Palme no Ki (original) (raw)

I didn’t know about Tree of Palme until it was licensed by ADV. Many of the advertisements gave me the impression that Tree of Palme would be a serious and mature title, despite the childish looking character designs. After watching I was right for the most part, its just I could barely keep awake when watching.

The first thing I noticed and probably most people, was the animation. It is undeniable beautiful and very smooth. Backgrounds in particular were well done and quite nice to look at. I guess since this is a movie the animation is expected to be amazing.... The character designs are reminiscent of Fantastic Children, being fairly simple and childlike. Personally I’m not really a fan of this kind of design but I guess it works. Sadly, the animation and art was the only thing going for this movie.

Tree of Palme has a Pinocchio like story, where a doll goes on an adventure and tires to be more human. However, the story was told in such a confusing manner I needed to talk to my friends to figure out what was going on. Admittedly, when I watched this I was a bit tired however, I doubt it would had made a difference. This was due to the extremely drawn out manner in which they told the story and the fact that the director seemed so obsessed with making the movie pretty. Perhaps the reason I was confused was because I didn’t like/care about the characters.

In general the characters were quite boring and I couldn’t seem to care about Palme. Even worst the characters were extremely inconsistent, acting completely different a split second later. The motivation behind these changes in character was weak...wait was there any motivations behind these changes? I can’t seem to remember anymore.

Perhaps that last line sums up the movie for me. In the end The Tree of Palme was a completely forgettable movie. The story was told in an extremely confusing manner and even worst it was boring. Characters were bland, superficial and inconsistent and the only reason I remember the main characters name is because its in the title of the movie. I would like to talk more as this is easily one of the shortest reviews I’ve written but I can’t seem to remember anything else. Also, the only reason why I didn’t give Tree of Palme a 1/10 was due to the high quality animation.