Introduction
Hello, fellow adventurers! Blaziker here and today, we are on yet another adventure as we explore five more animated movies of various stories and qualities alike!
The first movie, (S)Kids, is a rock opera focusing on a group of teenagers in high school navigating their last year in high school as they explore their future ambitions. This was a movie that debuted at last year’s Annecy Film Festival as part of the Midnight Screenings category, with music inspired by the Canadian rock band Rare Americans. In fact, Rare Americans themselves released the entire movie on their YouTube channel, which was how I was able to see it. How will this unique rock opera fare?
The second movie, The Rose of the Versailles, based on the remake of the 1979 anime series, takes place during the Marie Antoinette era and focused on a female military commander serving Antoinette at the height of the French revolution. Created by the geniuses at MAPPA, The Rose of Versailles dropped onto Netflix, and it looks like yet another great MAPPA animated movie, but will it meet these expectations?
The third movie, Fureru, sees three childhood friends who grew up together with a strange hedgehog named Fureru that they found on their island, as they navigate more on their friendship as they move on to their daily adult lives in Tokyo with Fureru. Fureru is yet another CloverWorks project, and this studio has produced quite a lot of great animated movies and series for their market. Will Fureru be yet another great work from them?
The fourth movie, Sneaks, takes place in New York City and is about a sneaker on the hunt to find his sister who is stolen by a shady collector. While I had covered many weird animated movies, Sneaks is a weird movie that is ringing way too many warning bells for me to ignore. An animated movie about anthropomorphic sneakers is already very weird, but what makes its potential to be bad is because of the animation studio behind it: Assemblage Entertainment, the studio who had co-produced the Norm of the North movies and most importantly, a movie I absolutely love to hate, Arctic Dogs. Last year, I gave its spin-off movie Johnny Puff: Secret Mission the dishonour as my least favourite animated movie of 2024, but considering this is co-directed by the same director behind 10 Lives, a movie I actually enjoyed, at least it might be salvageable?
The fifth and final movie, The Lost Tiger, focuses on an abandoned Tasmanian Tiger being adopted by a family of wrestling kangaroos, and while on tour, he found a discovery that might lead him back to his real family. The Lost Tiger is the sixth and last movie in the fabled Tales from Sanctuary City series, and with its indigenous roots, this might be the most Australian animated movie in the series. Given how much I loved the previous movie The Sloth Lane, will The Lost Tiger top that?
Without further ado, on to another animation adventure!
(S)Kids
Key Information
- Directors: Les Solis and Lou Solis
- Animation Studio: Solis Animation
- Country of Origin: Canada
- Rating: M18
- Release date: 13 June 2024 (in France as part of the Annecy Film Festival 2024)
Trailer
The Review
As a Singaporean, I know a good deal when it comes to finding things that are cheap and good, in which a product is of good or even very high quality at an affordable price. With that said, it’s rare to find deals like this, and given (S)Kids was released for free on YouTube, that might be considered daylight robbery, because I would be happy to pay cinema tickets to watch it in theatres!
One of the best parts about (S)Kids is how liberating this movie feels in terms of both its writing and its animation style. Regarding the writing, while this is a movie that relies more on its visual storytelling, both that and its actual writing felt very cohesive and captivating, filled with emotional moments between characters and top-tier pacing that kept me hooked to my mobile phone screen from start to finish. It also helped that the characters in this movie are well-developed and each have a distinct and energetic personality, which added to the movie’s shockingly top-tier writing, especially coming from relative unknowns to the animation scene.
As for the animation, while the animation style is not perfect and felt rough around the edges, in a way the weaknesses in the movie’s animation is also its biggest strength, as this movie has a distinct hand-drawn style of animation that breath into the movie. The character and background designs felt very time appropriate and fun for this style of animation, and the animation sequences felt dynamic and energetic, without tiring the audience too much. I honestly cannot fathom how much it costs to produce the animation, but given this was by a small independent animation studio with a much smaller team and budget compared to those of higher quality independent animation studios, the animation is very commendable for its shoestring budget.
