#ehhhh i'll figure out tags for this in the future

[sobdasha]

so we rented Promare and

wow that movie is a

fucking trip

it is not a movie it is an experience

(it was not at all like that the second time around and I’m not sure if that is better or worse...???)

a Highly Experimental Style of having idek how much conflict you can shove in one movie, which we kept pausing to guess plot twists about 5 seconds before they happened, which is why it took us like 4 hours to watch the movie, anyway here’s a recounting of our watch:

- less than 10 minutes in: “uhhh I know I should give it time to get good but this does get better, right??” “IDK literally no one on twitter said why they liked it, they just said they loved it go watch it and drew fanart of a person we haven’t seen yet, maybe it’ll get good when we find that protagonist?? Maybe they set this fire and we’ll meet them soon?”

- prediction: “surprise, mystery protag is Big Boss”

- 1) nailed it

- “Not exactly a criticism but this is very 90s cartoon”

- prediction: “Galo’s going to have to break Lio out of jail”

- 2) Bad guy terrorists are actually victims of discrimination/genocide

- prediction: “Lio planned to get captured on purpose??”

- Teenage Mutant Pizza Turtles scene. Also I couldn’t remember anyone’s names because I hadn’t turned on subtitles to go with the English track yet so we have Old Time Cop Show Guy, Gonzo from Spirit Tracks, Ice-cold Megane guy, Feral Scientist Entrapta, Misty, okay I did learn Galo’s name. Also what’s that guy from Teen Titans, Cyborg?? We have Evil Cyborg and All Might as well.

- prediction: “Galo’s all like ‘I love my dad Gov!’ so Gov is def. gonna be evil, he’s secretly corrupt and actually supporting Burnish discrimination”

- prediction: “Pizza guy is Burnish”

- nailed it

- prediction: “Aina’s sister is very sad looking she’s secretly a Burnish, this is also why Aina is so pro-Burnish-rights”

- Discrimination/racism/immigration/marginalization commentary, “Maybe twitter liked the movie so much because it tackles current topics??”

- missed opportunity: “Wait wtf is under the ice? ....hm I guess that’s just how the art style is. It’s probably nothing after all.”

- Het ship kiss time

- Kiss of life, “Lio is too OP”

- “Oh okay my bad I guess it was funerary rites instead????”

- prediction: “now that his ideals are challenged Galo will have a big anguished ethical dilemma re: dad Gov and Lio’s accusations”

- 3) okay or he’ll not be conflicted at all and just confront dad Gov immediately I guess

- why does the volcano look like a demon, is that relevant

- 4) Volcanopocalypse now

- 5) Space travel, complete with Space Whales

- 6) Gov isn’t even pretending not to be evil

- prediction: “Wait is Gov actually Burnish??”

- prediction: Okay no Lio will rescue Galo instead then

- “We’re literally already sacrificing everyone on earth except 10,000 people I hand-selected as being worthy, are you seriously balking at the fact that we’re going to torture some Burnish sacrifices to do so.”

- 7) “We knew you got captured on purpose so we let you escape on purpose dumbass, we outplayed you”

- prediction: “Okay so they just shoot an Absolute Zero Bullet into the volcano to freeze the magma and end the apocalypse!!! ........................... actually that’s probably super bad for the Earth’s core and will cause another natural disaster apocalypse but that’s a battle for another day...??”

- prediction: “um okay Heris/Elis will break Galo out??”

- prediction: Aina won’t get on the ship, forcing Heris/Elis to sabotage the launch

- 8) Epic dragon final confrontation, complete with YGO psychotic faces. “....WAIT WE’RE LITERALLY ONLY HALFWAY THROUGH THE MOVIE WHAT. THE FUCK????”

- prediction: Galo will have to chill Lio out

- “What...is in Gov’s fist... NEVERMIND Galo SMASH”

- punching out your feelings YYH style

- prediction: They’re gonna evaporate that whole lake

- 9) “WHAT THE FUCK THERE WAS A SECRET COMPLEX IN THE ICE THE WHOLE TIME???? YOU CAN’T INTRODUCE THIS MANY MAJOR PLOTS TWISTS IN ONE MOVIE THIS IS NOT HOW DRAMATIC STRUCTURE WORKS”

- Welp Aina’s definitely missed the launch now

- 10) that one gif from the History Channel, because “It was aliens all along.”

11) DEUS X MACHINA, THEY REALLY JUST FUCKIN WENT THERE “I literally can’t tell if this movie is self-aware or not but either way this is the best scene in the entire movie”

- “You’re not chosen ones this is literally just a convenient deus ex machina shoved in here to help resolve the plot DEUS OUT”

- “Is he dead?” callback

- “Why...are you questioning if Gov killed Deus...he literally gave a speech about making hard decisions, is murdering the majority of the population of Earth, also the Burnish, etc, how is the death of this one man the moral tipping point.”

- prediction: “GENOCIDE. CULTIVATION. BEAM. Okay Gov is LYING about the other planet, he just needs it as an excuse so he can build the warp drive in the space ship, so he can kill the Burnish, so the whole world will be covered in lava, which turns to rock, which he will turn to farmland once he brings the ship back down and becomes CAPITALIST DICTATOR OF THE WORLD.”

- Blue Eyes White Dragon, x4

- 12) Heris sabotages the ship

- Did....did Gov just fire an Absolute Zero Bullet into the volcano as literally an afterthought that has zero effect on the plot????

- 13) Gov is Burnish

- prediction: “I just realized, we haven’t seen Aina in ages. Jump, Heris! Your sis will catch you on her hovercraft!”

- nailed it

- “Now he’s performing CPR....callback to the kiss of life...?”

- 14) “Callback to the kiss of life!! ..................this is.....a very long kiss.....”

- “no pyro!!!”

- “Wait did he....I swore Lio had his shirt on while they were making out...??”

- “Get in loser we’re going firefighting!”

- “So the cloud forms a heart before they start Drifting in their giant robot...”

- 15) “I don’t understand...did we apocalypse the earth? Did we avert it? Is the earth destroyed? is the earth fine? was the earth entirely renewed? what was the plot resolution here??????”

- “WHAT IS THE RESOLUTION WITH GOV????? WHAT????”

- “We thought this movie was addressing deep issues and then promptly waterskiing over them, but it turns out it was aliens all along and now they’re gone so uh what the hell kind of allegory is that.”

In summation, we have no idea if it was good or not. The first time around the sound was mixed extremely poorly with loud battle scenes, excessive shouting, and not being able to understand anyone (forcing me to turn on subtitles while watching in English), which weirdly wasn’t so bad the second time around.

Promare might have been good and deep if it had like 10 fewer plot twists and allowed the remaining 5 time to breath and reflect on their implications. Character stuff would have been interesting to see explored. TBH this probably would have been an amazing anime series and we might not have minded the aliens plot twist then.

On the other hand, it’s fun, watching it twice in a row was actually fun, and whatever reviewer the roomie found who said it was “not campy” was lying out their ass, we nearly died of all the gay innuendoes to be had. And the art is pretty cool.