Cute but Alright: Pop in Q

Synopsis

This is the story of three girls. Each one with their own issue and each one about to graduate from middle school. One day they find themselves transported to a fantasy world where its people watch over the flo of time. There they discover that not only is the realm in danger but also their world as well due to the lose of a great artifact. The only way to save the two worlds is for the five girls to collaborate and bring their five hearts together as one through dance.

The Good

Seeing as the main premise of the film has the girls saving two worlds through a special dance, it is to be expected that there will be special attention to the animation work of the dance sequences. This in result became the biggest highlight of the film along with the general art style and music as well. It was a;so nice on how much the film built itself up in terms of the world art and in the general design of the girls’ abilities and costumes.

In terms of  story,the film brings a rather solid one with a well established ending as welll as a rather heartfelt mesage about moving forward. More than this it was towards the end of the film that it was able to tie itself together with a rather well done character development, action scenes and overall conveying of it message through each of the girls. It was nice to see that the film was able to give a bit for each of the girls rather than place focus on the one that would become the main star that saved them all.

The fact that each of the girls are actually portrayed as their actual age and that they are shown to truly struggle rather than suddenly upgrading into heroes when they are called to the role is also a plus.

The Bad

From the premise alone it is pretty clear that the story is not for all audiences. What’s more, as nice as the development and art work was, the general structure of the story could have been done better. For one thing, the overall friendship of the girls seems rather rushed and could have used more of them getting to know one another outside of them arguing over practice and sharing ther backstories.

Then there are the villains, who in the end, turned out rather anticlimatic and cliche as well. In the first half of the film, the villains even had a unclear motive, yes, they were kidnapping all of the citizens, but for what? Outside of creating monsters, it was highly unclear. What’s more, there was another human character but he was so mysterious he ended up being anticlimactic as well when he disappeared.

When it reached to the final portion of the film, the second mysterious villain turned out to be rather disappointing. Not only is she the dark future version of the quiet misunderstood character, but she takes on the whole psychotic route of a villain which is rather overdone at this point. Over the ending of the filmheld quite the amount of cliches to it.

Conclusion

The main idea of the film while not for all audiences was pretty well backed up by its art an animation. The general build u of the designs and art was also a plus point of the film along with the world building. The development of the characters however, could have been done better, their friendship was rather rashed, and outside of them there was very little explored on the characters in terms of personality.

That portion however in comparison to the way that the villains were done were pretty minor. Outside of the heavy cliches, the motivations behind these villains were highly unclear. And with the first villain, it was heavily obvious that he had a role in the long run given what was shown after the ending. Overall, there is a pretty nice visual presentation but not all that great of a plot for the film.

Rating: 6/10