Adam by Eve: A Live in Animation
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Adam by Eve: A Live in Animation
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A Lot or a Little?
The parents' guide to what's in this movie.
What Parents Need to Know
Parents need to know that Adam by Eve: A Live in Animation is a live-action/anime story/music video in which a teen girl must search for her best friend who has abruptly disappeared. It's a surrealistic frenzy of music, teen angst, and bizarre, sometimes violent imagery. A teen girl is bleeding from the blouse of her school uniform while blood drips out of her mouth. A teen girl is shown jumping off of a building. During animated sequences, there's fighting with swords and lasers, and a teen girl is shown killing a large group of one-eyed men in suits. In the midst of the rapid-fire pop lyrics, one song mentions being "all by myself in this room soaked with cigarette smoke."
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What's the Story?
In ADAM BY EVE: A LIVE IN ANIMATION, Aki and Taki are best friends. They are teen girls who bond over feeling like they don't fit in with the other kids at their school. One day while hanging out in a diner, they talk about a dream that everyone seems to be having about one-eyed monsters. When Taki gets up to get beverage refills, she doesn't return. Aki goes off in search of Taki, and led by Taki's voice, Aki joins her in a strange world created by a mysterious being and populated with one-eyed monster-men in suits. This tale of teen angst and unreal adventure in between the realms of dreams and reality is set to the music of Japanese pop music superstar and composer Eve.
Is It Any Good?
This is a frenzy of surreal imagery with teen angst and emotive and frenetic Japanese pop music. Adam by Eve: A Live in Animation is an unrelenting mix of hyper music and psychedelic dream imagery, live-action, and anime. There's a story in this hour-long music video, and while the central plot of a teen girl searching for her missing best friend is easy enough to follow, it's also easy to get lost in the chaos of the visuals and the music.
The music from Eve matches the visual intensity and mood of the story, with brooding teen lyrics that sing of, among other sensitive things, "a traffic jam of feelings" while "all by myself in this room soaked with cigarette smoke." Whether or not these lyrics read like bad teen poetry and/or the sugary lovey-dovey words in the songs that grace the closing credits of anime is beside the point. Somehow, this chaos works, even if (or perhaps especially if) the experience is at times disorienting. While it would certainly help to already be a fan of Eve, for the uninitiated, this is an intense introduction.
Talk to Your Kids About ...
Families can talk about the mix of live-action and animation in Adam by Eve: A Live in Animation. How does the movie combine these two types of storytelling? What are some other examples of movies or TV shows that do this?
What would be the challenges in combining a story with music, and live-action with animation?
How is this similar to and different from other anime and/or manga you've seen?
Movie Details
- On DVD or streaming: March 15, 2022
- Cast: Hanon
- Director: Nobutaka Yoda
- Studio: Netflix
- Genre: Musical
- Topics: Magic and Fantasy, Arts and Dance, Friendship, Music and Sing-Along
- Run time: 58 minutes
- MPAA rating: NR
- Last updated: April 21, 2022
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