Scotland Loves Animation is a yearly festival that runs in Glasgow and Edinburgh, bringing a curated selection of premieres and classic movies to the big screen for a week in October-November. Three of us from the GLORIO crew returned for a week packed full of old and new films alike.

Wait… October-November? Yes, we’re a little late putting this event recap up – and by we, I mean me. Peter and colons have had their words ready for months already, so I think it’s about time I get my own sorted out, now that I’m not spending every spare moment searching for a job. Anyway!

It was a return to the Cameo Picturehouse this time, with SLA’s previous home still very much not ready for any kind of film festival. Still, we’ve had nothing but pleasant experiences with the new locations, and honestly, it’d feel amiss not to shout out the staff for being super understanding about refunding tickets when one of our party was too ill to make some of the showings.

While the event has always screened a mix of new and old, a good number of the older movies this year were using 35mm film. Metropolis, Cowboy Bebop: The Movie, and The Animatrix were all being shown this way, offering a little extra incentive to rewatch old favourites on the big screen.

Among the fifteen screenings on offer were four EU premieres in The Concierge, Blue Giant, Komada – A Whisky Family and Phoenix: Reminiscence of a Flower, the latter of which was technically already available on Disney+, albeit with some minor changes. There were also UK premieres of Lonely Castle in the Mirror and Gold Kingdom and Water Kingdom, plus a Q&A session following Summer Ghost with loundraw, the film’s director.

We saw twelve of the screenings over the week, which means we have that many films worth of Thoughts™ to run through. As always – buckle up!

Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence

Sex robots are killing people. Terrorists?

Euri’s verdict: Spending two hours trying to figure out if I’d seen this before

As one of the classic £5 anime blu-rays, I’ve had a copy of Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence sat on my movie shelf for who knows how long. That said, I could not for the life of me remember if I’d seen it before. Every familiar scene was followed by another that I had no recollection of, which at the very least feels on-theme for Ghost in the Shell, I guess.

At any rate, I enjoyed Innocence well enough. Sure, it’s definitely got that “I’m deep, bro” vibe as characters sling philosophical quotes at each other, but it’s still trippy and weird in a way that I can appreciate despite all of that. I will take anime weirdos quoting authors they’ve never read if I get to see more weird dream-meetings and pseudo-time loops.

Peter’s verdict: “The brain has muscles for thinking as the legs have muscles for walking.” – Julien Offray de La Mettrie, French philosopher

This film wants you to use your brain muscles, while in reality, you want to use your leg muscles and kick the writers.

I love the visuals throughout the film, and the story as a whole is fine, but the dialogue is unfathomably unnatural with characters throwing philosophical quotes at each other, like Confucious and Buddha having a verbal ping-pong match. You can follow along, but it doesn’t feel worth it in the end.

But hey, cool robots (that you can have sex with and be killed by)!

Gold Kingdom and Water Kingdom

Two kingdoms at war have decided to end their fighting, by having one’s most beautiful woman marry the other’s most intelligent man. One year they each independently send over animals, and now it’s up to Saara and Baranbayar to keep their respective kingdoms at peace while slowly falling in love.

Peter’s verdict: So close to being a great film, and then they drop a rape joke

There’s a number of anime shows and films that are fantastic but then drop a joke based on what TV tropes calls “Double Standard: Rape, Male on Male”. Recent examples in anime are RobiHachi, Attack on Titan, Love, Chunibyou & Other Delusions! (bet you forgot that) and now this film. The short explanation of the “joke” is if it’s a man raping or proposing raping another man, it’s funny, because rape can only be a man doing it to a woman. At one point in Gold Kingdom and Water Kingdom, one of our protagonists ends up in a drinking competition and the person they’re competing against declares that if he wins he wants to have his way with two guys who have no opportunity to consent. Cue laughter in the cinema, though notably less laughter than most of the other jokes throughout the film thankfully, though still enough to be uncomfortable.

