Yukiyo Fujii

Nobuhiko Okamoto

Takaya Hashi

Shintarou Oohata

Shinya Fukumatsu

Masayuki Katou

Hiroki Yasumoto

Maaya Uchida

Hideyuki Umezu

Go Shinomiya

Yu Shimamura

Tomoyuki Shimura

Shunsuke Itou

Yuka Keicho

Genki Muro

Toru Sakurai

Kiyohito Yoshikai

Yasuhiro Yoshiura

Yuji Kaneko

Takanori Aki

Mikio Ono

Masao Teshima

Marina Dubovskova

Ryo-timo

Ron Kamiya

Tetsuya Hasegawa

Ryota Furukawa

Shunsuke Matsuo

Atsushi Ikariya

Chisato Kawaguchi

Hiroko Yaguchi

Hanako Enomoto

Tomomi Yabuki

Rie Maehara

Kazuya Sako

Akiko Kazato

Osamu Ii

Shihomi Kaneko

Atsushi Satomi

Yuta Chimoto

Kaori Anmi

Ryutaro Ueda

Sadayuki Arai

Mika Nishimura

Kenji Tamaki

Takanori Tanaka

Yasuomi Kishi

Sonomi Sugimura

Miyuki Nakayama

Tsukasa Kakizakai

Anri Maeda

Sachiko Yajima

Kumiko Numata

Kazuhiko Yabumoto

Tomohito Taira

Ryusuke Chayama

Toshiyuki Shitamori

Kayoko Ishikawa

Nahoko Kosugi

Kenji Saikai

Kenji Nishikawa

Noriko Onishi

Satoshi Mori

Yasue Sosogi

Yui Ushio

Hideki Araki

Nana Yamaishi

Eiji Tsuchida

Sunao Chikaoka

Manabu Ohashi

Kazuhisa Nakamura

Kim Sang-min

Ryota Sakaguchi

Sun Jialong

Lee Min-bae

Yoshihiro Miyajima

Masato Takeuchi

Naoki Hiramura

Kyoko Nakajima

Michiru Oshima

Daisuke Mataga

Akira Yamaoka

annin dofu

Akiko Inoue

Hidekazu Akui

Natsuki Wada

Estelle Micheau

Michio Nakagoshi

Hiroki Wada

Tomoyuki Sakurada

Hiroyuki Suzuki

Sergei Skripka

Tom Nagae

Takeo Yamagishi

Shinobu Yoshioka

Ryosuke Inagaki

Animation

Science Fiction

Adventure

Drama

サカサマのパテマ

Purple Cow Studios Japan

STUDIO RIKKA

Asmik Ace

Good Smile Company

KADOKAWA

Directions

Japan

Patema Inverted is a film about a split world where gravity points in different directions. This affects people, objects, and even natural stone. Wherever an object was created decides which direction the object falls. Of course, without some kind of protection, objects and people can fall into the sky. 

That's the concept. As a concept, it's incredibly interesting. The gripping moments, awesome actions scenes, and interesting animation sequences have limitless potential. This movie fills that potential and does a fantastic job of executing the concept in a way that keeps things interesting.

Unfortunately, that's one of the only things the movie did exceedingly well. The pacing of the movie was strange. It started rather slowly until some revelations by the characters drew us into the action. The film takes a large amount of time to introduce us to Patema, one of our protagonists. While this is a good thing, Patema isn't an incredibly interesting character. She's the Chief's daughter, sure, but that only comes into play for a few lines of dialogue. She has some really emotional scenes that just don't feel as emotional as they should because the character depth isn't quite up to snuff.

In addition, Age, the other protagonist, doesn't get the same treatment Patema does, at least not right away. Until later in the movie, the only things we really know about Age is that he isn't happy with the authoritarian nature of his school/government. 

The antagonist of the movie and the rest of the supporting cast are all extremely one-sided: dumb, in love, mindless goons, etc. 

While the pacing is inconsistent and the movie starts off slow, once it hits its pace, it really takes off. The two protagonists really help develop each other, although the short amount of time it takes for each one to be willing to sacrifice their lives for the other is much too short. 

Altogether, the plot is a means to an end. It is designed to force the characters together so their one-sided-ness isn't nearly as glaring as well as to give us a reason to see the world. The twist at the end wasn't terribly surprising, but it was executed well.

All in all, the movie was good, not great. The concept was fantastic, but the rest of the movie just held the concept back. It's certainly worth a watch (probably two), but it isn't something I'll make a point to watch at least once a year.

日本語

Patema Inverted

Official Trailer 1