Bokura no Yoake

Overall uninspiring and barely engaging. The best parts are the slick animation, good VAs, and a mostly coherent plot—but even then, it’s boring, unfocused, and really falls apart halfway through. The good upfront: the character designs, water effects, and world art are great. It’s clean, has a sparkle to it that stands out, and makes the characters feel like more than generic templates. The VAs are solid and carry the audio side well—neither annoying nor painfully flat. For example, the alien clearly speaks differently, with a flat affect compared to the kids. The service bot sounds like it’s genuinely programmed to be a personal aid. Thesedetails are appreciated and add some immersion. That said, there are a lot of issues that drag this from great to just ‘meh.’ The plot driver is really weak. The goal is to return the alien to space, and soon it becomes a race against time before the complex is demolished. On paper, this should be straightforward—especially once the adults get involved. But then it turns out the adults were involved long ago and just… gave up. Seriously? An alien stranded in a housing complex is a massive deal, and they’re like, “nah, we quit after some guy fell off the roof.” Where is the agency? Why isn’t this treated as important? There’s unprecedented science happening here, and it was literally stuffed in a box in a closet. The kids’ social issues are mostly just in passing. There’s some bullying here and there, but it’s secondary to the plot and doesn’t really add anything meaningful. Then there are accidents involving kids playing on rooftops—which again, why is this a narrative focus? The story is about getting the alien to space, not reminding the audience that kids shouldn’t be on rooftops. Anyways, the animation is fine. It’s not offensively bad, and it doesn’t really do anything wrong—but at the same time, it doesn’t do much that’s great either. So with its strengths and weaknesses combined, it ends up being, at best, ‘watchable.’"