Now, I am leading with that information because it’s the first thing I think about with this film, and then I remember how it’s a gorgeous film with plenty of inoffensive and hilarious jokes throughout, with a story with elements of Romeo and Juliet but on a higher level than that where two kingdoms exchange some people every few years instead of being at war with each other constantly, both sides decide this year to send an animal and then an actual person from each side meet by chance and then start faking that they’re the respective person from the other kingdom, hilarity ensues.

There’s a lot to like here, which makes that joke being there such a shame.

colons’ verdict: Probably easier to watch without a crowd.

It was deeply uncomfortable to sit among a theatre full of people who think that rape is laugh-out-loud funny when men do it to other men. Which is a shame, because other than that, this is a neat little story about a fat woman who’s allowed to be happy and loved.

Summer Ghost

Three kids with various levels and sources of depression meet up to try and meet the ghost of someone who killed themselves, and then one of them goes on a journey to find themselves.

colons’ verdict: Substance-free. Watch Goodbye, Don Glees! instead.

This is a film that has elements in common with Goodbye, Don Glees! in terms of its setup, but which has nothing to say. It’s like someone watched a bunch of Shinkai films and thought they looked nice, but didn’t notice that there was such a thing as subtext or theme. Nobody’s development has anything to do with the events that transpire; instead, we are simply told at the end that our main characters’ problems have been solved. Our perspective character has his mild anxiety cured, and all it costs is further traumatising the mother of a young girl who had been pointlessly and brutally murdered. They call it closure, but the actual action they perform is precisely the opposite of that.

It’s almost impressive to have the ghost of a character be present for most of the story, and still have that character’s death easily qualify as a textbook fridging. A fridging that is entirely wasted, too; the link between her death and the resolution of our cast’s problems doesn’t make sense; we are simply told that these characters are better now, and that these events are how they were fixed. None of the actual causes of the hurdles they face are addressed at all.

Peter’s verdict: A slow burn leading to a hot mess

Summer Ghost had a few music videos before it, and then afterwards a Q&A with the director. If I had a bit longer to process what I had just seen, I think I would’ve had some choice questions for the director. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Loundraw is a genuinely talented illustrator who has come up with some great concepts and character art for various anime, such as I Want to Eat Your Pancreas and Vivy: Flourite Eye’s Song, the latter of which he received a joint nomination with Yuichi Takahashi at the “Crunchyroll Anime Awards” for Best Character Design (Jujutsu Kaisen won btw). He then went on to form Flat Studio to create and direct some anime music videos and then finally making the 40 minute long Summer Ghost.

Summer Ghost is a story about a group of three kids with various sources of depression meet online and then meet in person to try and summon the ghost of a girl who killed herself. They end up succeeding, and then two of the three kids are largely forgotten about as the third kid and the ghost fly around the country trying to find her body, cos she didn’t actually kill herself, she was murdered in a pretty awful way actually. The majority of the movie is this with them eventually succeeding and then doing something fucking stupid to the ghost’s mum that’s just completely tone deaf and the more you think about it the more you wonder if any editor looked at it for more than 5 minutes.

And that’s the problem with this film. Kid 3 uses ghost kid’s trauma to help his own, which means ghost kid is just a plot device and not an actual character. The other two characters end up with their problems resolved largely off-screen, and then there’s the bit with the mum. Look, spoiler warning I guess for a film you probably shouldn’t bother with, but when they find the ghost kid’s body in a suitcase, zero reaction to seeing a supposedly rotting corpse by the way, the kid has a necklace on, and somebody somewhere thought it would be a good idea to get one of the characters to put the necklace outside the mum’s house and ring the bell, making the mum think her kid’s still alive somewhere. Just really thoughtless.

Someone I went with said this film felt like what someone who hasn’t actually experienced trauma would write when they want to write a story about trauma.

