Flavors of Youth

This is going to be my first review! (LIGHT SPOILERS) Story: 7 This movie is an anthology that is composed of 3 stories. I'll briefly comment about it one by one. "A Sunny Breakfast" 6/10 it comes off as an introduction story of an adult lingering the remnants of youth. The story doesn't really progress instead it comes off poetic and nostalgic. But that's just it. "A Little fashion show". 8/10 A story about two sisters with different careers that separates them from living a kind of lifestyle yet they share the same roof. It's pretty decent to look at it as a whole but somehow it lackedsomething. It's still predictable as it is but what brought significance to the 2nd story is that they managed to breakthrough and intermingle their different passionate careers, showing the good side of sisterhood while approaching adulthood "Love In Shanghai" 9/10 To be honest, the last part made me cry. It's well invested with emotional flares with full of mishaps that breaks the bond between two supposed-to-be lovers. It' starts slow then gradually gives an aching slow burning experience. Cliche as it may sound. The whole execution of the events caught my attention and I felt like that I wanted it to be separate from the anthology because it deserves a movie itself. It can be as good as Garden of Words or nearly good as Your Name. Overall. It's very decent. The stories are well narrated. The score is deserving enough since it really followed the movie's theme.—the different viewpoints of adults looking back at their tracks from their youth—ranging from familial love, love for career and the love from someone. Art: 10 As expected, it was from the studio Haoliners and ComixWaves (The one that animated Your name, Garden of Words, 5 centimeters per second etc). I'm never disappointed by their past works so does now. From the city landscapes to the delicate food animation, the color schemes and the tame character designs. The art just gave the movie the realistic vibes. That way, I felt more resonated and connected while watching it. Sound: 9 The sound is very varying from each stories. It was all distinct yet somehow forgettable. But the best part is that the orchestration is so good, it managed to weave out my emotions while the protags narrates their story. And also, for me, the sound always worked with the art/animation in tango. They are always intertwined. And in this movie, they gave us a full-scale combo for a beautiful, radiant and emotional anthology. Characters: 7 The protagonists in every story did their roles properly in every story. Their personalities made them appear more natural and realistic. But somehow, they still lacked a little bit of substance. But I can't really blame the short amount of time. It's hard to read a character when they appear just 30mins or less and nothing more. Enjoyment: 8 Even though some parts felt boring, the narrative is very good altogether with sound and animation that it kept me relaxed and watch patiently until it ends. Overall: 9 It's a must watch!! Don't watch with full of expectations so you could enjoy and appreciate it fully. It's not very twisty like Your Name. Watch it alone in a calm environment with a nice cup of tea. This is a grounded movie anthology with full of bittersweet yet radiant stories of nostalgic youth!

There are two things you should know about "Flavors of Youth": 1. It's a great anime. 2. You probably won't think it's a great anime. "Flavors of Youth" strikes me as an inaccessible anime - particularly to western audiences - and not just because of its meandering, introspective nature that would put a lot of people to sleep. I would describe it as a cultural piece that, to fully appreciate, you not only need to know about Chinese culture, you must have been submerged in it at some point in your life. On top of that, the anime homes in on a very specific Chinese generation: the generation whogrew up there around the 90s, the generation who witnessed China's rise to one of the world's largest economies. My generation. Perhaps that's why I struggle to recall the last anime with which I felt such a deep personal connection. "Flavors of Youth" captures the nostalgic feelings of my childhood spent in 90s China with such authenticity that I was utterly unsurprised to find the chief director is a Chinese close to me in age. If you're not someone targeted by the anime's laser-like focus, if you haven't the life experience of a certain time and a certain place, then "Flavors of Youth" likely feels like a poor man's Shinkai anime. This view is no doubt enforced by its nature as a work co-produced by CoMix Wave Films, a studio with strong associations with Shinkai. But despite the obvious influences, this anime also stands on its own three feet (because it's an anthology comprising three stories). With subtle social commentary and Chinese culture permeating through every pore, "Flavors of Youth" is far more than a cheap Chinese knock-off; it possesses its own identity and its own goals, with even the main locations for the stories - Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, the three largest cities in China - carefully chosen as the faces of China's economic boom. The central thread that runs through the stories is "youth". More accurately though, it's about "seishun", or "qingchun" in Chinese (they use the same kanji). While those terms seem directly translatable and therefore interchangeable, that's true only in a literal sense. Words in different languages can have the same literal meaning but vastly different connotations; "seishun", made up of the kanjis for "green" and "spring", possesses a certain poetry and an association with a culturally romanticised view of the morning of one's life, and the word "youth" simply can't capture the strength of the meanings and feelings invoked by it. The anthology opens with "The Rice Noodles", which isn't so much a story as it is an expression of feelings, subtly blended like the seasonings of a delicious bowl of the titular noodles. The bare premise is about a guy named Xiao Ming (which is, incidentally, probably the most common name for fictional protagonists used in the Chinese education system, frequently seen in example sentences and essays) yearning for the taste of the noodles of his childhood which he ate with his grandmother. The noodles do so much of the heavy lifting in this story that it's practically