Reviews for Kimi no Suizou o Tabetai (9.33) 306tn

WARNING: !Heavy spoiler alert! A lot of personal feelings and opinions! According to the reader's wish, I edited the review and now it contains a lot more context and explanations of the movie. Still primarily for people who have seen the movie!

I have seen I Want to Eat Your Pancreas exactly one week ago, as a part of the Scotland Loves Anime 2018 con in Glasgow.

Even the presenter himself laughed at the movie because of the funny name, and I have to it that I also haven't had much faith in this movie as a closing pick of the con, but..
It was an unforgettable experience for me and if there will be a chance to see it again in cinema, I will surely go, because:

Art and animation is never a priority for me. Especially when I see that the story is strong and the title has quality content, I stop caring about the visual aspect at all. You could say this was the case in this movie. Even so, I was of course still able to notice that the animation was pretty much flawless (perhaps it was not so hard to achieve in a movie mostly about talking). The art was perfect, every character looked realistically, yet maintained the anime cuteness at the same time. Really, nothing to complain about in this category.

Sound is another aspect where there's absolutely nothing to complain about. Amazing piano singles, both sad and cheerful, always perfectly fitting the mood. Not one distraction from the overall flow during the whole movie (which is almost miraculous, considering it was screened in an over-volumed cinema, where watching Gundam Thunderbolt nearly ripped my ears off due to that crazy jazz in it - it was literally painful). No wonder, when the songs were partially composed and performed by Suguru Matsutani, the same person who did a piano masterpiece Nodame Cantabile.

This is a movie about a girl dying from terminal illness and a very very anti-social boy, who is (unwillingly at first) keeping her company during this unimaginably hard time. The biggest advantage of it is not taking itself as seriously as you would expect and not treating the whole situation as an absolutely desperate tragedy like you could also expect. On the other hand, the movie is trying to focus on the positive side of things - when you know you are dying, what can you still do for yourself and, mostly, for the people around you before you leave the Earth?! How to stay strong and be able to pretend nothing is happening? - and is very succesful in that. She decides that she wants to dedicate the rest of her life to him, which is an amazing point in itself. There is a lot more positive, optimistic moments than the negative ones.
I have personally not experienced anything similar in real life, nor wanted to even think about it or see movies/series, but I believe this movie portrayed it amazingly. The feeling that you don't want your everyday life to change, you don't want to show your struggle yet you do, you want to stay strong even when it's hardly possible anymore, than your true feelings eventually show up. You are scared, horribly scared. Everyone of us are always scared of so many things, but only trying to imagine the fear of sure death is painful.
There were only 2 parts I did not fancy - the very beginning and the very end(after the credits):
The beginning: At the very beginning, the movie shows us a funeral of the main heroine. Therefore, you can be almost 100% sure that she really dies at the end. After a very short take of the funeral, they move us back in time to the real beginning of the story. I know it's very common nowadays and I am not such a big expert on storytelling, but why SPOIL us at the very beginning?! I know that it's expected what is the main tragedy that will happen, but why shove it in my face in the very beginning? You could still think it's a feint and during the movie or at the end, some twist will happen to make it end up differently, but I don't think that creating such a speculation in viewer's mind from the start is a good move.
The end: After the end credits, they show us a scene where the main hero and best friend of the main heroine go to visit the main heroine's grave. During the whole movie, they hated each other, so this is very important scene to show us how positively our main heroine influenced the main hero. But there is one annoying thing - at first, it seems that they are flirting with each other, but theri talk reveals that she is starting to date another character from the movie named Kazuharu, whose practically only line in the movie is "Do you want some gum?". This is more my personal preference than a flaw of the movie, but the perfect moment at the end, where Haruki and Kyouko were visiting the grave together, should have been played in a way that the two are together or will possibly end up together and not informing us that she is dating/will start dating the gum guy. Ok, the movie wanted to show us that the gum guy was a good person and this was supposed to be kind of a reward for him. More importantly, huge progress of Haruki that he was able to make friends with Kyouko and with more people, in general, is the main point of the movie and I love it, and the creators probably didn't want to overstep that. All of that is understandable, but still, if it weren't for these 2 'flaws', the movie would be a perfect 10 for me.

Even the whole Haruki's (main male character) point of view is amazing. Normally, I tend to hate such kind of characters, but his reasoning, though generally wrong, actually makes a lot of sense. In a way that I can easily relate to him and his actions throughout the whole movie - it's not that unnatural as you may think it is at the beginning. One example which I think speaks for all: On at least two occasions, she clearly asks him if he wants to date her and he always refuses. At first, you are wildly mad at him for doing so, but as the movie progresses and especially near the end, you fully understand even these decisions.
As I already partially mentioned, Sakura (main female character) is just the best! The way she accepts her fate and how she decides to act knowing that is simply stunning. She is strong, a little stubborn, just the right amount of cute and just the right amount of cheerful. Most importantly, she is also very fragile, like a normal girl should be and I believe would be in her situation.
I really liked Takahiro's (Sakura's ex-boyfriend) presence, for making the movie about something more than just the main drama line. A perfect call.
Kazuharu (guy constantly offering gum) was unnecessary, maybe even a faulty element, as was proven by the after credit scene.

(Not counting Gintama, since it is a part of a much larger franchise:) In conclusion, Kimi no Suizou o Tabetai / I Want to Eat Your Pancreas is the best anime movie I have seen so far. I enjoyed it to the fullest and I am sure I am going to come back to it many times.