Anyway, film is visually pretty nice in an “I want that Shinkai money” kind of way, but has no real unique identity. I did come out of the cinema thinking it was pretty good, and then the more I discussed it with colons and the more I really thought about what I just watched, the more I realised how bad it was. Probably give it a pass unless you want to verify these thoughts.

Tekkonkinkreet

“oh christ i had no idea what was going on half the time so ask colons” – Peter

Peter’s verdict: Beautiful and miserable

I’ve not seen this film before and seeing it on the big screen was a visual treat. It’s a shame how the whole thing was absolutely miserable and characters who I really didn’t get the motivations of. I didn’t *enjoy* it, but I think it was interesting. Not much point going over the plot, and I don’t think I’d be able to explain it properly if I tried. At the very least it’s a much more real feeling depiction of dealing with trauma.

colons’ verdict: I think I might be the only person who liked this one.

It’s my understanding that this one was divisive. I sort of get how someone could feel that this was indulgent or overlong, but to me, Tekkonkinkreet was just unambiguously compelling and technically impressive. The animation style is colourful and expressive, veering into abstraction only when emotions reach points that could not be expressed diagetically. In that way, it’s a bit like musical theatre, but for animation.

Speaking of music, the soundtrack deserves particular recognition here. It communicates the same kind of bright but fundamentally broken world as the film’s visuals do, and it’s a delight. I’m listening to it as I type these words, and I’d encourage anyone to give it a listen, even if the film itself does not appeal to you.

If you do enjoy it, I’d recommend giving Children of the Sea a watch, too; that’s another film that I liked a lot but lots of other SLA attendees did not, I think for similar reasons.

Lonely Castle in the Mirror

Based on the 2017 novel of the same name, seven kids are summoned to castle where a girl, the self proclaimed “Wolf Queen” declares that whoever finds a key within the castle will have a wish come true. However, anyone who remains after 5pm will be eaten by a wolf. The castle is also just a cool place to chill out and escape the world outside.

colons’ verdict: You are fighting every day.

Easily the best film of the festival. Try to have someone available to talk to about it after you watch it together. Be aware that it contains depictions of many different kinds of abusive behaviour. In particular, there’s a flashback sequence towards the end where we suddenly learn a lot more about the lives of the supporting cast, and there are moments in it that feel exploitative. I understand that this is a consequence of wanting to include some of the context present in the book, but it is jarring.

We, as the audience, are given appropriate hints to guide us towards solving the mysteries of this story before their answers are told to us directly. It’s an effective little puzzle, and I would happily recommend this film on that basis alone. However, I do find it unbelievable that, in a whole year of conversations, the cast would not have been able to work out what the castle was actually doing.

Did Moe ever get the painting back?

Peter’s verdict: You don’t have to forgive your bullies

Film number 2 on the “actually having dealt with trauma and bullying” train, Lonely Castle in the Mirror was a brilliant film, featuring a wider variety of characters each with their own backstory and issues, almost to a fault actually. This film was based on a novel which fleshes out all of the cast a lot more than the film, with some reveals in the film feeling a little rushed or out of nowhere, but not quite enough to be a problem. It’s much more of a “that was good, I want to read the novel to find out more” rather than a “that was rushed, I want to read the novel to actually know what’s going on”.

I won’t dwell too much on the story as I actually want you to watch this one, but our main protagonist, Kokoro, is getting bullied pretty badly at school, to the point of occasionally attending what the subtitles call an “alternative school”, which includes a student counselling service. There is one moment in the film that really stands out where a teacher from Kokoro’s school visits Kokoro and has a chat with her and her mother about the bullying. He decided the following:

1) The councillor Kokoro was seeing wasn’t to attend because it was a “simple school issue”.
2) He had spoke to the bully and decided that Kokoro and the bully just need to “have a face to face chat” because “there were some misunderstandings” and that’ll seemingly resolve everything.
3) didn’t even ask to hear Kokoro’s side of the story, and says they should sort it out themselves, not wanting to let any of the resolution be his responsibility.

