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| Overall | Art | Animation | Character Design | Music | Series Story | Episode Story | Reviewer | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rent | 9 | 8 | 9 | 7 | 7 |
 Ggultra2764
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[series:4484#1552] | |
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Josee, The Tiger, and the Fish focuses on a college student named Tsuneo becoming the caretaker for a young woman named Josee who is wheelchair-bound and not allowed to leave the apartment home of her overprotective grandmother. While Josee is initially hostile toward Tsuneo, both gradually bond due to their love for the sea as Josee desires to be an illustrator and Tsuneo studying abroad in Mexico. Do admit I have some mixed thoughts on this film, as I was initially interested in it due to its focus on a physically disabled character with the wheelchair-bound Josee. At least as far as what it does right, the film offers a reasonable amount of fleshing out for both its lead characters exploring their personal lives and goals. It also believably explores the challenges faced by Josee with being wheelchair-bound as she struggles to control her wheelchair on rough terrain like inclines and rough surfaces like sand or uneven pavement, and has to move around using her upper body in her grandmother's crammed apartment since it doesn't provide her the space to move around in her wheelchair indoors. The moral of the film in learning to be more personally independent also is a relatable that serves as character development for Josee and Tsuneo's characters with the former learning to be such later in the film and aiding Tsuneo during a dark point with his character's development. It is also beautifully animated, having its moments of gorgeous animated sequences with Josee's dreams of moving around in the water as a mermaid, Tsuneo scuba-diving, and the artwork that Josee designs as part of her dream to being an illustrator. Far as the film's issues go, elements of its storytelling do have their issues that hamper it to varying degrees. Josee's character is a bit difficult to care for at first since the film depicts her to be like a typical tsundere character as she acts abrasive in early scenes with Tsuneo by making him perform unreasonable requests and verbally lashing out at him, which could impact audience reception to her character. The film also has its logical holes at points with believably exploring the challenges of Josee's everyday living situation as it seemed pretty irresponsible for Josee's grandmother to not provide her the skills needed to be independent and desiring her to be completely isolated from the outside world, as well as the film's attempt to exploring Josee's development in becoming more independent being a bit careless when she's trying to do mundane things inside her apartment without anyone from social services being around to provide proper support where needed. In addition, the story development for Josee, The Tiger, and The Fish is pretty predictable with how its developments play out, all the way down to the use of the children's fairy take, "The Little Mermaid" to relate its story developments with Josee's situation being wheelchair-bound. In short, Josee, The Tiger, and The Fish was a mixed bag for me as far as its handling of its main story with Josee and Tsuneo go. The film has its effective moments of storytelling in exploring the developments of its two lead characters and the challenges faced by Josee due to her disability. At the same time though, the story layout felt rather predictable with the different phases to its developments and has its issues involving Josee related to her character development and personality. Given my mixed thoughts of the film, I'd at least say rent or stream the film first before you consider buying it. Last updated Monday, May 30 2022. Created Monday, May 30 2022. | ||||||||