The soundtrack, which featured songs from the Canadian punk rock band Rare Americans, are what made the entire movie complete. Each song have different tempos, rhythm and even lyrics to make each moment that featured each song distinct and stand out even more. I am a bit of a rock fan myself, but I have never heard of any Rare Americans song until now, but now that I have heard of the songs, I will admit I am willing to listen to more songs from them. As for my level of enjoyment, for an animated movie made by relative unknowns and released for free on YouTube, this movie had no right to be this top-tier, but somehow, (S)Kids managed to do that. How that was for free and available widely on YouTube when other, way lower quality and more terrible animated movies that I will not name got theatrical releases is one of life’s biggest mysteries.
Overall, (S)Kids is exactly what I wanted to see from future animated movies: animated movies made with passion and dedication to the art form, as well as a great story and inspiration to tell, not animated movies made out of obligation with no soul and dedication to writing a good story or craft an animation style that the studios can declare their own. This honestly puts most animation studios that continue to produce commercialised and lacklustre animated movies to shame, because (S)Kids is as creative and liberating as it is from a truly independent animated movie.
Blaziker’s Hot Sauce Rating
The Rose of Versailles
Key Information
- Director: Ai Yoshimura
- Animation Studio: MAPPA
- Country of Origin: Japan
- Rating: NC16
- Release date: 30 April 2025 (on Netflix)
Trailer
The Review
Considering this is a movie remake of a classic anime series and that its Letterboxd chart is not the most promising, I was faring the worst for The Rose of Versailles, but after covering it on Netflix, I honestly like it but there are of course some issues that was holding the movie back.
If I were to be honest, even without watching any episode of the original anime series, a major issue I had with this movie was the pacing, as this movie felt it went a bit too fast, resulting in a story that lacks enough depth for me to care about some elements of the story and characters. Even though there were some development in the major characters throughout the movie, with is close to two hour runtime, the movie felt unsatisfying because of its breakneck pacing.
Another issue I have with this movie is that the movie felt more like a box ticking exercise, where it seems the writers and animators were ticking the right things to do in the writing and animation as it goes along. This resulted in writing that has all the needed elements to have a great story, and the execution of this movie’s writing is solid; it also resulted in some gorgeous animation sequences that felt timeless and of course, time-appropriate for a movie set during the French revolution, but besides these two elements, the movie did not go far enough to stand out with some unique elements that make them stand out compared to other anime movies.
Don’t get me wrong; the animation is top-notch and the musical numbers are well-composed, but unfortunately, The Rose of Versailles felt like the same old, well-executed anime movie that does not have special touches that make them stand out. It is not an issue for a well-run animated movie that is solid all things considered, but in 2025, with the quality of animated movies getting better and better, it is important for movies to stand out and unfortunately, it just lack the special touch to be great, which is honestly a shame.
Blaziker’s Hot Sauce Rating
Fureru
Key Information
- Director: Tatsuyuki Nagai
- Animation Studio: CloverWorks
- Country of Origin: Japan
- Rating: PG
- Release date: 4 October 2024 (in Japan)
Trailer
The Review
Compared to The Rose of Versailles which felt like a box ticking exercise, Fureru is a much more enjoyable animated movie that uses the human emotion to its advantage, even if it require some build up for the entire movie to blossom in the final act.
Fureru tackles human friendships and emotions in a broader light with its mythical hedgehog creature, but it resulted in some of the my most favourite character development of any movie this year. With the development of Aki (Ren Nagase), Ryo (Ryota Bando) and Yuta (Kentaro Maeda) and how their friendship was tested throughout the whole movie, the movie felt very comprehensive as we see their character dynamics clash and harmonise when needed. It also helped that this movie felt well-paced and is genuinely hilarious at times, with its jokes thankfully not overstaying its welcome.
Additionally, the animation is fantastic, being of high quality and with some great dynamic animation sequences. The usage of colouring in the character and background designs is great, especially the night time sequences, and I had a great time with the movie’s animation overall.
