Around the time Weathering with You is set to air in local theaters, something else was also airing around the same time in the US. It's not as popular as Makoto Shinkai's latest scenery porn film, it's colourful, it's loud, it's hammy, it's - PROMARE. It's a crime for it to not be aired in Malaysia I swear my countrymen have no tastes and don't know how to appreciate a good hammy movie (among other things). It's all over my twitter timeline, people in the US going to see it 5 times, 15 times, 24 times! The US gets extra showings because of its popularity, Japan just recently stopped airing it since its premiere in May and there are still showings in Taiwan!!! For the first time I wanted to pour my heart and soul and money onto a movie I really want to see and it's. not. AVAILABLE! I wanted to wait for the blu ray to release in February 2020 but I caved. I needed to see it. I need to experience it. Even though it's not in a theater. I'll still buy it when it releases so don't worry.
Studio Trigger's latest masterpiece with Hiroyuki Imaishi as director and screenplay by Kazuki Nakashima, with these two combined forces you know the movie is going to be a piece of work. Cherry on top? Music by Hiroyuki Sawano. This combo is blowing my mind even before I saw the movie and it still blows my mind to this day. Featuring VA who worked on KLK and Gurren Lagann and a few celebrities, this... is just nuts. You'll have to forgive me if I go off the rails at certain points.
To describe this movie in one word: firefighters. That's it, that's the whole premise. A supernatural event 30 years prior to the movie caused people to gain the ability to control flames. These mutants are labeled as burnish. The Mad Burnish is a terrorist group of burnish set things ablaze as they please. Our protagonist is Kamina look-alike firefighter idiot Galo Thymos, who walks around shirtless all the fucking time. He works at Burning Rescue (Promepolis fire department) as their newest recruit. Aaaaaaaand... a fire breaks out at Kray Pharmaceuticals. So the idiot goes firefighting with the team (Captain Ignis, Varys, Remi, air support Aina, and tech dev Lucia) with all his hammy flair and burning firefighter soul. He encounters the Mad Burnish leader and top bosses during the rescue mission, and using the matoi tech developed by Lucia, takes all three of them down.
The leader of Mad Burnish is Lio Fotia, a leather-clad kid who gave me extreme flashbacks to Yuri Lowell's introduction in Tales of Vesperia. He and his two subordinates get arrested when Freeze Force arrive, a anti-terrorist body that works for the governor. Galo is labelled a hero by the masses and was awarded a badge by the governor of Pomepolis Kray Foresight, Galo's savior and idol, who also happens to have nice tidd-(gets slapped). The team celebrates by getting pizza at their favorite place and dishes out exposition. Aina's sister Heris is working there as the lead scientist of something, but Aina's not too sure of it herself. Suddenly Freeze Force arrives unannounced and arrests the pizza maker, just because he's burnish. The owner was also arrested for not turning over a burnish. Galo is mad that he can't do anything to help an innocent, so he rushes off with his bike to cool off.
Meanwhile, Lio and his subordinates Gueira and Meis get thrown into ice jail housing other terrorists and some innocent burnish, all of them covered in bandages, some even in the verge of dying. Lio breaks out of the icy prison and brings all the burnish with him. Galo cools off on a frozen lake while Aina accompanies him. Just as we thought the straight romance is being shoehorned in, Galo notices burnish flames and gives chase. Galo follows the flames into a cave and was promptly knocked out. When he came to, the escaped burnish are having a meal while waiting for transport to bring them away. There he witnesses a burnish dying and turning into ashes while Lio tries in vain to keep her alive. After Lio drops a truth bomb onto Galo, he is left there in the cave to contemplate many things before Aina finds him.
When Galo gets back to Promepolis he confronts Kray about the truth bombs that Lio dropped. Is he secretly conducting experiments on the burnish? Kray's answer: yes. Heris is the lead scientist of this secret migration project of Kray's that utilize the burnish's powers to fuel a portal. However, Galo decides that this project is shitty since it sacrifices so many people, and Kray aint taking no shit from a kid which he secretly despises all the time and condemns Galo to ice jail. Kray also commands Freeze Force to recapture the escaped burnish, which they do. Lio is injected with a freezing bullet so Gueira and Meis shoot him to the nearby volcano to save him.
A week passes. Burning Rescue was informed of Galo's arrest by Ignis, but they sense something fishy is going on. In the volcano, Lio lies there, encased in thick ice. The flames try breaking him out of the ice and Lio awakens in fury, erupting the volcano and heading straight for Promepolis in the form of a dragon. Kray knows that he's getting his ass whopped if he don't do something, launches the project and all the captured burnish burn and scream in agony as their flames are used to fuel the migration spaceship and portal. Galo's cell is destroyed by Lio's rampage and he sees that Lio... is crying???
Galo reunites with the team and launches off in his matoi gear, knocking Lio off his dragon rampage and into Aina's air carrier. Tired of the constant fighting, Aina drops the two on the frozen lake, only for Lio to melt it down and they land on a mofo deus ex machina (no joke). More exposition, Kray is bad, burnish powers are alien flames from a parallel universe called the Promare (name drop!), pain of the burnish can cause the alien flames to burst and destroy the earth. Luckily they have Deus X Machina (name of the mech Galo and Lio are piloting) to stop Kray! Heris overloads the system and the everything goes to shit momentarily.
Kray's big tits are there for a reason, he's a burnish, one even more powerful than Lio. After beating the crap outta Galo and Lio's mech, he flame-throws Galo off the ship's deck and takes Lio to replace the system's core. Lio saves Galo by engulfing him with his burnish flames as he falls. As the portal starts up again, Galo, with the help of Burning Rescue, decked out in his matoi gear, shoots for the system and destroys it for good. Kray tries once more to melt Galo with his burnish flames, but Lio's small flame protects him while the firefighter puts his fist into Kray's face. Twice.
