Anime Supremacy! Review
A pleasant, if at times overly saccharine dramatization of the behind the scenes of anime production, ANIME SUPREMACY! does much to commend itself as a light-hearted tale of passion and artistic creation.
The story follows Hitomi Saito (Riho Yoshioka), a woman who changes career from the public service to the anime industry, inspired by the work of Chiharu Oji (Tomoya Nakamura), who is labelled as something of a genius director. After seven years in her new profession, Hitomi is tasked with directing her first television anime series, called Soundback: Playing Stone. Already under pressure in making her directorial debut, Hitomi must also compete against her hero, Chiharu, whose comeback series, Fate Front: Liddle Light, is slated for the same timeslot on a different channel. From there we see the production struggles and pressures both suffer and the relationships they develop with the animators, voice actors and producers as they go head-to-head, each hoping to achieve Haken (supremacy) in the ratings.
ANIME SUPREMACY! is a visually exciting piece that makes use of a diversity of camera work and visual style, and the scripting leans into its anime subject matter, adopting some of the medium’s tropes in its dialogue and direction. Appropriately, there is a liberal use of animation throughout, not just with the two shows, Soundback and Liddle Light, around which the film is based, but also layered over the top of live action shots to represent the ratings battle between them. This was done by Production IG (known for its animation work in franchises such as Ghost in the Shell) and is to a high standard, breathing life and dynamism into the central conflict and the two subject shows. The technical editing at times, however, can feel a little choppy with some instances of a scene (and the backing soundtrack) abruptly cutting in favour of the next instead of a more careful transition, though these moments are small in number.
The actors all do a fair job of expressing both the enthusiasm and dedication to the craft of animation, and the stress and fatigue that is a common result of work in Japan’s industry. That is perhaps, however, the film’s major weakness, depending on the perspective one brings to viewing it. ANIME SUPREMACY! certainly acknowledges, at least on some level, the long working hours and often single-minded corporate drive that is ubiquitous throughout the Japanese animation industry. However, it stops short of more honestly portraying the oft reported on worker exploitation, preferring to justify the high demands and all-consuming work culture as a labour of love in the creation of anime. This approach is most irksome in the effective validation of the behaviour of Hitomi’s producer, Satoru Yukishiro (Tasuku Emoto), who verges on bullying her and others a good deal of the time.
To give ANIME SUPREMACY! credit, though, an exposé on the inner workings of the anime industry is not its premise or goal, and it does make a point to venerate representation in media, showing the virtue of stories which different classes of people can relate to. Certainly, what the film does best is speak to the anime medium’s power to not just entertain but to inspire and give comfort, and it also gives respect to the talents of the hard-working creators of anime, who toil away ultimately for the sake of their viewers.
Rose-tinted but undeniably genuine, ANIME SUPREMACY! is a fun also heart-warming experience. Catch it at the Japanese Film Festival this November.
Anime Supremacy! is playing as part of the Japanese Film Festival 2022 in Australia. Check out the full program and book tickets here.
