©吉浦康裕・BNArts／アイ歌製作委員会
Speaking of anime movies, TOHO has become the most popular, but Shochiku has also been producing a lot of anime movies (with original stories) recently - "Josee, the Tiger and the Fish", "Words Bubbling Up Like Cider", and so on. Kyoto Animation's title "Violet Evergarden", "Free!", "Sound! Euphonium" are also made by Shochiku.
I had high expectations for this film, as it is a new original anime film directed by Yoshiura Yasuhiro, the director of "PATEMA INVERTED" (2013).
The "Ai" in the title is a combination of AI and love, and I assumed that the name of the AI robot was also Ai, but I was wrong, the robot's name is Shion.
The story is set in the near future, where a fictional town in Japan rural area has a cutting-edge robotics company, and robots and humans have begun to live together.
There are several points that this story is hinted by other robotic studies and stories. Name of the AI robot is "Ashimori Shion", and she is dressed as a high school girl. It is probably taken from the famous roboticist Asimov.
Also, "human" main characters, Satomi and Toma, are probably taken from the manga "Watashi wa Shingo" (Umezu Kazuo, 1982-86, turned into musical play in 2016).
Many of the self-propelled robots are often portrayed with tragic endings or apocalyptic tone, but this work can be watched with a happy feeling from beginning to end.
The AI robot Shion, born out of Satomi's childhood feeling that singing makes her feel happy, sings in some scenes, and the performance of voice cast Tsuchiya Tao is just wonderful. Fukuhara Haruka, who plays Satomi, gives the impression that her voice is a little too cute, but it doesn't bother me. I got the impression that this was a light musical movie with a happy ending, with all the issues and clues resolved in just 100 minutes. As for the extremely difficult theme of the symbiosis between humans and AI, the film only gives you an idea of what it's about, and avoids going into too much serious.
As a musical entertainment film, it is regrettable that the music that Satomi likes in her childhood is obviously that of the Disney Princesses, but due to rights issues, all the music was done with original characters and music that resembled them. Images of TANGLED or FROZEN appeared, but it might have been difficult to clear the rights to utilize those. There are a few examples, such as the appearance of TOTORO in Toy Story and the appearance of the Gundam in Ready Player One, but I felt that the hurdle for borrowing and incorporating famous characters is still high.
However, I did enjoy the highlights of the film, such as Tsuchiya Tao's singing, the beautiful visuals, and the happy ending.