For a firefighting idiot, Galo actually knows how to perform first aid (unlike most fictional characters) and tries to resuscitate Lio with chest compressions, but his body is gradually turning into ash. As a last ditch effort Galo consumes Lio's fire... and performs mouth-to-mouth. The background music Gallant Ones die down, the still stays on for 1, 2, 3... 12 seconds. Lio's body regenerates. He opens his eyes. Galo freaks out. "YOU MADE ME LIGHT A FIRE YOU JERK!"
The Promare wishes to burn, a wish the firefighting idiot and leather kid aims to grant. With the help of all the burnish, Lio protects everyone with his flames while the earth burns, then sending the Promare to the sun to complete their combustion. The Promare, satisfied, leaves earth, and the burnish are no more.
Holy. Fucking. Shit. You wanna know how many times I've watched this? 4 times! I'd do it again and again until I can recite the lines word for word and draw fanart without needing references. It's such a fun movie, it's bright, it's colourful, it's full of adrenaline, the music slaps hard, it's so visually appealing I can't even- and Lio's entrance... LIO'S ENTRANCE! This character just fucking man spreads on his flaming throne with a nonchalant pose and then proceeds to conjure his fucking bike and gestures in such a sensual way to Galo- I literally cannot. Just thinking about it makes me combust like what is the science behind this feeling???? Then Lio speaks through his burnish armor and OH MY FUCKING STARS it's so hot. So very much hot. Remember when I said Lio gave me flashbacks to Yuri Lowell's introduction? He may look feminine but that voice is heavenly and badass... it doesn't help that the VA, Taichi Saotome looks absolutely fricking pretty and can pull off onnagata roles without breaking a sweat I cannot fathom- and the 4DX version of the scene where Lio's armor breaks people reported that he smells like roses what is going on????
Just know that Lio's burnish armor is giving me all kinds of feelings that I don't wanna talk about.
I'm not going to rant about Lio's burnish armor anymore so let's move on to the other aspects of the movie. It has all the ridiculousness and fun of a typical Studio Trigger plot, with big mecha and epic fight scenes put in for bonus points. The colours are bright, the designs are *chef kiss*, what is a ST anime without exaggerated animations and bold lines as well as a dumb but lovable protagonist??? The character designs make no fucking sense but it's anime so it gets a pass. Galo the firefighter going around half-naked? Aina the air support piloting like a pistil on a Franxx? Lucia the tech dev wearing nothing but a bikini top and mini skirt with a modified lab coat? Kray and his impossibly large tiddies (there i said it, damn kray and his tits!) and thicc thighs??? Well it's Trigger so they can do anything!
And if you still don't get where the fuss is... it may not seem like a big deal when I mentioned the kiss of life but it is a big deal. It's standard CPR procedure but Trigger didn't have to do it like that and stop the epic background music to let these two idiots kiss for 20 seconds like the still itself lasts 12 seconds before the movie is like 'ok times up we can show Lio recovering from his imminent death here he's regenerating his hair and arm but make sure Galo's spikes are in frame to show that he's still kissing Lio oh and the music can continue'. Like, Trigger did that. They did that. And believe me when I say they didn't play the no homo card afterwards.
Oh and the music! You can't go wrong with Sawano as your composer. His music can do no wrong. Gallant Ones? Great. ASHES and its variations? Beautiful. Inferno? The gay anthem we didn't think we needed. These are some of the vocal tracks but damn if the others aren't hype as fuck. BangBangBUR!...n? of the opening sequence is chilling as it is epic, Galo's theme embodies the spirit of the far east islands and the instrumental versions of the vocal tracks are just as good. We also have to definitely talk about Lio's banging theme song - Kakusei by Superfly. The song title itself means awakening, which is fitting for the second arc of the movie when Lio goes absolutely apeshit. No one can watch this movie and not be jamming to this song for days! I have a new playlist for my next karaoke session and it involves one fire boi going mahari yuware.
Is it a good movie? Who cares because it's gay babey and we love it!
Now for all the reactions and memes from all corners of the internet...
Everyone in the theater watching that one scene from promare for like the 85757th time pic.twitter.com/GS9J9t6Y7E— Dea 🍓 (@peachfrosty) December 25, 2019
— Gussy 🔥🚒 Vegas 12/27 - 1/02✨ (@Gunmetalr0se) December 23, 2019
my thoughts on promare pic.twitter.com/IREIJ4ypJG— erky!!! jinglin away 🎄 (@microrockets) September 14, 2019
people who can see Promare and then just walk out of the theater and not talk about it for 3 days straight are wild like what’s going on in your head buddy we need to discuss the gay undertones— lio fotia stan account🔥🔥🔥 (@avaritious) December 20, 2019
#promare happy late christmas lol, i put in an unnecessary amount of effort into this thing that youll probably not enjoy but, here you go, take the crack, HAVE A PROMERRY CRACKMAS pic.twitter.com/z5Z2fQ4U2w— Lio's puffy wig, taking kofi comms (@LioWig) December 26, 2019
IM NEVER GONNA DANCE AGAIN pic.twitter.com/Ij4BiFmPb6— （[∂]ω[∂]) @ promare crybaby hell (@mrmochiman) December 19, 2019
(Yes this is how most of us interpreted that scene. Lio is just moronsexual)
And solidarity to all the fans out there who don't have screenings of Promare-
— xforts (@julienforts) October 25, 2019
Here's the amazing song that had everyone singing along in the theater:
And Lio's theme when he goes burnish apeshit:
So if yall would please excuse me I have to rock out to Kakusei for the 5th time today.
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