We’re also shown flashbacks of the bully and her lackeys all being super friendly with the teacher, showing a level of bias. Then, in an impressive turn of events, Kokoro’s mum calls him out on his bullshit and tells him to leave and to bring someone higher up next time. That is the most real portrayal of a parent-teacher meeting about bullying I have seen outside of the times I’ve been experiencing it directly.

This film is good, and I’m told the novel is even better.

Euri’s verdict: A must watch

I don’t have too much to add to what Peter and colons have already said, but what I will say is that this is one of those films that has you thinking constantly about the mysteries they’ve set up, and I love it for that. It’s absolutely a film where you can suss out the twists before they’re revealed, but I don’t think the film is diminished because of that. Rather, I think it makes the pay-offs, and a good chunk of the ending revelations, hit even better.

The Concierge (aka The Concierge at Hokkyoku Department Store)

A luxury department store for extinct animals has human concierges to help with VIA (Very Important Animals) who are extinct animals (how they’re there when they’re extinct is not explained). One day a small child is in this department store, is saved from falling over by a concierge and becomes one and is now a trainee in this department store.

Peter’s verdict: With a special thanks to our sponsors…

I want it to be clear up front that this film was good fun. It had plenty of daft jokes, it has some wild character designs, it was I guess slightly educational on the “these animals are extinct” side, etc.

The character of Akino is our protagonist and she has no idea what she’s doing so hilarity ensues throughout but it ends up being fairly heart-warming quite a lot. This film stretches the responsibilities of concierges by miles though, with our protagonist doing everything from arranging elaborate ice sculptures that melt just enough to release an item right on time, all the way to filming advertisements for this department store, all in the name of making sure the customer leaves happy.

This is all well and good, but throughout the film there’s a weird feeling about it being a bit too “hooray for capitalism” and an advertisement for luxury department stores, and then the credits roll and there’s a bunch of logos of real life department stores in Japan show up. I’m sure it’s just to credit places used for location scouting, but did feel a bit of a sell out and the fact that they’re proper logos, not just naming them, makes me feel like some money changed hands there.

Euri’s verdict: An excellent recap movie for a TV anime that doesn’t exist

To be clear, that’s not a jab at the film’s pacing! While I enjoyed The Concierge, I still can’t help but wonder why they chose to make it a film versus a TV series. While the film works absolutely fine as a standalone movie, I can’t help feeling that the slower pacing of a TV series would really lend itself well to developing the relationships between Akino, her colleagues and her customers.

For what it’s worth, I really didn’t mind that it uses a department store as its vehicle for having a protagonist help customers, and I didn’t come out of the viewing thinking it was two hours of pro-capitalism messaging, but I suppose your mileage may vary.

colons’ verdict: I’m not sure why they made this a feature film.

There’s a lot of cute stuff in this one, and it’s fantastically animated, but I can only recommend this if you don’t want to pay too much attention to it. There is no central narrative, it’s not furry, and its only unambiguous moral is that Harrods is a force for good in the world. It does have a management consultant as an occasional villain, but his appearances do not constitute a narrative arc.

The character design invites comparisons with Zootopia, and I suppose glorifying expensive shops is marginally better than glorifying cops. Maybe put this on in the background next time you’re in a room with a bunch of people and can control the television; it’ll reward that level of attention.

Blue Giant

Miyamoto Dai is going to become the best saxophone player.

Euri’s verdict: Epic sax guy

This movie is fantastic. It’s a film about a saxophonist trying to make it in the jazz world, yet it managed to pack in enough twists and drama to rival many of the other films at the festival. Heck, with the exception of some janky CG, the animators managed to turn the sax sessions into the music equivalent of Redline.

Since watching it at SLA, I’ve gone on to read what exists of the English-translated manga – currently limited to Blue Giant and a chunk of its sequel manga, Blue Giant Supreme. Genuinely, I can’t wait to read more about Dai’s tour of the world and his journey to become the greatest Jazz sax there ever was.

