Flavors of Youth (2018)
…………………………………………………
Flavors of Youth Movie Review
Flavors of Youth is a 2018 anime anthology film directed by Li Haoling. It’ such a charming, wonderful movie imbued with some great emotions.
………………………………………………….
“I don’t know why…
I just felt this would last forever“
…………………………………………………..
…………………………………………………..
Flavors of Youth is an anthology flick and obviously it’s going to have some of those typical problems that all anthology movies mostly share – it felt not connected all too well in its three parts and I needed a stronger thematic thread connecting them all plus the quality of course varies of the three shorts. But still, I ended up really liking it, mainly because all three shorts are pretty good actually and none was a stinker for me.
The movie’s a Japanese film in my opinion and not a Chinese-Japanese co-production as it’s happening in Shanghai and other Chinese cities, but we mostly hear just Japanese language and we see pretty much their anime style and nothing else.
The Rice Noodles is the first story in this anthology. It’s about a young man who reminisces about the past and when he enjoyed eating his favorite noodles with his grandmother. This one doesn’t have the greatest character development out of the three shorts, but still the characters are solid and the emotion is very much left. It’s all about nostalgia and the importance of food which I loved, especially in the animation apartment as the noodles looked beautiful and the sound was great. It’s a moving, sweet short, but somewhat thin plotwise.
…………………………………………………..
…………………………………………………..
The second story is A Little Fashion Show and this is the one that needed a longer runtime to make it even better in my opinion as it’s very strong, but otherwise it would have been awesome. It’s about clothes and familial relationships and I loved the relationship between Lulu and Yi Lin. That relationship is the heart of the story and I particularly loved the dialogue here, especially a couple of very poignant and powerful conversations between the two. It’s such a good story, but obviously it needed more time to make a bigger impact.
Love in Shanghai isn’t my favorite story as the previous one is better, but still this is one of those anime romances that really work as they’re imbued by a solid attention to detail and fine characterization and definitely a charming feel to it. It pleasantly reminded me of ‘5 Centimeters per Second’ as it has that charm and high emotion in it and a very strong romantic tone to it that worked for me, albeit the movie never reached greatness in the storytelling and characterization departments. But it’s the most romantic and emotional of the three.
Flavors of Youth is gorgeously animated. The character design is standard for anime, but the backgrounds are lovely and again the attention to detail is obviously very strong in terms of clothes, food and of course the interiors and imagery. It looks polished and quite wonderful to watch.
…………………………………………………..
…………………………………………………..
The movie isn’t edited or paced well at all, even in the shorts individually. Their quality varies and the direction should have been better, but I loved that post-credits scene where all three stories got connected in one final scene. That was wonderful. Overall, it’s a sweet film that is more thin than deep, but ultimately its charm is undeniable leading to one of the better animated films in this weak year.
Flavors of Youth needed better editing, a bigger connecting thread for the stories and the quality of them varies, but all three are pretty good and either nostalgic, charming or very romantic. The film has strong dialogue and attention to detail while its light tone was very well executed. The animation’s also terrific, especially in the lovely backgrounds.
