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Blue Giant (2023)

Blue Giant (2023)

A sax star plays the biggest and brightest jazz in this captivating music drama

The Very Best

8.0

Movie

Japan
Japanese
Animation, Drama, Music
2023
YUZURU TACHIKAWA
Amane Okayama, Go Shinomiya, Hidenobu Kiuchi
120 min

TLDR

Damian Chazelle, who?

What it's about

Saxophone player Dai Miyamoto moves from sleepy Sendai to the bustling nightlife of Tokyo to become the greatest sax player, though he must convince the talented pianist Yukinori Sawabe and beginner drummer Shunji Tamada to join his jazz band.

The take

2023 was a great year for animation with films like Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, Nimona, and The Boy and the Heron, but there was another animated gem that flew under the radar and that’s jazz drama Blue Giant. It’s a pleasure to both the eyes and the ears as Dai Miyamoto blows on his saxophone, adding Hiromi Uehara’s incredible soundtrack and Yūichi Takahashi’s dynamic animation to the high contrast manga visuals, and the way the story unfolds the different avenues of pure passion these three have for jazz is absolutely captivating. Blue Giant is just so well-done that it’s no surprise it garnered a bigger-budgeted encore eight months after its premiere.

What stands out

The soundtrack. The visuals did add to the soundtrack, but even just closing your eyes and listening to the jazz is just phenomenal.

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