ANI-MOVIES, *Blue Thermal

Kana Ozawa created the five-volume manga series of Blue Thermal in 2015 that was popular enough to not only get a prequel manga, but a full-length anime movie in 2022. The studio behind it was Telecom Animation Film who has a long lists of credits in several American productions like Real Ghostbusters, Inspector Gadget, and Mighty Orbots. It's a slice-of-life story with some melodrama added to pad out the film's 103-minute run time. There is resplendent designs and flying sequences, although some of the characters are obvious generic anime stock.

Tamaki Tsuru is a freshman on her own in her new college and accidently causes the aviation club's glider to be damaged. The team captain Kuramochi talks her into paying the debt off by joining their club, and later discovers that she has a natural talent for operating a glider and all the aeronautics involved with it. The majority of the middle of the story has Tamaki contending with rival gliders and her big sister from the competing school who has been holding a grudge against her since they were young, so the plot is lengthened with customary anime cliches. The film wraps with Tamaki working out her feelings for Kuramochi who has gone missing in Germany while the aviation club is going through its finals. There's never any confirmed romance, although greatly hinted at between the male and female leads.

As a movie, Blue Thermal better here than it might have as a TV series which it was first conceived as, even though it can seem lackluster at points. Eleven Arts decided to save even further money in their English release of this by not providing a dub or even bothering with a U.S. theatrical run. You can find this on Blu-ray through Shout Factory but could save some cash just catching it for free on numerous streaming channels.