The other elements are equally as great, and as for my level of enjoyment, I was in a tired state at the beginning of the movie, but by the end, I felt energised over how fun the movie was. Fureru is the type of animated movie that acts as a good reset if you need a movie break, and Fureru fulfills that purpose very well.
Overall, I have little complaints about Fureru, if any at all. It is not a special type of movie, but what Fureru offers is a great movie about friendship and character dynamics that has a great execution as well. Let’s hope Fureru does not get buried by other top-tier animated movies coming our way later this year.
Blaziker’s Hot Sauce Rating
Sneaks
Key Information
- Directors: Rob Edwards and Christopher Jenkins
- Animation Studio: Assemblage Entertainment
- Country of Origin: United States, United Kingdom and India
- Rating: PG
- Release date: 18 April 2025 (in United States)
Trailer
The Review
Last year, I gave eight animated movies a rating of “Extra Mild” or “No Flavour!”, the two lowest ratings on my Hot Sauce Rating, and it took March for the first movie to be given either of those ratings. This year, I only need to wait until May to find the first one, but if I were to be honest, given this was by the same animation studio behind Arctic Dogs, were you expecting this to be of quality at all? Nope!
Forget about Sneaks already have a super bizarre concept about talking sneakers that I myself still did not vibe with, even as someone that watched a lot of movies with weird concepts anyway, but what is even worse than the concept is the execution! I would be bizarrely enjoying it if the writing is at least passable enough, but my issue with the writing is that none of the story makes sense! The writing is both boring and laughably horrendous which makes the plot very nonsensical, the pacing is all over the place and the characters are unfunny! In fact, if you told me this is a rehash of Arctic Dogs from the same animation studio, I would believe you, because not only is the writing and characters really bad, but the unnecessary celebrity voice acting is flat!
Speaking of Arctic Dogs, remember in my review of it where I was ranting about the inconsistency of the animation quality and the piss-poor rendering? Well, take what I said about how bad the animation in Arctic Dogs is and apply it to the animation quality in Sneaks, because not only is this movie very poorly rendered just like that cold brew, but the character and background designs felt bizarre! Apart from the cool and stylised opening credits, everything else look very cheap and mockbuster quality, filled with animation errors and inconsistencies galore and poor stylisation choices. One thing that makes stylised CG animated movies more exciting to watch is not just the difference in frame rates and 2D elements, but also how consistently fun and top-quality those stylisation choices are; here in Sneaks, the stylisation choices felt super inconsistent and poorly executed, which adds to the already cheap-feeling animation, especially one for meant to be released in theatres. Given this movie was made on US$30 million, I suspect most of the budget went to the celebrity cast and not to the writing and animation quality, which would not be surprising given Arctic Dogs has a US$50 million budget and have all the exact issues Sneaks have.
The only redeeming quality about Sneaks is that the soundtrack is surprisingly decent. Having legendary music producer Mustard as the movie’s main producer helps matters as his music input softens the blow for me, fitting into the New York hip-hop vibe this movie has should be a simple task for the legendary music producer behind basically so many top-tier songs, and he cleared the low bar with flying colours. However, the marketing is also non-existent especially given the trailer was only released about three weeks before its theatrical release, and if the purpose is to hide its atrocious quality as much as possible, the marketing team succeeds in doing that job.
As for my level of enjoyment… what did you expect? I hated this movie! I had been trying to move away from these types of terrible animated movies that serve to convince moviegoers to not see animated movies in theatres, and Sneaks is an embarrassment to the animation quality. Obviously, I expected the quality to be this bad from Assemblage Entertainment, but honestly, I am just dumbfounded by its existence.
In conclusion, if you had not guessed it by now, skip this movie. Sneaks is really bad and is an absolutely sole-less animated movie that does not deserve any air time, pun intended. In fact, any animated movie on this Rundown is worth seeing, which would be spoiler alert considering the next animated movie coming up on this Rundown. Needless to say, avoid it at all costs!
