Promare Review: Beautiful Animation with a Fiery Soul

One of my greatest loves is animation. I adore animated content of all kinds, from long-running TV shows to simple short films. My main reason for this is animation, more than any other medium for content, allows for the greatest amount of expression from the creator. In animation, you have to craft everything from scratch, and as a result everything can be perfectly tailored to convey key parts of the story just through design. In addition, if your story is more fantastical, that can be conveyed however you want. In live-action content CGI typically achieves this purpose, and CGI is itself a form of animation, but it is limited in the need for realism. Animation throws that out the window, and the results can be truly extraordinary.

It was for this reason that I was determined to see Promare, the newest film by Japanese studio Trigger. Promare was released in American theaters in limited release over the summer, and quickly the film gained the attention of the internet. The film seemed to be designed to turn heads, with an art style unlike anyone had seen before. The trailer showed that the film blends 2D and 3D animation to create a unique style that lent itself well to both subtle animation and extreme fight scenes. In a sense, by creating this blend the movie would be able to take advantage of the strengths of both 2D and 3D, while covering for the limitations of both. The result was some incredible shot composition that really felt like exactly what the moviemakers wanted to create, rather than what they could make with the limitations of any particular medium.

I missed the film’s initial run, but luckily the film gained so much success in the states that it came back for a weekend event in December. I made sure to book tickets, and took my mother and sister to see the subtitled version on the 8th. After seeing the whole thing, I can confirm that Promare is not just a great feat of animation- it’s a great movie that I hope becomes a classic.

The plot of Promare is a relatively simple one. Thirty years before the events of the film, a portion of the human race spontaneously gains fire powers. These people, known as the Burnish, like to set fires quite a bit, and thirty years later a group called the Mad Burnish are still setting fires in the city of Promepolis. The main character, Galo Thymos, is a firefighter that works to put out the fires that the Mad Burnish set and evacuate everyone in the buildings. He goes head-to-head with the leader of the Mad Burnish, Lio Fotia, and quickly learns that- surprise- not everything is as cut and dry as it appears.

The movie is almost two hours, and yet it moves at a breakneck pace. Most of the runtime is dedicated to action scenes, but the movie also does a great job of not leaving its plot in the dust for the sake of action scenes. For example, a good chunk of the first part of the movie is dedicated to a fight between Galo and Lio, but this scene, in addition to being incredibly fun, is also used to establish the two characters as well as their dynamic. A lot is conveyed through this fight- Lio’s sparse dialogue but confident nature and prominent presence that he maintains despite his small size, Galo’s competence in fighting despite his logical ineptitude and lack of a fear of death, and both of their strong convictions in their beliefs and love of what they do. In subsequent fights featuring each character they are further developed while still maintaining the strong personalities they present in the beginning.

Besides the animation, the characters are the strongest aspect of Promare. Particularly, their relationships with each other is where this movie truly shines. Of course, the main focus of the movie is the relationship between Galo and Lio, and with each of their interactions the movie does a great job of developing their motivations and their feelings about each side of the conflict. It is this dynamic that caused many to fall in love with the movie, and for good reason. They play well off of each other, and their interactions lead to some of the movie’s greatest moments. A lot of the characters have great dynamics with each other that see varying levels of development throughout the movie, but are all very enjoyable: Galo and Aina, one of the girls who works with Galo in Burning Rescue; Aina and her sister Heris, who works for the governor as a scientist on a mysterious project out of love for Aina; and Lio and the two other heads of the Mad Burnish, Gueira and Meis, just to name a few. Some relationships get more development than others, but quite a few have moments to shine, and these serve to develop the characters and create a sense of humanity in everyone that is tangible.

Even the soundtrack aids this goal. Quite a bit of it is instrumental, and is a wonderful electronic score that does a great job accenting the action and emphasizing certain plot points (the uneasy violin in the intro is especially excellent). However, there are quite a few songs on this thing with vocals, and they are excellent. The opening song, “Inferno”, serves as a theme for the movie, and the lyrics convey the passion of both leads- as Galo calls it several times, their “burning souls”. Several songs are dedicated to different aspects of the Burnish, primarily “Nexus” and “Ashes”. I can’t go into them without discussing spoilers for the plot, but the lyrics are also quite thematic and do a lot to develop the emotions and motivations of the Burnish, especially Lio. And all of the songs are designed to get the blood pumping, which is great because this movie is meant to be an (emotional) adrenaline rush.

But of course, Promare wouldn’t be Promare without its animation. It is even better than the trailers let on. As I said before, the movie uses 2D and 3D to overcome the limitations and play on the strengths of both styles of animation. In the movie, I can confidently say they bend exceptionally well, which is incredibly hard to do- the only movie I’ve seen that comes close to being this seamless is The Iron Giant back in 1999. The 3D models still maintain the lined style of the 2D animation, and while it is noticeable at parts, it’s not jarring. The work is commendable. And it is GORGEOUS.

I don’t know what I can say about the animation that hasn’t already been said. The character animation is expressive both in combat and dialogue, and the designs fit the characters perfectly. The fire is basically its own character, and the fire animation is breathtaking. They chose these beautiful pinks and blues for it that move in a bizarre triangular fashion that serves to make it stand out visually and make it feel both beautiful and alien. The shot composition on this movie is next level, really taking the “every frame a painting” mentality to heart. There’s this one shot of Aina on a frozen lake and the camera is positioned underneath the ice, showing her behind all of the ice fractures as they glisten in the sunset (sunrise?), and I will not get over it for the rest of my life. The fight scenes are similarly well-shot and have amazing choreography. It’s just such a visual treat.

I didn’t expect Promare to have the depth it did going in, but the movie is chock full of surprises that make it an incredible viewing experience.