Modest Heroes (2018)
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Modest Heroes Movie Review
Modest Heroes is a 2018 animated anthology film directed by Hiromasa Yonebayashi among others. It is the second feature film from Studio Ponoc.
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“I want to get better“
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As is the case with many of this year’s anime features surprisingly enough, this one is also an anthology. And I have to say that I liked that as I find it to be a breath of fresh air in the feature department and it gives us a better opportunity to watch some great shorts. But obviously that also led to a typical problem for this type of film and that is its lack of connected tissue which is here even weaker than in ‘Flavors of Youth’. But the movie overall is better than that one.
So let’s talk about each of the three shorts in detail. The first one is called Kanini & Kanino and it’s simply wonderful. I have to say that it’s my favorite of the three by far. This one was directed by Hiromasa Yonebayashi who truly remains one of my favorite emerging directors in the anime industry and this short in particular pleasantly reminded me of ‘The Secret World of Arrietty’.
That’s because it also deals with little people, but this time around it’s happening in the water and they are being chased by fish and the children have to find their father and save them from the current while their mother is off giving birth somewhere. I loved this story in particular because it doesn’t have dialogue in it, just a couple of name yellings. It was a perfect choice as it led to a more visually focused narrative where the animation is absolutely mesmerizing. The water looks superb, the creatures too and the movements are so polished. Such a sweet film.
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Life Ain’t Gonna Lose is the second story and it’s my least favorite of the three. But this movie is so strong that even its weakest component is pretty solid. It follows a boy who has to overcome adversity in the form of a serious allergy. It fits really well with the third segment in overcoming your fears theme, but it left the first short in the dust as the most unfitting segment here. This short is a bit long, but definitely inspirational and I appreciated how seriously they treated this problem.
The third segment is called Invisible and it follows literally an invisible man who also floats and it is difficult for him to stay on the ground. He sells stuff, but finds it difficult to do that until he meets a blind man who inspires him to progress bolder in life. This short is not particularly subtle and the floating part I would have personally cut off as the invisibility was enough, but still it’s a very interesting, more grounded in reality take on an invisible man mythos with a lot of heart and great animation.
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Modest Heroes truly features terrific animation across the board. I loved the emphasis on water color styling and very polished, truly artistic movements and imagery. It looks great and the movies are all very well directed. But the pacing is problematic and the shorts are mostly of quite the right runtime, but the anthology should have had at least one more movie as it’s overly short this way. But the planned fourth short never came to fruition as its director Isao Takahata tragically passed away during its production. But it’s still a pretty strong second outing from quickly emerging strong Studio Ponoc and I cannot wait to see their next feature.
Modest Heroes is weakly interconnected as most anthologies are and its runtime is way too short, but nonetheless all three of the shorts are very strong. Life Ain’t Gonna Lose is a serious, inspirational take on the issue of allergies, Invisible is sweet and artistically animated and Kanini & Kanino is the best, most imaginative and intriguing story with great world building. It’s a very well animated and quite well directed second outing from Studio Ponoc.
