ReviewNetflix movie review: Maboroshi – Japanese fantasy anime riddled with annoying teenage angst addresses the trials and tribulations of adolescence
- Written and directed by prolific manga artist Mari Okada, Maboroshi sees an environmental disaster trap a small-town community in a bizarre time freeze
- The film emerges as one giant, lumbering metaphor for teenage challenges, devoid of subtlety and likely to exasperate older viewers
2/5 stars
In the new animated fantasy Maboroshi, an environmental disaster traps a small-town community in a bizarre time freeze, which sends its adolescent residents into an angst-ridden tailspin.
Written and directed by prolific manga artist Mari Okada, the film blends themes of loneliness, insecurity and jealousy into a potent cocktail of teenage disenchantment, but the persistently clumsy symbolism and repetitive confrontations soon overshadow any genuinely insightful commentary about the perils of puberty.
The secluded blue-collar town of Mifuse is rocked to its core following a giant explosion at the local steelworks that literally shatters the sky overhead. This cataclysm enshrouds the town in a dome from which they cannot escape, and soon they come to realise that they are trapped in time as well as space.
While some members of the community spin the event into a religious reckoning, rebranding the site as a “Sacred Engine” that must be appeased, for high-schooler Masamune (voiced by Junya Enoki), this is merely a physical manifestation of his own sense of isolation.
Events come to a head when Masamune is led into the steelworks by Mutsumi (Reina Ueda), a mysterious female classmate, who introduces him to a feral young girl (Misaki Kuno) who appears to be held captive within the factory.