Fragtime Anime Review!

Hey everybody, welcome to another installment of A Week in Geekdom. Today we're going to be talking about Frag Time. Welcome back to the channel, Geo here. And yeah, Frag Time, the original video animation adaptation of the Japanese Yuri Manga series by Sato. This was done by Tear Studio. I don't know if it's Tear or Tear, it's probably Tear. Either way, you're probably going to correct me in the comments section down below. But regardless, this was the former studio. They recently went bankrupt and they're no longer in business, unfortunately. They never did a whole ton, just one or two series and this OVA, which is adapting a manga, like I said. The story centers around the character of Mizuzu Moritani. She has this uncanny ability to stop time for three minutes per day. At the start of the series, she is extremely shy, introverted, and just timid overall. And she's confronted by a classmate, Yukari Kobayashi, who's asking her to participate with her on a school club and all that stuff. The story takes place in high school, so yeah, that's the thing that they do over there with the club activities. Mizuzu, being such an introverted and scared, timid character, freezes up and doesn't really know how to confront the situation. She doesn't really know how to talk to people or what happens when you're in a scenario like that. She doesn't know how to deal with that stuff and the stress of being in public and talking to people, I guess. So she stops time and runs away. And in her curiosity, she meets the character of Haruka Murakami, who happens to be the second protagonist of the story. Now, here is the part that was actually pretty funny, but I know a lot of people will probably not dig this part so much. But Mizuzu, being a teenager, being curious, she takes a peek at Murakami's underwear. And at that precise moment, because you've got to remember, she's using her ability to stop time. And there's this underlying perverse nature to having superpowers. And I'm not talking about Frag Time itself. I'm talking about in manga, comics, and fiction in general. A lot of people I know for a fact would probably use certain powers for not-so-safe-for-work activities. Whether it's flying or invisibility or stopping time. It's just a fact that is in the nature of humans. And, you know, I could go on this rant about psychology and defying the status quo and sticking it to conventional logic. And you could make a case for all of that. But I'm only here to review the movie based on a manga, which I think was only two volumes. It's a very short story, and it gets stretched out to its limit, I think, with this movie. I think it's only an hour and some minutes. Something like that. Going back to the plot, she, of course, is a teenager, she's curious, and she wants to take a sneak peek, I guess. But, in a cool twist, Murakami turns out she's not affected by Moritani's time-stopping abilities. In fact, she's the only one who's not affected and is clearly seeing what this girl is doing. Murakami happens to be one of the popular girls, or THE popular girl, in high school. A lot of people know her, and she's very sociable, which contrasts with Moritani's personality, like I mentioned earlier. However, there's more to the character of Murakami than meets the eye. She's actually holding back some secrets of her own. I'm not necessarily going to spoil the plot for you guys, I'm just telling you an overall impression. But as the story progresses, we basically see the friendship turn into a potential romance between these two characters that have this secret. This alone time, if you will, where they can stop time and really be true to themselves and not feel judged and just let loose in the world. So it's a very metaphorical thing for growing up and finding your own voice and all that stuff. Throughout the course of the film, a lot of interesting things develop, and eventually the two characters butt heads. One because of jealousy, and the other because, well, they're just starting to know each other. And they're probably using the excuse of this incredible, mysterious power that one of the protagonists has to form this romance, but they don't really know if that's going to actually work in real life, if you will. But as the story progresses, Moritani starts to further her feelings for Murakami, and starts using her time-stopping ability in selfish ways, because now that she sees a love interest, she feels a certain jealousy and ownership over Murakami. And you do get some of the classic tropes when you get stories like this, where it's more wish fulfillment of characters suddenly being struck with weird abilities that they can't really explain, nor does the story try to explain. There's just a thing that happens. It's a little deus ex machina, if you will, to progress things forward and to sort of connect the characters together. The whole time-stopping thing, it never gets explored. We don't really know the origin of it. We don't really know the hows and whens and whys and all that stuff. We just know that the character has this really golden opportunity to use this ability, and in the process, she learns more about who she is and about trusting others and getting to know other people. Murakami, on the other hand, has this secret where she doesn't really relate to a lot of people, and she is very methodical in how sociable she is and how she presents herself to others and what she lets others know about her. But in regards, she knows about everybody so that she can respond accordingly to the situation. Aside from the whole sci-fi aspect, these are things that happen in real life throughout the world with different people. So it can be really relatable for a lot of us watching this who remember growing up with these feelings, or even young people now who are watching this and can sort of sympathize with what is happening with our two main characters. I feel that one of the issues with this movie, it's a little bit too short. Maybe if you would have given it a few more minutes of, even if it's not in the original story, just a few more minutes of daily live shenanigans that are occurring for the characters, it would deepen that bond and that relationship for when the final act of the story comes out or plays out and you feel the emotional impact of what happens to the characters. Overall, I enjoyed it. It's not the most dramatic, amazing thing in the world, but it is a nicely packaged sci-fi inspired romance, if you will, about these two characters coming out of the shell and realizing who they are as people and finding trust in others. It just so happens that time warping abilities are involved. But yeah, clean animation, loving the backgrounds and character designs. It's a nicely drawn movie that I do recommend if you want to watch something a little bit different. I enjoy a good drama and if you start mixing in sci-fi elements, I'm all over it. So I was excited to check it out. It didn't really disappoint, but then again, it didn't super blow me away. I just thought it was pretty serviceable and okay. But regardless, what did you guys think of Frag Time? Have you read the original manga? If you haven't, have you watched the movie? Let me know regardless in the comment section down below. So that's about it, guys. As always, thank you so much for being a part of a WikiGeekdom. 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