the main character - it has strong associations with the memories of Xiao Ming's grandmother and with the nostalgic days of his seishun, in addition to being a metaphor for the values eroded by China's rapid economic expansion. While having practically zero plot, "The Rice Noodles" is thematically rich. To understand the commentary, you need a bit of background. China, like a lot of Asian countries, has a strong food culture - not in the French-esq, fine dining style, but of the local street food variety. The streets and avenues are often dotted with street food stalls and cosy, family-run restaurants serving startlingly good food within tight-knit communities. As the country embarked on a decades-long growth spurt, the local restaurants got gradually replaced by more commercial restaurants and chains, particularly in large cities. On the surface level, Xiao Ming laments that the noodles from the commercial restaurants just aren't as tasty as the ones he ate as a youth, as they have less of the wholesome ingredients such as wood ear mushrooms. On a deeper level, the anime laments the loss of old values as people chase after money in an increasingly materialistic society. This isn't just a case of looking at the past through rose-tinted glasses: China's economic rise has very much been a double-edged sword. On the one hand, hundreds of millions have been lifted out of poverty, and people's living conditions massively improved; on the other hand, since adopting aspects of a capitalist system, Chinese society has become a caricature of western consumerism, with people worshiping at the altar of money and material items, and scheming to become rich by whatever means, even at the cost of community, family and moral values. This is why the country's become plagued by scams and scandals in recent years. Where once people didn't even bother locking their doors, now they draw their curtains when counting their cash. But let's pull back from these dark reflections; "The Rice Noodles" does end on a positive note: even as the protagonist acknowledges that he can never recapture his seishun, the fate of the noodle shop brings hope of triumph through adversity, and of the return of non-materialistic values. Sometimes it takes a rough patch in our lives to makes us realise what is truly important. The visuals play an important part in "The Rice Noodles", and it's a precursor of what's to come, both in terms of strengths and weaknesses in the animation and artwork. "Flavors of Youth" generally looks pretty, in a substandard-Shinkai kind of way, but falls short in the character animation department. This is particularly obvious in "The Rice Noodles", where the character animation lacks smoothness in some places, and looks overly smooth and mechanical in others. I remember in particular the scenes of people perfectly poised on bicycles, peddling in perfectly cyclical motions and moving forward in perfectly straight lines. But the weaknesses are more than compensated by the details of the background scenery, where the animators managed to capture the streets and buildings of rural and urban China with remarkable fidelity. Even in the visuals, the noodles steal the show: "The Rice Noodles" may not exhibit the scenery porn pervading Shinkai's works, but it can boast of food porn. I found myself salivating to the beautifully rendered noodles on screen, and could almost smell the aroma wafting from it. The strength of the visuals whisked me away to distant times and places and immersed me in its scenery and atmosphere ... but the magic only works because those times and places exist in my memory. The second segment, "A Little Fashion Show", has more of a plot than the first, telling the story of Yi Lin, a fashion model worrying about becoming too old for her job, and her relationship with her little sister. While not bad, it's probably the weakest of the three anthologies. I found the story a tad over-dramatic, and it resonated with me less than the others, though the reason might be because I'm a guy experiencing a story dealing primarily with problems for women. "A Little Fashion Show" tackles the loss of seishun in a more head-on fashion than the other stories, in particular its implication for Chinese women. Age-ism is a problem for women worldwide, especially when it comes to an appearance-based careers like modelling, but Chinese women feel it more acutely than most. While it may seem absurd to say that Yi Lin is raging against the dying light of her career, it's also fair to say that strong stigmas still exist in Chinese society for women like her, who have reached a certain age without getting married and settling down with kids. And as one of a vast number of career-focused, unmarried women in her generation, Yi Lin is certainly not going gently into that good night. Her story is one of defiance: defiance against an industry's bias for youth, and defiance against a traditional society's expectations for women. But it's also a story of defiance against something else. The other topic "A Little Fashion Show" deals with is of family and parenting. And if the first topic I mentioned didn't resonate with me personally, this one certainly does. Yi Lin lives with her younger sister as their parents had passed away. Tradition dictates that Yi Lin, as the eldest one, should play parent to her younger sibling and take good care of her. And Yi Lin tries to do exactly that. To a fault. During a heated argument between the two sisters, Yi Lin busts out the what is possibly the most memorable line in the whole anthology: "Who do you think I'm doing this for?" This line, along with its classic variant "I'm doing this for your own good" are immortal conversation enders weaponised by Chinese parents against their disobedient children, so I'm sure it triggered a familiar, visceral reaction in many others as it did in me. Family and Confucian values underpin Chinese society, and children are always expected to be obedient to the parents who pour their souls into raising them, because parents always know best. Of course, that's not always true, and even when it is, sometimes children need to be allowed to make their own mistakes. The tragedy is that while many of us grew up knowing that, when we become parents ourselves, we often end up acting just like our own parents. In acting as a parent towards her sister, Yi Lin ends up making the same mistake as a