ANI-MOVIES, *Fireworks

In what might upon first watch seem like a copy of Your Name, Fireworks was released a year later, but originally based on 1993 short movie which itself was inspired by Run Lola Run featuring multiple timelines. Similar to Your Name it is a time travel story between Japanese teenagers, but instead of body-swapping its a supernatural experience with timeloops. Studio Shaft managed to put together a unique take on romantic fantasy that director Akiyuki Shinbo made in the same manner of his work on Madoka Magica.

During the summer classes, pretty student Nazuna is feeling sad as she is being forced to move out of town since her mother is getting remarried. So she decides to run away from home, and spend her last night choosing between two boys, Norimichi and Yusuke, both of which are good friends in her school. Nazuna has the three of them swim a lap to decide which one of them she wants to be with in her last night. Yusuke wins, but decides to flake on her as the other guys from school had made a wager to see which way fireworks explode, either flat or round. During the swiming race though, Norimichi hurt his foot, and runs into Nazuna at the clining Yusuke's father works at, and he tells her that she has been stood up. The two bond a little, but Nazuna is chased off by her mother, while dropping an unusual marble she had previously found. Norimichi picks up the marble and wishes that he had won the swimming race instead, which somehow magically causes time to flow back with him now beating Yusuke and Nazuna asking him on a date for the fireworks instead, although Norimichi seems to keep a minor recollection of the prior timeline. Norimichi goes off with her to the train station, only for Nazuna's mother and stepfather coming to bring her back home, causing him to use the marble again in order to reverse time again where the two of them actually get on the train out of town. Nazuna and Norimichi bond more on their short ride where they get chased still by Nazuna's mother, but also Yusuke and his friends. The two try escaping to a lighthouse where they use the marble again to wish themselves into a bizarre abandonned mirror image of their town. Nazuna and Norimichi decide to stay together no matter what world they end up in, while the marble containing their mirage gets destroyed. The following day at school, Norimichi is absent as from class, leaving a very ambiguous ending as to whether he ran away with Nazuna or the magic marble had some effect on their fate.

There is a great divide between those who have seen this movie as to whether its unexplained fantasy elements makes or breaks the story. The characters are somewhat generic high schoolers, with the main female lead being a somewhat manic pixie dream girl that all the boys in school secretly seem to long for, with some either choosing to acknowledge their feelings for her depending on which timeline is taking place, possibly as if each version of the world had their own set of physics to them as one reality does have flat fireworks while the other has round ones. The characters are hard to pick on where exactly their heart is at while each different scenario plays out with the cast changing personalities. Fireworks is a pleasent anime movie to see, although it might not be as memorable except for seasoned otaku.