This is my 450th completed anime according to MAL Man who would have thought that 2022 would have two anime movies based on singing coming out in the US at the same time? The only reasons I even learned about Sing a Bit of Harmonys existence were that 1. I lurk on Anime News Network every single day and 2. Some idiot on the forum thread for the original announcement took issue with FUNimation coproducing it and was like Ewww FUNis coproducing it? Animes ruined forever The character designs are so conservative and FUNis obviously gonna shove their Western SJW agenda/politics into it...even though the movie hadnt even come out yet and it barely even had a plot summary at that time. I know right? Anyway I found out that this along with Mamoru Hosodas newest movie Belle were being screened in the US around the same time. I couldnt see Belles English dub as it wasnt screening in my area and any showtimes the dub had werent outside work hours. Sing a Bit of Harmony on the other hand was screening outside my work hours and the theater it was showing in while not too close to me was within a reasonable distance. I wound up choosing this over Belle because I was able to see the latter online and in case you didnt see my review of it well...I thought Belle was just okay. It had good ideas but it suffered from being too ambitious and having a lot of convoluted subplots that it didnt try to resolve in a coherent manner. So...nobodys gonna lynch me if I say I think Sing a Bit of Harmony is the better film of the two right? Dont kill me Long story short I actually really liked this one. So whats the story you might ask? In a futuristic world where robots and artificial intelligence are commonplace a young high school girl Satomi Amano has resigned herself to living her life alone and friendless. Due to an incident not too long ago the student body isnt very fond of her and Satomi thinks its better this way. One day a transfer student named Shion comes into her class...and she seems to know Satomi making it her mission to make her happy. Shion proves to be...kind of insane preferring to loudly serenade in public like shes in a Disney musical. Satomi and a few of her classmates find out that Shion is actually an advanced AI robot made to look human and her existence must be kept secret because shes actually a part of Satomis moms big project that absolutely cannot be revealed to the public yet. But thats easier said than done considering that Shion is...well a very chipper AI with no concept of personal boundaries or and is hilariously bad at fitting into human society. So...to put it simply this movie is one part very selfaware Disney musical Im not even kidding one part high school story about teenagers resolving their issues and one part scifi romp. Apparently the director Yasuhiro Yoshiura is very fond of making scifi movies. I admit Im not familiar with his body of work but after seeing Sing a Bit of Harmony I think I want to now because this movie was actually a lot of fun if rather cheesy at times. For one I really liked the animation. Again Im not familiar with Yoshiuras body of work so I cant really compare this to his other movies but from what I did see I thought the animation was very nice and smooth. Character movement was fluid the world the characters lived in actually felt like a slightly more futuristic version of ours without going too overthetop and it really made good use of bright colors flashy light shows and CGI when it mattered. When I say the movie feels like a very selfaware Disney musical I mean it. Shion often breaks out into songs many of which feel very VERY cheesy similar to stuff youd find in Disney movies like Moana The Little Mermaid or more recently Encanto. It does help that the movie gets a lot of comedy from it and the characters react believably to her ridiculous actions Mainly annoyance like any teenager would. It almost reminds me of that one movie Disney made called Enchanted what with how Shion acts like the princess in that while everybody around her is like the New York citizens who are put off by her simplistic naivete. It does help that the movie is very aware of its cheesiness and embraces it and even manages to get some really cute characterdriven comedy out of it at times. And need I mention the awesome soundtrack? Both the background music and the songs are absolute bangers. Also I saw the English dub of this and FUNimation really went all out in dubbing every single song including the end credits I kind of hope the eventual home video release comes with a soundtrack CD with all the dubbed songs just so I can hear Megan Shipman voice of Shion belting her heart out because she absolutely NAILED all of the cheesy Disneystyle songs here. But you cant have a movie without good characters to back it up and I think the movie did succeed on this front especially in regards to the main cast. All of them had good chemistry and while anyone whos not Shion Satomi or Toma didnt get as much depth as they could have gotten they fulfilled their roles nicely. I also very much appreciated that Satomis mother got a good deal of spotlight and was able to help the kids out during the final act of the movie. Yay responsible adults actually helping with the plot There needs to be more of that in anime. I kind of wish Aya could have done more though. I mean I like the subplot she had with Gotchan and how the movie didnt try to make her out to be some cliche snooty alpha bitch character but the later parts of the movie imply she doesnt have the best relationship with her father but nothing is done with it beyond an easytomiss throwaway line thats quickly forgotten about. But I do appreciate the material she did get and how the movie executed it. But I can see people taking issues with Shions overly cheerful saccharine nature even though her behavior makes sense in the context of the movie as shes an AI with a very simplistic worldview. I actually found her just fine as a character as Ive seen other portrayals of characters like her to be far worse. I also thought Satomi as a character is fine too and I like what they did with her here. I also love that Sing a Bit of Harmony used an inuniverse Disney knockoff movie as a really important plot point. Of course Sing a Bit of Harmony isnt a perfect movie by any means. For one the story is pretty predictable and cliche especially during the high school parts and any person whos wellversed in stories like this in any medium can see all the tropes and story beats from a mile away. Thats not necessarily a bad thing as I liked how Sing a Bit of Harmony used them here but this movie has no intention of breaking any boundaries. Secondly I saw this with my dad and he liked the movie though felt a lot of the story seemed too farfetched. I can see where hes coming from and I can imagine others feeling the same way. I personally had no problem with it as I felt the movie made good use of its more restrained scope and didnt try to risk being more ambitious. One thing this movie has over Belle is that Sing a Bit of Harmony knew what it wanted to be kept its focus and didnt try to bite off more than it could chew whereas Belle tried to stuff too many elements into one movie and all of them came out rather halfbaked as a result. However the two movies do share one big flaw: A onenote stereotypical villain character whos just there to be an adversary for the main characters to deal with. To be fair Sing a Bit of Harmonys villain feels better integrated into the movies plot and his motives and purpose actually make some degree of sense but my problem with him is that he reeks of idealistic children bad evil adult society rules from his character design all the way down to his dialogue. Thankfully unlike Justin from Belle this villain gets far less screen time and barely has much impact on the plot. So yeah Im glad I got to see this. Sing a Bit of Harmony isnt going to bring the house down but in these trying times sweet lowkey wholesome movies like this are a much needed balm and this movie really appeals to my inner tenyearold. And now I shall eagerly await the eventual home video release.