ANI-MOVIES, *Lu Over The Wall

After The Night Is Short, Walk On Girl came out in 2017, Science Saru had their second anime film released in the same year, both put out by Toho. Lu Over The Wall might seem like yet another anime take on The Little Mermaid, although this one is not a romance, however you will notice the film bears a resemblance to Ponyo as the mermaid here is more of a little sister to the male protagonist. Even the creator Masaaki Yuasa began to see how his story reflected Ponyo as he was making it, and he took the same approach a few years later when he directed Ride Your Wave. Science Saru really experimented with different styles of animation with hand-drawn key frames with all the in-betweens done with Flash, and keep in mind this was still the late 2010s, but the film still looks like a traditionally animated production. There are a few songs added to this movie too, but it couldn't count as a musical as its all performed by a band. GKids did gave the dub a good treatment, although for some reason a few of the songs were left in Japanese while some were dubbed in English.

Set in a bayside fishing village, Kai lives in emotional solitude with his father and grandfather while his mother left them to have a singing career in Tokyo. Kai has his parents' love for music and a talent for it which gets the attention of two of his schoolmates, Yuho and Kunio, and they form a band called Seiren. Kai's music attracts a Ningyu which is the Japanese equivalent of a mermaid, but instead of being a nice-looking redhead this mermaid named Lu looks more like baby Muppet, plus she grows human-like legs whenever she hears music she likes, and she takes a real liking to Kai and his music despite the fact that sunlight could kill her. Lu's existence becomes known to the rest of the village, and they want to use her as the mascot for their abandoned amusement park, so Seiren tries to help Lu along with her giant shark father, but the townsfolk prejudice evokes a curse which threatens to drown the village. Lu and Kai eventually lift the curse, then Lu along with the other merfolk creatures must leave the village coast because there's no longer anything blocking out the sun, but Kai resolves to pursue his passion in music until he and Lu can be reunited.

Lu Over The Wall is a fine movie for the whole family with no violence, even though there are some frightening imageries throughout the course of the film. Masaaki Yuasa took this comic fantasy in an unorthodox direction, both visually and tonally, plus the animation style can radically change which make it hard to keep up with figuring out whether the scene you're seeing is a flashback or not. Again, don't expect this to be a tale of star-crossed lovers like The Little Mermaid, although there is a small romantic element to it. If you've already watched Ponyo, then this isn't too unfamiliar, but it does pick up to slapstick levels of Tex Avery antics as it goes along. The plot is diverse as well as divisive among anime fans, but you might find something refreshing here.