Departamento de Marketing de Fantasia da Maeda Corporation (2020)

A bunch of Japanese people getting fired up until you are on fire

Huge part of this movie is driven by the Japanese spirit of "we work hard and we can make even fantasy possible".
Even for fantastical projects that cannot exist according to the laws of physics and under the current technological conditions, we will take them so seriously that we'll give it our all, work endless hours of overtime and deprive ourselves of sleep. Yay Nihon ~

This movie is screaming Ganbarimasu!!! in your face so much, that I am disappointed by the end of it they didn't actually build that damn Hangar. (sorry for swearing)

Honestly when I first read the synopsis of this film, I thought this sounds so boring, but at 10 minutes in, I was hooked, I started to take an interest in drilling holes and building dams, how do Japanese people always work their magic?

This definitely is a movie on the more crazy side of Japanese storytelling and I can't help thinking that Asagawa is proper mad, but I've also seen more insane plot. If you are up to that weird Japanese mix of slightly crazy story, educational value and over the top acting, you are in for a treat. It was fun to watch each of the team find their own little aspect they got fascinated with and developing a passion for the project. I enjoyed all of the portrayals and the actors did a great job at making their characters grow on me to the point that I wanted them to succeed.

The movie is also an homage to old Anime and not loosing your childhood dreams. I used to watch Gundam Wings, but I have never heard of Mazinger Z. It seems to have been quite popular, as there are also newer adaptations, and I do believe the age group of fans who grew up with it are well represented in the movie. I think if it would've been about Gundam I might have been more fired up. ^^

So here's to making the impossible possible and finding joy and interesting aspect in seemingly boring tasks!
Let's make our lives more exciting, Ganbarimashoou~

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This project will save the company -- no, Japan -- NO! THE WORLD!

Japanese companies have made running shoes out of tabi, dictionaries out of collected words with minimal budgets and huge amounts of earnest shouting, so why not make a hangar for a flying robot out of nothing?

I cried with laughter throughout the film, a perfect mix of
a) those popular business stories, where earnest shouting and lots of "ganbarimasu!" combined with Japanese ingenuity save the Japanese economy (or, at least, the company),
b) fan culture, the kind where fans earnestly discuss how things would work in real life (like physicists trying to work out space travel in SF, or biologists drawing up an evolutionary tree for Pokémon),
and
c) the passion of engineers. (Muck is a serious issue!)

Did I like it? -- Absolutely!
Was it good? -- Without doubt!
Would I recommend it? -- YES! Especially to those who are either in the kind of fan communities which I described above or who have seen one or more of Japanese business dramas/films.

When I watched the film, I wasn't aware that Mazinger Z is an existing anime series (it's from the 1970s) -- and I wasn't sure if Maeda was a real company. But it is!
And what makes it even better is that this film was based on a real group of Mazinger Z fans, who worked at Maeda and made detailed plans for the construction of sci-fi anime bases.
(https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2020-01-31/live-action-maeda-kensetsu-fantasy-eigyobu-film-features-cameos-by-mazinger-z-creator-go-nagai-yamato-desslar/.155963)

I really loved the characters, who are all so likeable, and how each of the the core group members gradually discovers their own niche of passion for the project. There was never a dull moment for me; the overall development of events was gripping (Japanese films can really make you care about the most niche of interests!) and the comedy pacing was spot on -- although if you are not a fan of passionately shouted speeches and the Japanese style of comedy, this may not be the right film for you.

I also liked how towards the end, the line between fantasy and reality became increasingly blurred for all of the characters, both main and supporting, until even we, the audience had a hard time telling them apart.

One minor point I did not like as much -- they could have left out the romance. There is only one female character in the team -- why does she have to get a crush? There was no reason at all for it, and I would have found it much better if she had developed a crush on the niche interset, not on the person who has the niche interest. But since it's minimal, and I could easily disregard it (I don't think her crush is even aware of it, and she denies it), I don't mind too much.

Overall, it's a great film! Do watch it!

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