"Sasaki and Miyano the Movie ~ Graduation Arc" ~ Day 1 Report
So I got up bright and early (WAY brighter and WAY earlier than I would have liked) to trudge through the cold and chill to Grand Sunshine Cinema to catch the very first showing of the Sasaki to Miyano movie!
Curious about what made the cut and what didn't? Wanna spoil yourself rotten? Then hop behind the cut!
This hour-long movie (yup, just 60 minutes) started out with a roughly 10-minute short focusing on Hirano and his adorable, smitten roomie Kagiura in what amounted to an animated rendition of the KagiHira shorts from the first few volumes of the Sasaki and Miyano manga (up to the extra in volume 3 to be precise). This doesn't bode super well for them getting their own anime, but it doesn't rule it out by any means, as Volume 1 of their manga doesn't require having read these previous extras. Just something to keep in mind!
Points I noticed in this short:
they spent like 30% of the animation budget on Kagi fondling Hirano's ear. A good use of resources imho.
Kagi looks...different? Not very different, and not in a bad way, but it felt like something was off. His hair seemed much darker, closer to black than in previous instances?? Maybe I'm just getting old and need glasses tho.
NIIBASHI. TALKING AND MOVING AND BEING A DIVA. We love to see it.
Now it was SasaMyaa time!
The movie opens with chapter 33, as Miyano waits to see Sasaki off at the train station for his entrance exam and progresses from there. Things felt very smooth, more than I would have expected for cramming these chapters into the equivalent of two anime episode, so props!
They also lovingly animated all of the stupid background character shenanigans, like the guys stacking oranges from Chapter 33 page 9. What a ridiculous thing to include. I love them for this.
One critique I did have, though: the animation level was the same as in the anime. Oftentimes (but certainly not always) the animation is much greater quality in movies than in the original anime; was kind of hoping that would be the case here, but alas!
The hair discussion made it in--including Sasaki touching Miyano's neck and Miyano freaking out about it.
You can feel Floor approaching as Sasaki steadily begins tightening his straps, warning himself he needs to rein it in and he's not allowed to touch Miyano any more than he has until he passes his entrance exam. It's palpable. I love it.
Sasaki's cold is shown in living, loving color, as is the near-miss with his sister almost barging in on them sharing a kiss.
The Valentine's Day chapter is so lovely too--we finally FINALLY get to meet Mamano (whose name IIRC from the credits is revealed to be 由紀, possibly pronounced Yuki or Miyuki), and she. is. ADORABLE. So loving and upbeat and absolutely accepting of her son when he admits that the person he's making the chocolates for is a boy: "It's nice being in love, isn't it? Your mom's in love with your dad too~"
Not to be missed is the super-DUPER awkward conversation between Sasaki and Ogasawara that made me want to just crawl inside my seat back and never come out.
But that paled in comparison to FLOOR.
Floor was never gonna be much more graphic than it was in the manga, so stop your hoping right there. We got a little bit of movement in things like Sasaki gently lowering Miyano to the floor and cradling his head, or their twined fingers squeezing. It didn't need more than it was, though. There was a lovely soundtrack, Sasaki's thoughts, and really damn good animation. What do I mean by 'really damn good animation' if nothing really changed from the original manga?
Well. The full page I lied panel got A MASSIVE GLOW-UP. Because THIS is what it looked like in the movie:
Everything in grayscale monotone, except for the eyes, which were a vibrant rainbow hue. GORGEOUS STUFF. Print it out and laminate it.
Miyano's birthday is celebrated in Sasaki's room--which leads to the confrontation with his sister and their fight. The flashback was much briefer than it was in the manga, but they kept the important parts, and it did its job. And what's most important is that Shuumei-san and Yoshikazu were retained, spoken in loving tones that I need to hear on repeat.
The movie ended with the graduation chapter, more Yoshikazus and Shuumei-sans, Hirano being summoned by Kagi with his personal ringtone (which didn't sound very special actually, just a different one from usual probably--Hirano doesn't seem the type to download a super special original ringtone, but he'd definitely choose something other than default).
I expected the memories of Sasaki and Miyano's history together as they roamed the empty halls to play out as flashbacks to scenes from the anime. And it did--kind of. What they actually did was show the boys walking around, and overlaid on the same frames as the current couple, we saw them in the past with a grainy filter in the same scene. This little touch was enough to get me really emotional, something I hadn't expected--their old selves were so different, oftentimes much sadder or uncomfortable (like Sasaki in the bathroom, trying to keep himself from touching Miyano, or crushing Miyano in a hug while he was in drag), and seeing that juxtaposed against them seeming now so calm and confident and so so soft with each other...it just got me.
We got sneak peeks at Eimi and Kagi, and Kuresawa nearly got an eyeful when Sasaki whipped his jacket over Miyano to steal a final kiss, just like in the manga.
We end on Sasaki and Miyano in their cool casual clothes, heading off for a date. All is well.
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