I mention this mostly because there are some fairly significant differences between the manga and film, notably with their conclusions. There’s also a lot of set up that’s absent from the movie for pacing reasons, so I recommend giving the manga a shot if you want to see Dai jamming out with the music teacher at his school.

colons’ verdict: It’s fun to watch someone go from metronome to accomplished drummer.

There’s some clumsy foreshadowing, but this is otherwise a cool teen music anime with fantastic music and stylish visuals. And dick jokes.

The SLA judges are absolutely right that the use of 3D animation for the performance scenes was a questionable choice. There is incredible abstract 2D animation intercut into these sequences, and they’re well-directed for what they are, but they always have to fall back to a world of rigid bones and tediously euclidean perspectives. To me, it doesn’t feel like jazz.

This is an adaptation of a small part of a long manga series. Inserting documentary-style interview footage of supporting cast members is an inspired way to allude to relevant events from outside of this window of time.

Peter’s verdict: Certified banger

1) BLUE GIANT is an ongoing manga series. It has had a few different subtitles denoting major arcs, but otherwise it’s still going.
2) The film does a really great job of covering the story up to a certain point, and then invents an ending to give the film a more satisfying ending rather than it being a “now read the manga” scenario.
3) Ya like jazz?

BLUE GIANT covers the story of Miyamoto Dai who plays saxophone and wants to become the best so moves from Sendai to Tokyo and ends up starting a jazz trio called JASS. Various things happen, and all throughout the three of them steadily improve as performers and as people until eventually they’re famous. Then something bad happens and the band breaks up, comes back together, final performance. You know the drill.

The drill you won’t know however is quite how impressive this film is visually and, of course, audibly. With the exception of a few library recordings of famous jazz musicians, the whole jazzy soundtrack was composed for the film by Hitomi, and although all the music is jazzy, the stage performances throughout the film have some incredible songs, and this is also where the animators really go to town. The film used a mix of classic 2D animation, 3D modelled animation, rotoscope animation, detailed, abstract, just about every trick in the book to turn a stage performance of a jazz song into a true audio AND visual experience that really doesn’t compare. There’s so much feeling put into every part of this movie that, even though on paper the story isn’t much to write home about, I just spent an entire paragraph telling you about how good the movie looks and sounds, so take it from me that this is a movie you shouldn’t sleep on.

Komada – A Whisky Family

A news reporter is told to cover the revitalisation of a whisky company.

Euri’s verdict: Shirobako, this is not

I’ll be honest, I’m not sure if this is a problem with PA Works making an interesting story, or with the general concept of turning whisky production into an animated movie. What I can say is that this movie is very boring, despite efforts to inject it with drama.

colons’ verdict: It’ll, haha, put you to sleep, like, uhh…

It looks nice, but I wouldn’t even recommend putting this one on in the background at a party. Nothing happens, slowly.

Galaxy Express 999

It’s the future, humanity can explore the galaxy and one of the most luxurious ways of doing this is the Galaxy Express 999, what looks like a heritage steam locomotive from the Japanese National Railways built in 1948 (editors note: Peter wrote this), but is actually a form of space transport. Anyway, legend has it that if you make it to the final stop of this train, you get given a machine body and live forever. Our protagonist is a street urchin who wants to do this and he’s joined by someone who looks a lot like his dead mother. They visit various planets along the way, some of which are only in the series and not this heavily condensed movie version.

colons’ verdict: Adapted with a hydraulic press.

There’s a freeware flight simulator called YS Flight that I spent a lot of time in as a young teenager. There were lots of community-made aircraft you could download and fly, including some that were references to Japanese media properties that I had absolutely no awareness of. I particularly remember witches on brooms, fighter jets that could transform into robots, and flying trains. It’s nice to finally understand the origin of the last of those.

