While A Silent Voice had been shown in Japan for a long time, it was only yesterday that I was able to watch in my country. Back in its air time, A Silent Voice clashes against Your Name in a competition to entice audiences, which ultimately was won by Shinkai's latest work. Consequently, Your Name was able to shine here in my homeland long before A Silent Voice arrived.

I saw A Silent Voice with my friends in the morning in the day when I also watched Totoro for the second time in the evening alone. Compared to Your Name, the promotion for A Silent Voice was arguably more traditional, depending on mouth to mouth rather than obsessive aggressive messages in social media. In turn, the viewers were also considerably fewer than I expected.

A slight nuisance for me is watching with dual subtitle and the fact that the one in my native language has slight mistranslation of anime jargon, honorific, and pronoun. But, all of those don't deter me from watching what I thought a refreshing anime at that time.

I still remember the day where I first saw Shangri-La, the first Gonzo animation series I have ever watched. The sheer depth of their visual and technical prowess amaze me. Gonzo up to this day still lived up to its reputation, inciting both praises and critics. This time I look at one the few movies that Gonzo made outside of its usual series routine, Origin: Spirits of the Past.