At first glance, “The Stranger by the Shore” sounds seductive. This anime adaptation of Kanna Kii's “L'étranger” BL manga series promises visually stunning imagery: the character designs are reminiscent of Yoshitake Oima's “A Silent Voice,” and the animation too sounds promising under the direction of Ghibli-support Studio Hibari (who had previously worked on “Spirited Away,” “Kiki's Delivery Service,” and “Castle in the Sky,”). Beauty is only skin-deep, however. As gorgeous as the film is, the anime movie is simply boring – and for all the wrong reasons.
“The Stranger by the Shore” revolves around the blossoming romance between two teenage boys on a remote Japanese island. Shun Hashimoto aspires to be a novelist. In the meantime, however, he works at a hospice for local tourists. When he's not writing or working, he watches over his next-door neighbor Mio. Shun fusses over him constantly; he sneaks him snacks from the hospice, invites him to dinner, and goes out of his way to greet him on their walk to school. Due to familial circumstance, however, Mio leaves for the mainland halfway through high school. When Mio returns, the two have totally changed: Mio is poised to pursue his lover, whilst Shun is more closeted than ever. As a result, the next few months together are as painful as they are exciting. As Shun's internalized homophobia and parental pressures grow, Mio finds that it is he — not Shun — who has to take the lead.
The slow-burn story line blooms under the careful eye of director Akiyo Ohashi, who had previously worked with the art departments of scenic anime like “Kino's Journey” (2017) and “Hakumei and Mikochi” (2018). The film is pretty in the same way that Makoto Shinkai or Kyoto Animation is pretty. The mix of watercolor and digitally painted backgrounds glow under computer-manipulated lighting. Water refractions and sunsets flood the frames, illuminating even the simplest strand of hair with gold.
At the same time, the high-budget animation is a double-edged sword. The production is so gorgeous that the eye delights in the silver screen — but by the same token, wanders a little too far from the story. The director remains in hot pursuit of the plot whilst the stills beg the viewer to linger. Here, Ohashi's directorial naivete shows. The film is so richly decorated but each scene gets so little screen-time. The movie, as a result, simply feels rushed.
It truly is a shame then that the stills do not merit more substance. The film simply glides through bullet-pointed plot highlights in a mere 58 minutes; any sense of atmosphere is lost in the limp voice-acting and the even more dead script. The would-be inclinations of sexual tension and psychological subtlety are lost in the relatively unimaginative story line. The film feels bare bones; it is as if the writers wanted to speedrun the subtleties of falling in love to have the two bumble awkwardly into having sex.
The characters suffer as a result. With the lazy allocation of “top” and “bottom” personalities, the film seems more inclined to follow tropes than it does explore its own characters. It's extraordinarily difficult to identify, let alone empathize, what each character feels beyond the general frustrations of being gay. The visuals may echo a Shinkai-esque melodrama (it really pays tribute to the romantic resistance in “Garden of Words” (2013)), but the film does the bare minimum to explore the characters' unique interiority. Everything is only ascribed to situational circumstance – and not to their individual selves.
Admittedly, this makes Shun and Mio's sex scene possibly the most entertaining part of the film. It is the one moment where their feelings are not explicitly expressed; indeed, it is the one moment where it does not feel like a forced regurgitation of their personality for an external audience. This is the one moment where the writers indulge in show, not tell; where their actions speak louder than the maddeningly dull script. For once, Shun and Mio emerge beyond BL stereotypes to become more human selves.
Overall, “The Stranger by the Shore” is sure to garner praise. The film truly is eye-candy; it is rare to find such an explicitly queer anime film on such a high budget. One closer look, however, should tell the viewer that the film is more performative than it is true. It is a drama made for the sake of drama – and without, paradoxically, any of the gut-wrenching drama that it was written to come with.
“The Stranger by the Shore” is now available to stream on Funimation.
