Review of The Wind Rises

This film is very underwhelming. It loosely follows the story of the designer of the Zero Fighter in WW2, and shows how he ultimately comes to design the plane. The main problem with this storyline however, is the constant time leaps forward, that break progression and thus the ability to smoothly follow the story. This is because the leaps don't occur after some major life event, they just sort of happen. One minute you're watching him talk about struts, the next scene 2 years has passed. So, you're left wondering "What part of his life is this?". It's alsonot helped by all the dream sequences and the fact that no one's appearance ever changes in spite of the years, once Jiro leaves childhood. It wasn't confusing to follow the story progression, but it felt like a chore.

Interestingly enough, even though the movie kept dashing through years, it was very slow paced. There just wasn't much in the way of drama, or action, comedy, philosophical thought. You have to have something to keep the audience entertained. This only had mild amounts of drama and some romance. But, the romance was a part of the problem of this anime, too. I didn't feel invested in it at all. Primarily, because of the time jumping, you never really see them grow together or even get a proper sense of how long they were together. In the end, it felt like it was just something added haphazardly to tug on the viewers heartstrings, but I was unmoved right until the end by it.

Also, a major problem were the characters. Jiro was completely emotionless for 99% of the anime. He was almost like a robot, just responding to what was being said to him and the events around him. At first, I liked his unflappable demeanor, but over the course of the anime, his emotional resonance was a dull as a butter knife. None of the cast around him was really memorable either.

Lastly, the ending was completely ho-hum. I guess that's all you can expect from something that's supposed to be loosely biographical, so there's not going to be some huge explosions (although...you know...there could have been, given the time period.) or dramatic final battle sequence. But, you'd expect something more dynamic in the way of a finish for a film. It was just "meh".

Overall, you can skip this film. It's not terrible, but it's kind of a snoozer.