Is "Thin as a Film" a Valid Criticism? — The Form of Music Films Questioned by "Super Kaguya-hime!"
The rating on Filmarks is 3.8. Despite the overflow of praise on social media, there are many voices saying that a feeling of "something is off" remained after watching it. Is the criticism directed at "Super Kaguya-hime!"—that "the story is thin" or "the characters just speak the lines the director wants to say"—actually correct?
To answer this question, we must first organize the premise of "what criteria are used to evaluate a film."
Is a thin story a flaw?
The core of the criticism is clear. The characters' inner lives are not explored, and the necessity of the drama is weak. It is just a series of event-like highlights connected together, lacking a backbone as a film—that is the point being made.
This is not a lie. In terms of narrative development, the work is indeed bland.
However, what director Shingo Yamashita has cultivated in the openings for NARUTO and Jujutsu Kaisen is a visual language that hammers emotions into a short timeframe. The methodology he attempted to bring to a feature film is likely the same. The overwhelming immersion of the live performance scenes, the moments where the songs by the luxurious lineup of Vocaloid producers like ryo, kz, and 40mP melt into the screen—all energy is poured into that.
One could interpret it not as cutting the story, but as choosing the experience.
Can "experience-based" be an excuse for a film?
The problem starts here. To what extent does the logic that "the story can be thin because it emphasizes experience" hold up?
If it were a concert film or a live film, the thinness of the story would not be a subject of criticism. However, "Super Kaguya-hime!" adopts the format of a theatrical anime with characters, voice actors, and drama. Having chosen that format, it is a natural reaction for the viewer to expect drama.
There is a gap between the form and the substance, which I believe is the essence of the criticism. If it had been presented from the beginning as a "music experience film," the audience's reception would have been completely different. The unusual path of a theatrical release following an exclusive Netflix distribution also invited excessive expectation-building on social media, which in some respects widened that gap.
However, isn't that more of a problem of how it was delivered than a problem of the film's quality?
The figures of 1 million admissions and exceeding 2 billion yen are proof that the strategy of "selling an experience" worked. The IMDb rating of 7.1 is likely the result of overseas audiences accepting this film as a pure viewing experience.
Taking in criticism while holding a position
The criticism that it is "thin as a film" is not off the mark. However, this work questions the very norm that the criticism implicitly assumes: that "a film should have a drama."
What I am interested in is the fact that something definitely reached me during the live scenes. The emotions that arise at the moment when music and visuals synchronize were not born from the story. Even so, something moved. I have some resistance to dismissing that experience with the word "thin."
On the other hand, the feeling that the characters did not stand up as people until the end also honestly remains. Both criticisms are valid. However, I do not want to underestimate this film while holding both feelings of "watching it as an experience and regretting the thinness of the story."
This work has shown the possibilities of the music film genre in a form that is still in progress. Whether that is enough, the next work will provide the answer.
Related Books
Shigehiko Hasumi, "Faithless Invitations to Film" (Shinchosha) — A collection of essays by one of Japan's leading film critics. By holding the question of "what is a film," the criteria for criticizing the "experience-based" design of this work change.
Tomonori Shiba, "Why Did Hatsune Miku Change the World?" (Ohta Publishing) — A book discussing the birth and reception of Vocaloid culture. Here, you can understand the cultural background of the audience that "Cho Kaguya Hime!" aimed at.
Tsunehiro Uno, "The Age of Little People" (Gentosha) — A critique discussing anime, manga, and subculture since the 2000s. It serves as a reference point for considering the background of the era in which music-experience-based content is supported.
(Some links include PR)