Flavors of Youth: Unfairly judged in the shadow of Shinkai

Netflix’s newest anime, Flavors of Youth, only failed to impress audiences that were hoping for another Your Name.

There’s no point in denying the widely known success of anime creator Makoto Shinkai’s 2016 feature film, Your Name. Released in the U.S. in 2017, the anime romance film grossed more than three hundred and twenty-six million dollars worldwide, making it the most successful anime film of all time. Your Name has even become more popular than Hayao Miyazaki’s 2001 Spirited Away, which won an Oscar for Best Animated Feature. But Shinkai believed fan’s total obsession with the anime romance was “unhealthy,” fearing it would distract audiences from appreciating other great animated works.

Unfortunately, his case was proven accurate with the recent criticism of Netflix’s newly released anime, Flavors of Youth. Made up of three short stories, this animated anthology was the product of Chinese studio Haoliners partnering with Japanese studio CoMix Wave Films, the same studio that produced Your Name. Despite the fact that Shinkai was not involved with the project, having Yoshitaka Takeuch as one of the film directors, in addition to CoMix Wave Films’ involvement with the movie, fans inevitably cast a Shinkai shadow over Flavors of Youth. 

Film critics reviewed that the film fell flat in comparison to Your Name and Shinkai’s 2007 anthology, 5 Centimeters Per Second, an anime film also made up of three short stories. Out of Flavors of Youth‘s three parts, “Love in Shanghai” was favored above “The Rice Noodles” and “A Little Fashion Show” due to it being the closest “replication to the charm” of Your Name.

Audiences craved another love story, and were unimpressed by a young man’s home-rooted love for his grandmother’s rice noodles or the saving grace that a sister’s devotion can be to a model struggling with her aging career. Flavors of Youth is not only a testament to how far we’ve come in animation–from the glistening of a soup dish to the streaks of colors in a night sky–but also to how even the simplest of stories can have a massive impact on individuals and resonate with people in all walks and stages of life.

The disappointment with Flavors of Youth lies not in its stories, with the core message of unity, that we’re all in this life together. The true tragedy and let-down, is that the film failed to impress fans who were ultimately looking for a carbon-copy love story like Your Name, and a Chinese-version of 5 Centimeters Per Second.

It also seems somewhat, incredibly ironic that reviewers believed the narration in “The Rice Noodles” to be excessive, when 5 Centimeters Per Second‘s story lines are carried almost entirely by the narration and inner thoughts of its characters. While Shinkai’s work should be praised for his ability to capture audiences’ souls with his storytelling, it should never distract from one’s ability to notice and appreciate great art.

Flavors of Youth photo via Netflix Media Center

Flavors of Youth photo via Netflix Media Center

The beauty of anime is that no story is exactly the same, and its goal has always been to find different ways to illustrate the essence of humanity. The love of well-made rice noodle soup and the fear of growing old can just as easily stir up emotion as a boy and girl, bound together by love and a cassette tape. The challenge is not allowing for the association of a name to dictate our expectations of a film.

Flavors of Youth is streaming on Netflix, and well-worth a watch for anyone who loves nostalgia, heartbreak and the triumph of embracing both.