Creative yet Lacking: Welcome to THE SPACE SHOW

Synopsis

In a tiny mountain village located in a remote woodland region, five primary school children have come together in this idyllic spot in order to spend their summer holidays at a camp. While enjoying a carefree summer free of adult supervision, things begin to change when the kids come across a small dog in need of help. It was no normal dog however but rather an alien named Pochi. He is on a mission in search of a mysterious substance on earth that is coveted throughout the universe.

Just as he is about to find it, Pochi ends up injured in a fight and had to give up. Aided by the children, Pochi survives and in gratitude, decides to reward them generously. He asks them, “Where would you most like to travel?!” and is responded with “As far as possible!”. And this begins their space adventure.

The Good

The story is interesting and friendship formed is nice, but the real star of the film would be the art and animation. It’s surreal, it’s bright and it brought a visual spectacle to enjoy. The best scene that would capture all this would be the Space Show opening. The way that the colors pop and the animation jumps around is truly memorable. Really, there’s a lot of creative designs which makes the film unique.

The fact that the film is a space adventure adds to the uniqueness of the film. It’s not often that an anime involves aliens. Just seeing the different characters and their different roles make you want to explore all kinds of scenes just to see what the different aliens are doing. The film is basically a unique adventure to enjoy.

The Bad

As creative and unique as the art, animation, and concept are, there was just something lacking with the film. That would be the character development. While the kids clearly matured in their own ways and bonded well, their personalities seemed lacking. We get to see different perspectives, for the most part, they don’t really stand out like they should until the very end. And outside of the whole space setting, the start of the film was a rather expected setup along with the ending.

Conclusion

There are different unique things to enjoy with this film. The creativity of its style, the surrealness of the aliens and the unique aspect of exploring alien characters. Sadly, the creativity didn’t stretch to the human characters. They bonded and matured well enough but they didn’t really stand out all that much personality wise. Overall, this is a fun adventure film with a unique concept though it could have done better with its characters.

Rating: 7/10