typical Chinese parent: she does not realise her sister has grown up, and does not respect her rights to forge her own path in the world. Ultimately though, "A Little Fashion Show" doesn't explore the theme of rebellion against suffocating parents too deeply. However, this rebellious spirit roars into life in the third and final story, "Love in Shanghai". Better directed, better animated and better written, "Love in Shanghai" is in a different league to the other two stories. Like the headline act of a gig, it finally steps up after the supporting acts have warmed up the crowd. While Shinkai's influences are rooted in all three stories, they go especially deeply in "Love in Shanghai", all way down to the communication gimmick used as the central lynch-pin of the story. "Love in Shanghai" features the budding romance between the protagonist Li Mo and his classmate Xiao Yu, and its development across multiple snapshots in their lives. The craftsmanship of the story is impressive, managing to spin an intriguing little mystery around everyday settings. Deliberately paced and carefully plotted, "Love in Shanghai" also delivers at its zenith a perfectly weighted emotional punch. For those reasons, a lot of viewers should find this enjoyable, and certainly more accessible in comparison to the other stories. Nevertheless, I expect those who grew up in China to feel a deeper connection. One reason is the familiarity of seeing overly demanding parents putting academic achievement ahead of everything else. Several scenes depict the literal heavy-handedness of Chinese parenting, and the lack of fuss over them - while may seem shocking or unbelievable to some - is exactly what makes the depiction feel genuine: it really isn't too far outside the norm. Straining against the kind of parenting symptomatic of a culture that emphasises strict social order is the burning teenage spirit of rebellion, and it spearheads this last love letter to seishun. "Love in Shanghai" celebrates seishun in all its glory: its inherent ephemeral beauty as well as the emotional baggage; it embraces the flaws of that time in our lives: our hotheadedness, our prideful stubbornness, our naivety, but also acknowledges the purity, the idealistic dreams and fiery determination not yet dampened by the cynicism of experience; and it accepts all of that as part of growing up. Like the other stories, a lot goes on beneath the surface of "Love in Shanghai". The spliced timelines exhibit the pace of change in Shanghai over a decade: some shots of the same scenery highlighting the rapid erection of high rises in the city, others of old town areas underlining the rate at which the old buildings gave way to the new. While I did not grow up in Shanghai, the scruffy outward and interior appearances of the buildings felt exceedingly familiar as the same scenes and changes played out in other cities across the country. Despite all the progress, run-down areas still exist in the latest timeline (and even now at the time of writing), their presence exposing the shabby underbelly of a developing nation hiding beneath the veneer of a glittering, modern cityscape. The regeneration of housing is a contentious topic, and one the anime also touches upon, with the sprinkles of dialogue hinting at the tension between the government's desire to modernise and the needs of people - particularly the older generation - to hold on to something achingly familiar. A brief scene of a TV showing the 2002 football World Cup gives a nod to the first - and so far only - appearance of Chinese men's team in the finals. Despite being only a couple of seconds long and lacking any related dialogue, the inconspicuous shot subtly marks the landmark event as a source of pride. The amount of information and feelings that "Love in Shanghai" manages to convey through minute details in animation, dialogue and story is simply astonishing. After watching "Flavors of Youth", I was tempted to make a quip about how, despite being an anime heavily inspired by Shinkai, it affected me more deeply than any of Shinkai's works. But that's not really a fair comparison: Shinkai's anime aren't tailored to someone with my experiences, whereas this anime is. For example, while I may have understood on an intellectual level how "Your Name." connects with a people constantly battling natural disasters like the Japanese, as an outsider I can't really *feel* it. So it's worth noting the important meta-lesson that "Flavors of Youth" serves up: that our reaction to a piece of art isn't just down to the art itself, but its intersection with our identity and the lives that we have lived. So for me at least, "Flavours of Youth" is a great anime. Personal rating: +2.0 (great)

As I was sitting down and scrolling through kissanime new anime additions something caught my eye, like a a really pretty bowl of noodles in a fish shop. That would obviously be this movie. Obviously. Throughout watching the first part of the movie there was a lot of thoughts swirling in my mind. Why is there only narration? Why does this sink look better then the entire movie? Why aren't there more noodles? To many questions were going through my mind. One minute the dude is eating noodles and looking at this pretty girl next second were at his grandma's death bed and I'm liketf is going on, but it was fine, cause next thing I knew there were noodles on the screen again so it was all good. Next we have the worst part of the movie. The Not Noodles but Fashion Show part of the movie. If there could be a more predictable story then this I wouldn't believe you. Now having things be predictable is fine to an extent. As long as the pacing is good, it's enjoyable, and there noodles for all to share. News flash it didn't have any of it. Twas just a bunch of forced and random drama that really didn't even need to happen and would of been better without it. If only she wore a noodle dress would she have not lost her shady boyfriend. At least I think that's what he was, i don't know they never really explained what he was. The third one actually not that bad to an extent, it was actually really interesting and if done right, was the only part of the movie, and had more noodles this movie would of been an easy 8 or higher. Honestly just watch the third part and the first part. PS: My enjoyment is a 9 cause I watched this on rabb.it with friends so it was more bearable that way.