The story here is incoherent. Character development happens out of order with the events of the film, and the moral status of various factions is arbitrary and subject to change without justification. If you’re going to tell a story about vampires being evil, it doesn’t make sense to have the process of becoming a vampire be harmless and also explicitly reversible. We are told, in platitudes, that becoming a vampire entails some abstract loss of humanity, but this is not adequately demonstrated.

There are smaller problems, too. We are expected to believe that our main character does not know the destination of the train that he has wanted to ride for as long as he can remember, even though he knows why he wants to go there. He confronts his nemesis without the tools he believes would be required to win such a confrontation, despite there being no pressing need to and him being on the way to obtaining those tools. After deciding that he no longer wishes to complete the journey, he keeps going, despite passing plenty of safe places to get off and wait for a returning service. Also, there’s a guy whose body is a volatile bomb who chooses to spend a lot of time among crowds of children, and the film does not object to this.

I believe these issues stem from this film’s nature as an adaptation of a longer, serialised work, but it has been adapted poorly. There are characters and events here that could have been cut, relocated, or combined to create a story that could stand on its own.

Also, this film has an uncomfortable relationship with women, children, and how the two should interact.

Peter’s verdict: “Kiss your clone mum square on the lips”

Prior to Scotland Loves Anime, I had not seen Galaxy Express 999 in any form. Now that I’ve watched it in the cinema, I don’t plan on watching it ever again. It’s a fairly okay film, and it’s cool seeing a 4K restoration of such an old anime film, but at the same time, I don’t think it’s all that. The relationship between Tiny Boy and all of these women who kinda look the same is super weird too, with the grand finale being that they’re clones of his dead mum and then one of them kisses this small child right on the lips. Really weird, not a fan.

Euri’s verdict: Certainly one of the films of all time

This version of Galaxy Express 999 certainly feels like a movie-length retelling of a story that was achieved by physically cutting chunks out of a reel of film, so as far as coherent storytelling goes, I don’t think I can recommend it. However, if you have no interest in watching the long TV series and just want a taste of a story that screams 70s sci-fi, you can spend your time in worse ways.

Macross Plus -Movie Edition-

Two test pilots are frenemies, there’s a singing AI who requires feelings from its producer, the AI goes bad, idk fam this film is sort of a mess.

Euri’s verdict: Now I know?

Macross Plus was one of the many, many shows on my ‘to watch one day’ list, so being able to catch the movie adaptation meant I could scratch it off the list. I didn’t enjoy it, but I guess I’m glad I know what it is now?

colons’ verdict: What’s with those weird trombugles at the beginning of that UN ceremony?

This is the second year running in which SLA has shown a film about the moral redemption of a sexual predator. I wonder if they’ll keep that streak going.

Peter’s verdict: Speaking of old films not going over well

Yeah sorry, this film was also not great. I’m sure it’s a visually impressive thing for 1995, but it’s 2023 and I’m seeing it for the first time and eh. I don’t really like any of the characters in this. Pretty good music though.

PHOENIX: Reminiscence of Flower

A series of mistakes with hibernation pods results in family members being out-of-sync with each other on an initially empty planet which then becomes a thriving society, which then gets destroyed by capitalism while its leader is out trying to find herself.

Peter’s verdict: Capitalism will destroy everything

I’m really not sure if this is a good film or not. It’s really interesting, but with a few…not plot holes, but certainly plot frustrations of “why did you do that” and “[scene missing] how the hell did that happen” throughout. It’s also another film of misery, especially with the ending, although I believe the ending is a little different on the Disney+ version where I’m told it’s “bittersweet” rather than just plain miserable.

There’s one point of contention between us. Early on we see the creature that landed on the planet appear as Cain (the protagonist)’s mum because he was “longing for this person”. Then, separately, the creature says that it came to the planet “to make children with you”. My point is that the two are separate points and that when Cain and the alien do bone, the alien is probably not in the shape of his mother. It’s in the shape of his mother when it landed cos Cain was miserable and was “longing” for his mother. However, I can see how it’s a bit ambiguous when Cain has never seen any other human before (so how will the alien transform into anyone else) so I dunno, up to you.

colons’ verdict: Some things will persist. Not many, though.

