Kiniro Mosaic: Pretty Days – Anime Movie Review

The franchise continues with a movie release!

(Spoilers in this review)

First of all, it’d be silly to jump into this movie without prior knowledge of the characters involved. If you’re curious about my opinion in regards to the first and second season of Kiniro Mosaic, you can click here or over here.

The movie is told from the perspective of Aya, the girl who I always considered to be popular (among the fans) yet overshadowed. This was a smart move considering how the rest of main characters, aside from maybe Youko, are relatively flat and uninteresting. Compared to the rest of the girls, who seem rather carefree, Ayaya comes across as more grounded and responsible (and prone to worrying about this or that).

As a result, we get to see Ayaya wonder if she’s as close to Shino as she believes (since Ayaya isn’t Shino’s childhood friend like Youko is and Ayaya lacks blonde hair like Alice and Karen) in the present time. There’s also a flashback that primarily focused on the last year of middle school for Ayaya, Shino, and Youko.

Whether or not you find this theme regarding friendship relatable will determine whether or not you find this movie to be dull. I could relate to Ayaya’s feelings from personal experience, but I still was not too engaged with the story despite the fact that Ayaya is one of my favorite characters in this series. I guess my dislike of Shino and how everything caters to her affected my judgement, but I do recognize that this was a nice way to give some insight into the friendship between two girls who have drifted slightly apart.

The camera and framing emphasizes this setup several times throughout the film. There’s the typical “everyone is out of focus and indistinct while I’m by myself” shot.

There’s also this particular moment when Ayaya, Youko, and Shino were checking the bulletin to see if they passed the entrance exam. Ayaya had the number 0069 (no lewd comments, please) whereas Youko had the number 0068 (note the bear on her ticket number) and Shino was assigned the number 0067. 0067 is closer to 0068 compared to 0069. In other words, Youko is closer to Shino compared to Ayaya’s own friendship with Shino.

We also get to see Youko’s mom and Ayaya’s mom, which is a first for the anime series, isn’t it? They’re total babes. Youko and Ayaya have bright futures ahead of them!

The animation is slipshod at times, but that’s just how the cookie crumbles for most slice-of-life shows and is actually expected for KinMoza. Nothing changes even if the show in question is adapted into a movie, it seems! I must note that there’s a new “opening sequence” that’s completely seperate from that of the anime’s yet is structured rather similarly to the first two OPs. Some may call it uninspired; I considered it to be a nice callback.

Overall, I think it’s a decent movie to watch if you’re at all interested in Kiniro Mosaic after finishing the first two seasons. Personally, I’m very lukewarm towards KinMoza so the movie didn’t do much for me.

However, I must give Kiniro Mosaic: Pretty Days props for not being recycled content (even though a good portion of the movie was a flashback, but we had never seen what happened during the flashback prior to this movie). A lot of movies seem to enjoy cramming a season or two of material and then tacking a few new scenes here or there, so I’m glad this movie wasn’t that shameless. Just don’t expect any real sort of closure from this movie. As for the yuri content – it’s there, folks, don’t worry. It’s just not the main focus during these 50 minutes, for better or for worse.