talking about kids here. The display of Natsume being attached to the one thing that still grounds her, the apartment complex, was a fantastic allegory of what things are like for somebody who is grieving. The show created a whole character on Noppo as an embodiment of attachment and grief, which worked very well as an animated character who could react and respond to the children’s grief with empathy. This was quite a mature film for what it was.
However, not all is flowers and sunshine in Drifting Home, as there were quite a few things wrong with it. The most glaring issue was the pacing, as the movie just dragged on and on for much longer than it should have. Some scenes ran longer than they should have, characters that didn’t get enough time to be developed, and entire scenes that should have stayed on the cutting room floor. Even the ending suffered due to this issue. It was thematically appropriate, suitably emotional, and grand but continued for far longer than needed. Still, the story was mostly a positive experience.
Drifting Home Review- The Characters
The characters are very much a mixed bag in Drifting Home. You have to give them some slack because they are supposed to be children who don’t know any better, which is what I tried to do, but some of what they do is beyond stupid. Horrible decisions should be this film’s tagline, even if most of them learn how to be smarter and make better decisions by the end. It is hard to describe how frustrating watching someone make the same mistake over and over again is, especially after they have been advised multiple times of the consequences of said actions.
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I am specifically talking about a single character here, which sounds nitpicky until you realize that she is the main female lead of Drifting Home, Natsume. She has a lot of growing up to do, as her thing is making mistakes. Big ones, in fact. Ones that have catastrophic consequences to everyone, including her. She grows somewhat by the end, thankfully learning the lesson the story was trying to teach her, although that did require a lot of important plot development. Other than being a bumbling idiot, she was a decent character.
Not much can be made of Kosuke, as he didn’t have much of a character beyond shouting and being disagreeable with everyone. His being young excuses a lot of that, although that doesn’t make the end-product any easier to watch. He doesn’t have much to do here except be on the screen and help Natsume out from the holes she digs for herself, but he does that job well and is a likeable protagonist all the same. He has a few lessons to learn of his own, and he does so admirably.
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The rest of the cast is fine if a little underdeveloped. They still have roles to play in the story and their distinct personalities, which fill the otherwise destitute situation with a lot of life. Reina is the major side character, and she’s a little stereotypical but fun all the same. The two other boys, Yuzuru and Taishi, are also decent. Noppo, however, is a bit of a disappointment. Considering the kind of role that he had in the movie, one would expect him to be a lot better character than he was. He wasn’t bad, just extremely vanilla and boring. Oh well, they can’t all be winners.
Drifting Home Review- Animation and Music
As is the case for most shows that come out these days, especially on a platform as huge as Netflix Anime, the production quality of Drifting Home was great. The floating houses and amusement parks were very well animated, and so were the few high-speed sequences towards the end. The character design was also sleek, with the entire movie having a cool filter placed that gave it a sea-like ambience, which was apt for the setting. Are we finally reaching the point where every animation is so good that all you can say about things that look like this is, “yeah, It was up to the mark, I guess?”
The music, on the other hand, missed the mark. It just didn’t have the gravitas that one would expect from something which is as foreboding as this. There was pleasant music here, no doubt, but it wasn’t the type you would remember once the credits rolled in front of your face. The insert songs with vocals were great, though, especially the city pop track that played somewhere in the middle. Other than that, an entirely forgettable set of songs.
Verdict
Drifting Home is as charming and well-written a movie as you are going to find in Netflix’s catalogue. The pacing and music weren’t anything to write home about, but the theme and animation pushed it far beyond what most would expect.
Drifting Home is available to watch on Netflix!
Let see i get this straight: *eherm kremt* a whole city gone just like that?!?, a building that weigt a million tons floating, no other people in sight at ALL, yes a lot of weird things unless those kids was dropped in a fantasy land, yes some of the persons should be more special like noppo, now feel a bit exhusted because it IS WAAY TOO LOONG MOVIE, next time cut it up in a minishow or a 3 part,
Some scenes are to long and boring nothing much happening, im only 35 minutes in the movie something should hopfully happen soon, so far so good, i mean things happening like a storm, or a whale thinking the building is a friend, or please meet other people drifting, hopfully a big foodstore,
Otherwise, the animation style is VERY GOOD, netflix must hire the one whos drawing/made this and do more like this, its like watching a ghibli movie, thumbs up so far, score so far: a solid 3.0. Without having seen the other half, if too bored or other things, YOURE ALL WILL BE HEARING IT ????.
Thank you for the comment and the analysis! However, I do think that you are taking the floating buildings thing a little too seriously. It is supposed to be an abstraction of the children being alone in their journey towards growth, and having to pull themselves out of their own inhibitions and defeating their demons. It is not meant to be literal.