In a movie, summer is a borderline magical season. The long days full of sunshine are the backdrop for tales of friendship, and how children face the realities of one day leaving their innocence behind. Atsuko Ishizuka’s Goodbye, Don Glees! is a welcome addition to the genre. It’s a delicate tale about three friends embarking on a late summer adventure, playing with magical realism while also grounding itself in genuine teenage anxieties, proving to be a charming ode to youth itself.
Goodbye, Don Glees! follows three teenage boys: Roma (Natsuki Hanae), Toto (Yuki Kaji), and Drop (Ayumu Murase). They’re the members of the Don Glees Club, initially formed by Roma and Toto when they were in elementary school. The boys have a hard time fitting in with their peers and find comfort and friendship with each other. Toto has returned from his first school year away from the town, and the club plans to have their own fireworks ceremony, a yearly tradition since they are never invited to the grander one the town puts on. Drop convinces Roma to purchase a drone to record the festivities. On the evening of the ceremony, their fireworks malfunction and fizzle out, and Roma loses control of the drone. That very night, a wildfire sparks and ravages parts of the forest. The Don Glees Club is blamed for the fire and they’re branded juvenile delinquents by the teens in town. Desperate to prove their innocence, they track down the fallen drone’s location and embark on a voyage to find it, hoping the captured footage can clear their names.
Goodbye, Don Glees! boasts dazzling animation. It takes simple locations and turns them into otherworldly sights. The trees of the forest swish around like a massive sea, and rock formations building up into towering waterfalls look almost like looming castles. The lighting is lush and vibrant, bathing every scene in a rich golden color that creates a painterly feel. The character designs are not especially stylized, but every so often a comedic beat allows the three boys to break out of the rigidity of realism. They have large, goofy smiles and gangly limbs, making for cute bits of slapstick.
The stunning animation helps bolster what could otherwise be called a more average entry in the “coming-of-age” genre. There are moments where the screenplay is genuinely inspired, finding a balance between the quirky innocence of boys playing in the forest and the way teenagers are forced to figure their entire lives out at increasingly younger ages. Sometimes, though, the screenplay can feel a little didactic as the boys talk through their anxieties and dreams. But again, it’s not all a loss. The performances vastly improve even the most cringe-inducing lines. Yuki Kaji as Toto, especially, delivers the most compelling performance. He wrestles with the weight of expectations placed on his small shoulders while also finding the strength to be vulnerable with his dearest friends. His sulky voice often breaks into childish glee, humanizing him as a well-meaning teenager, not at all the dour know-it-all he appears to be at first.
If the film has a major weakness, it’s the character Drop. Older viewers who aren’t new to this genre and its tropes will recognize the role he plays in the story almost immediately. It’s not extremely grating, mostly because Ayumu Murase expertly toes the line between naive charm and biting wit. He’s a newcomer to the club, and there’s a mystery to him that Roma and Toto can’t quite crack. He’s not a perfect golden child, though. He’s impulsive and brash, sometimes even rude. In short, he’s a realistic teenager. Nonetheless, he falls into some tropes that make the story a bit limiting as it progresses.
There are a lot of themes at play here: fear of the unknown, the weight of a family’s expectations, the whimsical yearning for adventure and purpose. Not all of these find very clear end-points. It makes sense, as being a teenager is incredibly messy. However, what at first seems like a more grounded exploration of these topics becomes a simpler tale by the film’s end. The screenplay does away with some of the more interesting ideas in favor of a harder turn into magical realism. It’s not uncommon for films of this genre to veer into this style, but the film teeters. It seems almost unsure of itself, unwilling to become too magical, but still grasping at some incredibly unrealistic plot beats towards its conclusion.
Again, what makes it all go down so much smoother is just how beautiful it is to look at. The film may firmly take place in the real world, but like the eyes of the child, every frame is full of wonder. Mountains loom like glittering green giants, airplanes soar through the skies like dragons, and gushing waterfalls seem to rain liquid gold from up high. From the visuals alone, it seems like Ishizuka is compelling us to take in what already exists in our world as enough magic to propel our dreams far beyond the self-imposed limits of childhood. It’s a shame the screenplay doesn’t do more to support that reading, but there are glimpses of it that peek through some of the contrivances present at the film’s conclusion.
Like a restless teenage boy, Goodbye, Don Glees! is clumsy and uncertain but no less well-meaning and joyous. It’s far from perfect, but it’s tender and incredibly sincere, even if it sometimes goes a little too far into a saccharine cutesiness. It’s as uneven as the path Roma, Toto, and Drip venture out on, but it’s a rewarding journey nonetheless.