I really enjoyed the Rama series of novels when I first read them decades ago, and this film scratched a similar itch. It’s a story covering eons of time while still being anchored by individual characters we can follow. The designs of the worlds and technology are novel and distinctive, but the film does not waste time luxuriating in showing them off.

It’s a shame about the slightly weird Oedipus shit, and I did not enjoy seeing a civilisation fall to drug-induced individualism at the hands of a smiling merchant.

The Animatrix

A series of shorts inspired by and set in the universe where The Matrix is real, featuring content both in The Matrix, in The Real World and even in other simulated universes. With the exception of Final Flight of the Osiris, which is directly bridging the gap between The Matrix and The Matrix Reloaded, the other shorts largely work stand-alone, although they do assume you have at least passing familiarity with The Matrix as a franchise and concept.

Peter’s verdict: take both pills

I love The Animatrix. Give me a bunch of original short films by a bunch of anime studios (not you Square USA) based around a theme and I’m there. Previously at the festival we’ve had Pigtails and other short stories and Short Peace among other short film collections, so The Animatrix is really not that unusual a pull. Obviously your mileage may vary with these films, and there’s a couple that I’m really not into, namely Matriculated and Final Flight of the Osiris, but they’re all different and if you have even a vague interest in The Matrix and have seen the first film, there’s plenty for you here.

colons’ verdict: Animation that feels like jazz.

This was a weird screening. SLA obtained a version of these shorts assembled into their presumed original theatrical order, which differs from the order they appear in on home releases. This is fine, but the inter-short editing was inconsistent and slapdash; there was rarely any downtime between the end of one and the start of another. Three or four seconds of silence and darkness would at least have felt intentional.

It seems my favourite has changed since I first saw these; it used to be Beyond, but now I’m pretty sure it’s World Record. I don’t think Matriculated deserves the hate it seems to get, and I think it might have been a direct inspiration for Antichamber.

Euri’s verdict: Take the blue pill/red pill/exit

I’ll be very honest. This was my first time watching The Animatrix, and I found myself counting the stories just to work out how much longer we’d be in the screening. I did enjoy some of them, but ultimately I don’t care enough about The Matrix and most of the standalone stories it was telling.

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The Third Legally Binding and Very Scientific™ The Glorio Blog’s Film of the Festival

Look if we don’t tell you what our favourite was then what’s even the point? Here are our picks!

Euri’s pick: Blue Giant

Honestly, after all sorts of weird and fantastical movies at SLA, a story about a Japanese tenor sax player trying to make it in the jazz world was the kind of refreshing story I needed. You can’t help but root for Dai, which is why the ending of the film hits as hard as it does. This might well be my favourite film I’ve seen at an SLA.

colons’ pick: Lonely Castle in the Mirror

It’s a bit of a shame I didn’t get to watch Lonely Castle in the Mirror at the festival and talk about it then, but I did at least get to talk to Peter about it when I watched it later.

Peter’s pick: Blue Giant

Both Blue Giant and Lonely Castle in the Mirror are fantastic films that you should see, but Blue Giant really goes to town on being given a film format to fill with fantastic visuals and music. I think the judges were harsh.

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Some final notes from colons

Galaxy Express 999 and Macross Plus, being products of their time, had a few moments of intense full-screen flashing. I feel strongly that SLA needs to put warnings about this both in the ticketing process and at the beginning of the screening. Nobody found this pleasant, and it may have caused actual harm.

With the exception of a rape joke, I think there was a 100% heterosexuality saturation among the relationships depicted on screen this year. It would have been nice to at least have another Seven Days War or something.

I don’t know how much oversight the organisers have, but there were some subtitling gaffes. There were typos, but also in one case in Phoenix there was a line that just appeared half off-screen. These would be hard to miss in even a single test viewing, but I don’t know what options would exist to revise them at that point.