Theatrical anime has by no means been extra common on the worldwide stage than it’s at present. In 2025, “Demon Slayer: Kimetsu No Yaiba Infinity Fort” and “Chainsaw Man – The Film: Reze Arc” broke worldwide box-office data to change into among the yr’s most talked-about Japanese options. The world’s main movie festivals have begun to comply with go well with. Final Fall, Mamoru Hosoda’s movie “Scarlet” premiered on the Venice Movie Pageant. Now, within the Berlinale’s competitors, we’ve “A New Daybreak.” However is it actually?
Yoshitoshi Shinomiya received his begin in animation engaged on Makoto Shinkai tasks, first as a background artist on “Kids Who Chase Misplaced Voices” (2011) and “The Backyard of Phrases” (2013), then as a key animator on Shinkai’s breakout smash-hit “Your Identify” (2016). “A New Daybreak” is Shinomiya’s directorial debut — an authentic anime characteristic which he directed, wrote, and storyboarded.
The setting is Niura Metropolis, possible a fictionalized Miura, Kanagawa prefecture, simply south of Tokyo. Typhoons are frequent on this space, however the Obinata household’s purpose for feeling apocalyptic dread is just not a pure one. On a sunny day punctuated by the chirping of cicadas, three childhood buddies — Kaoru and brothers Chicchi and Keitaro — look on because the latter’s father is hounded by the townsfolk about their tree-flanked home’s leasehold. Threatened with eviction, the household should face the potential of leaving. In a single day, Mr. Obinata does so, disappearing and not using a hint. 5 years later, Kaoru has left Niura behind too, turning into a profitable projection mapper in Tokyo — however her hometown comes calling. Again dwelling, the angsty Keitaro is engaged on a legendary firework, decided to dazzle the townsfolk and save their dwelling.
The characters of “A New Daybreak” incessantly speak of “Shuhari.” By means of context cues, Shuhari is known because the legendary firework in query, however Shinomiya has bafflingly little curiosity in filling you in on what’s occurring with any readability. With each repeat utterance of the movie’s frustratingly elusive key information, the image will get barely clearer — however shouldn’t it have been from the beginning?
The colour palette is agreeable, certain — a pastel, often painterly array of lime greens, blues, and yellows. Character designs are clear and readable, albeit unexpressive. The scenes they occupy are easily panned throughout, as in the event that they have been a collection of static screens. This impact is likely one of the most fascinating quirks of “A New Daybreak.” Whereas the restricted animation lends the movie an sadly low cost and televisual really feel, objects resembling curtains sway barely within the breeze, as if extra alive than the remainder of the setting — begging to be interacted with. The method feels indebted to the animation of traditional point-and-click journey video games resembling “Damaged Sword.”
Between extra common dialogue scenes, the movie goes off on occasional stylistic tangents, shifting momentarily and with out warning into live-action cease movement, to signify a drunken stupor, or rippling wind and water that strikes in a mode harking back to Raymond Briggs’ animated “The Snowman,” to precise the characters’ relationship to their firework ambitions. These sequences could be beguilingly engaging, however their inclusions are full non sequiturs — blink-and-you’ll-miss-it digressions towards a extra partaking movie.
Nonetheless, “A New Daybreak” stays remarkably uninteresting to observe. This can be a movie the place the phrases “Administrative Subrogation Order” are used incessantly. The impersonal nature of such phrases is a part of the difficulty. One scene has the characters head to “the industry-academia collaboration occasion.” Paperwork could make for a fantastic anchor — Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s “Evil Does Not Exist” and Hideaki Anno and Shinji Higuchi’s “Shin Godzilla” are a testomony to that — however in these movies, the exposition is succinct, not slight, and the energy of the character writing drives the story ahead.
“A New Daybreak” can be plainly lacking any good character writing. Shinomiya has taken up his mentor Shinkai’s worst tendency: These characters are thinly drawn, talking in expository, emotionally indifferent statements that may’t even fairly be referred to as purposeful. Kaoru is our protagonist, however we spend a lot of the movie questioning why, provided that the movie’s central battle considerations a household legacy that she has much less stake in than her buddies do. The trio remarks upon information of one another’s work achievements and life histories that we haven’t been successfully clued in on. These conversations don’t invite us in as an viewers. One early street journey scene is especially exasperating, carrying the sensation of carpooling with acquaintances who merely don’t such as you sufficient to contain you. Shinomiya’s debut doesn’t care sufficient about its viewers, and it’s laborious to care in regards to the characters or their plight because of this.
A movie this domestically particular will possible fare a bit higher domestically, however, as a Japan-France co-production, it’s anticipating a wider welcome. Shinomiya’s engagement with the influence of local weather change, gentrification, and concrete encroachment on our inexperienced world is admirable, however these themes are explored in a collection of undeveloped “sure, and”-style non sequiturs, each visible and aural, which go away us at a larger distance. A brand new daybreak in anime is certainly arriving, however Shinomiya’s contribution fails to spark.
Grade: C-
“A New Daybreak” premiered on the 2026 Berlin Movie Pageant. It’s at the moment searching for U.S. distribution.
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