The Movie "BLUE GIANT" | Encountering Something You Can Bet Your Life On

It was a film that seemed to combine overwhelming brilliance, envy, pure respect, a slight disappointment in my own empty self, the power and brightness of moving straight ahead, and an unavoidable cruelty all in one.

"BLUE GIANT," which Shinichi Ishizuka began serializing in "Big Comic" in 2013, has won numerous awards, including the Grand Prize in the Manga Division at the 20th Japan Media Arts Festival and the 62nd Shogakukan Manga Award.
"BLUE GIANT," which was adapted into a film last year, also surpassed 1 billion yen in box office revenue within about two months of its release. It also won "Best Music" and "Excellence Award for Animation" at the Japan Academy Film Prize.

I hadn't read the original manga and only watched it because I knew it had won a Japan Academy Film Prize, but it was truly interesting!!!

...Saying "it was truly interesting" doesn't really sound that interesting, does it? Hmm, what should I do? It's a cliché expression that even I find off-putting, but please forgive me because it really was interesting. I'll say it as many times as I need to.

It was truly interesting!!!!!

My husband, who always falls asleep halfway through when we watch movies together lately, watched it properly until the very end for the first time in ages and said, "This was interesting! I didn't get sleepy at all!"

Here is the synopsis.

※I have tried to write the following with as few spoilers as possible, but inevitably, there are spoilers. If you haven't seen it yet, please come back after you have!

Throughout the film, the music played by the three of them rings out repeatedly, and the nature of that music is depicted through every possible form of expression.
I take my hat off to the expressive power unique to animation, which could never be represented in live-action. It conveys through every possible means how wonderful the music they play is, what emotions the performers themselves are feeling, why they are able to produce those sounds, and how that music reaches the people there.

For example, if this were live-action, I think the music scenes would have been much shorter.
The ways to convey the wonder of music are limited, and what gets across to the audience might have been much less.
It was a film that could only be done through animation, and one that had significance in being done as animation.

As mentioned in the synopsis, this is a story about two geniuses (one who arrived there after years of effort, and one who arrived there in just three years through passion and talent) and one ordinary college student playing jazz together.

I think many people empathized more with Tamada, Dai's friend, than with the protagonist, Dai Miyamoto, who has passion and talent.

One ordinary person mixed in with two geniuses.
An amateur who was influenced by Dai and has just started playing the drums.
It's too late for someone without talent to start, and there isn't enough talent to start at this timing.
A desperate situation for forming a band with two geniuses.

Tamada, who felt the pain of his own inadequacy during his first live performance, was like Joe Yabuki from "Ashita no Joe" after he had burned himself out.
Well, that's what happens when you play with geniuses. The other two are geniuses, and he is an ordinary person. No matter how hard he tries, he doesn't feel like he can catch up.

Seeing Tamada like that, the pianist Yukinori tells Dai that they should make Tamada quit.

Yukinori: "(Tamada's mistakes) were 135 by the third song, and I stopped counting after that. Is it really okay to put him through that for our sake?"

……That would break my heart! It would break mine, for sure!
I think I would have quit, making excuses like I wanted to do it, but I couldn't be a burden to the two of them.
Even so, Tamada didn't give up.

Tamada: "I'm not being forced to do this, I'm doing it myself. I want to play the best performance with Dai Miyamoto."

Tamadaaaaa!!!!!!
Hey, you're the protagonist now!!!
That was the moment I thought that.

Tamada, who continues to make efforts without giving up, and the figures of Dai and Yukinori, who master jazz because they feel this is all they have, are incredibly dazzling and at the same time enviable to people like me who have never bet their lives on "something."

I wonder how many people encounter "something" that changes their lives.
And even if they do encounter that "something," I wonder how many people can actually bet their lives on it.

This is sudden, but when I was a student, I wanted to be a screenwriter.
When I was in high school, I once wrote down the arts department of a university known for producing famous screenwriters as my preferred school on a mock exam. My parents found it and said, "What are you thinking!" (though they didn't exactly say that), and honestly, I didn't think I was guaranteed success even if I went there, so I went to the literature department of a regular university.
When I was a university student, I made it to the final selection of a scenario contest sponsored by a TV station. Thinking I might have a chance, I tried to enroll in a scenario school using the savings I had earned from my part-time job. Then, people around me said, "Isn't that a waste of money?" or "You made it to the final selection on your own, so why not just keep doing it on your own?" I made various excuses, such as that going there wouldn't guarantee anything, that the money might be wasted, and that I wouldn't be able to go to my club activities if I attended, and I quit again.
Then, I got a job at a regular company. Since it was a job that involved driving, I thought it would be bad if I got sleepy during the day, so I stopped writing scenarios at night, played around with friends on my days off, and before I knew it, I had stopped writing scripts entirely.

I was afraid to make a bet.
I was afraid to think about what would happen if I bet everything and it didn't work out. I thought that if I tried and tried and bet everything on that one thing, I would be left with nothing if it were gone.

And in this movie, that moment comes too.

Just because you have talent doesn't mean you will succeed, and effort doesn't always pay off.
Dream-like times don't last forever either.
The brighter the time spent until then, the deeper the darkness of that cruel reality.

Even so, I learned by watching him that a life where you bet on something is never a waste.

That sound was only possible because of the effort he had put in until then, and because it was his sound, he was able to move everyone. The sense of exhilaration and confidence he felt while playing music will never disappear from within him, and the time he spent continuing his efforts will encourage and save him in the future. I want to believe that.

No matter how intense the time you spend together is, if it hinders your growth, you cannot stay together.
He, who said he would use the other as a "stepping stone" when they first met, became the stepping stone himself. Watching him calmly and clearly say goodbye for the sake of the other person and become the best stepping stone himself, his past and present connected.
His actions and way of thinking are the "him" created by the time he bet on music, and even if there is a future where he stops playing music, the time he has spent on music so far was not a waste in his life.

The movie didn't make it clear what would happen to him in the future, but no matter what path he chooses, I hope he continues to love jazz music forever.

"BLUE GIANT" allows you to feel the overwhelming music and the brilliance and power of youth poured entirely into that music.
I hope the story of these three, who encountered jazz and bet everything on it during an intense year and a half, continues to reach many more people!

The end.

I watched it without any prior information, so I only learned after finishing it that the voice actors were Yuki Yamada, Shotaro Mamiya, and Amane Okayama. Their faces didn't cross my mind at all!
And I was happy to see Mamiya in a good movie.
MAMIYAAAAA!!!!