Anime Rebirth

Review - The Story of Fifteen Boys

Review by Roriconfan

Prologue
This is an old children’s adventure movie, amongst the first I watched on VHS back in the 80’s. It was quite interesting back then; but today, who’d give a damn about it?

Animation & Sound: 6
Absolutely nothing weird exists in here. Character figures, background enviroment, ships, huts, all are drawn/voiced in the usual simple but sufficiently realistic way of normal-looking series, like Heidi and Anne of the Green Gables (yes, I could only think of girly shows, although the movie is a boys’ adventure).

It’s quite rare to have normal graphics and sound in anime and is nowadays unacceptable for most otaku. Most would say: “If you want normal stuff, go watch a real-actor, social series” . So, if you are amongst those who still like this kind of graphics, this movie won’t turn you off. Just remember that there is nothing exceptional in here.

Story & Characters: 5
The story begins like a normal social drama but later gets quite an amount of action. (spoiler alert!)

Fifteen boys are lost in a ship during a storm at sea, without any grown-ups on-board. The ship is washed ashore on a deserted island and the boys have to learn how to survive on their own, as they need to make a hut to protect themselves and find food, while signaling for help.

So far, the story is a normal survival story. But, as it happens in most movies that want to maintain our interest, something unexpected happens.

A girl is also washed ashore, who warns them that pirates, who now have made the island their hide-away, killed her family and all passengers on the ship she was sailing. A battle ensues between the armed pirates (who don’t want witnesses) and hand-made traps the boys made (who want to take the pirate ship and sail back to civilization).

There is quite an amount of action and death afterwards and even a revelation that it was one of the orphan boys that was responsible for them ending up in the island. There is a simple conclusion with a somewhat happy ending.

The simple-gone-wild story is first boring and then hard to swallow. The boys in the story have no strong personality and the pirates are stunts. A few dramatic and survival scenes are interesting but nothing else besides that.

Value & Enjoyment: 5
It’s definitely not your average cartoon movie (too much angst and death), but the small duration and the shallow personalities make it quite uninteresting as a whole.