• SLIGHT SPOILER REVIEW • Shikioriori, English name: Flavors of Youth, is divided into 3 Chapters: First (Sunny Breakfast), Second (Small Fashion Show), Third (Shanghai Love). Similar on what Shinkai did on 5 Centimeters per Second. The movie is placed in China and even the main character’s name is all in Chinese. But the studio and voice actors are Japanese. Here’s my quick review of the film: Story: As the film begins, you're greeted with an aesthetically beautiful art and animation followed by a few words and the first chapter’s title. The MC of the first chapter then is introduced. As the first chapter ends, the second chapterbegins. The transition is the same as the first one. As the story flows, the movie gives a very heartwarming slice of life, with a slight touch of love, heartbreak, and a mediocre drama. The story travels from the perspective of a young man experiencing youth, first love, and being unknowledgeable about adults. Being able to wonder why do people leave? The story then jumps from a young man to a 20-ish women. The movie shows how life has plenty of trials to overcome, and how people be able to overcome those difficult trials. In this chapter, the movie also questions you, ”The job you choose, are you really enjoying it?” ”Have you really live life to the fullest?”. Then from 20-ish women to a young boy, in this chapter, you are able to realize how communication is really important at any times. This chapter is so far the best among them. A really strong friendship of a group of best friends followed by a trial they should, with the emotion of love, anxiety, and fear at their backs. This chapter shows how this group of friends reacts to their current situation and how time could never be rewind even you wish to. Overall, the plot is filled with tons of great slice of life, paced on a slow start and an explosive ending. There are no big expectations, to begin with. The story might be boring to some non slice of anime fans. 7/10 Art: As the Studio who created Your Name, 5 Centimeter Per Seconds and Garden of Words, it was amazing. Tho there are times where you can able to see some lousy animation, but overall its good. The budget might not be too big as compared to Shinkai’s work, but CoMix Wave really give a shot especially to those beautiful backgrounds! The CGI of the cars are actually good too. Nevertheless, the animation is amazing, tho they have flaws, but the positives overpowered all the negatives. 8/10 Sound: Sound effects are great. The food preparation during the first few minutes of the film is amazing. The chopping of ingredients, up to the sound of rain. It's actually pretty decent. The credits song is actually good too. 8/10 Character: The character designs are mediocre for me. I mean, CoMix Wave actually has pretty decent animation and art skills. But their character design is just .... meh. Its nothing to be amazing and shock about. VAs are good. They did choose a very warm tone for the VAs of the MCs. There is really no character development that can be seen in the movie. But on how the MCs end their chapter is really a big thumbs up for me. It also relays a message to the viewers and few life lessons. Overall, 7/10 Enjoyment: I’m a fan of slice of life anime, so I’m pretty used to a slow-paced plot. A slow pace movie also gives the audience time to enjoy the great art drawn by the studio. Afterall, it is a great animation that leads the viewers to finish the movie at the end. I somewhat enjoy the movie. There are no explosives and huge plot twist like Your Name, nor a heavy drama and heart pounding ending like 5 centimeters. Just pure slice of life with a glimpse of love and a tiny drama. Overall, 8/10 Conclusion: As I said a moment ago, this movie is pace differently to other famous one. So you should not compare it to them as they are way different from each other. I would definitely recommend this anime to SOME, as non slice of life and drama fan might get really bored to this film. Overall, a great film if you are looking for something to cry one. Overall, films score is 8/10.