Blaziker’s Hot Sauce Rating
The Lost Tiger
Key Information
- Director: Chantelle Murray
- Animation Studio: Like a Photon Creative (with Cosmic Dino Studio)
- Country of Origin: Australia
- Rating: PG
- Release date: 27 February 2025 (in Australia)
Trailer
The Review
After all the complaining about Sneaks earlier on, thankfully this provides a higher chance for the next movie after Sneaks to be way more enjoyable, but even knowing that fact, The Lost Tiger somehow manage to do something I did not expect from a Tales from Sanctuary City movie: emotional, and that was exactly what The Lost Tiger did to me.
Before I go on, just to provide context, I am from Singapore which used to be a British colony, so I had some knowledge about some of the bad stuff the British did during their colonisation efforts in the past. This is especially so for Australia where this movie takes place given their strong connections with their Aboriginal culture. It would be easy to mess up telling that heritage in this movie, but after seeing this movie, The Lost Tiger somehow managed to made me emotional about that aspect, and I am not Australian, mind you!
Sure, the story itself is quite simple and easy to execute, but rather than resting on that concept, the writers at Like a Photon Creative took their time to integrate Australia’s Aboriginal roots into the movie in a way that is simple to understand for its family audience while at the same time develop this story very well for those that wanted to understand more about Australia’s rich Aboriginal culture, resulting in perhaps the most Australian feeling animated movie ever created. As such, not only was the story about an adopted Tasmanian Tiger (whose species are extinct in real life) in a family of wrestling kangaroos culturally rich, it also feel very authentic to the Australian culture.
Besides that, the writers also did not forget about the other aspect of the movie’s writing, and while it has a slightly lesser impact than the series’ previous movie The Sloth Lane in terms of its family connection, the characters are still a lot of fun. Teo (Thomas Weatherall), the series’ first and only main male protagonist, felt very genuine as someone from one culture who ends up in a family that adopted him and as the movie forges ahead, you start to explore layers about his personality as he finds his way back to where he is from. You are with him and his sidekick Plato (the wonderful Rhys Darby whom I fell in love back when he voice acted another well-loved character in 2019’s Mosley), a cleaner in a museum who desperately wanted to join a club he was a fan of, who too also has an identity crisis of trying to fit into his own passion despite being rejected by the same club. Plato is also one of the funniest supporting characters with his comedy not being too much for this movie, although to be fair, Darby is a natural when it comes to comedic side characters.
This movie also has some exciting action and adventure which helps thanks to its on-pacing and voice acting performances, including Teo’s adopted parents Red (Jimi Bani) and Kara (Nakkiah Lui), and the movie’s villain in Quinella (Celeste Barber) who excels in her role as a representation of past colonisation that has robbed indigenous cultures of past countries. Hence, the movie might be yet another family-friendly foreign CG animated movie, but unlike those movies I perceive some of them, including the terrible ones, as commercial products, The Lost Tiger felt like an important story that was crafted with a lot of care.
As for the movie’s animation, just like with The Sloth Lane, the animation in The Lost Tiger is the same top-quality animation with a unique-feeling stop-motion feel that felt more hand-crafted than computer-generated, the character and background designs have more detailing and texture compared to most family-friendly foreign CG animated movies, and some of the animation sequences, particularly the wrestling sequences at the beginning of the movie, felt very dynamic and action-packed without cheapening the overall experience. This is just a well-crafted animated movie that would not be out of place in a mainstream animation studio.
The score and soundtrack take inspiration from Australia’s Aboriginal music, and uses traditional instruments from its Aboriginal culture. You can hear the sounds of the didgeridoo easily in the background tracks and clearly felt well-crafted. As for my level of enjoyment, you had no idea how much I had been waiting for something like The Lost Tiger, especially since I had been covering the Tales from Sanctuary City series since last year. Now that I had finally covered The Lost Tiger, it felt like my adventure there was a fulfilling experience, having witnessed stories in the movie that felt connected in a certain manner, but at the same time felt distinct.
As mentioned, I am Singaporean, but I have roots in China, and there was one time when I got to climb up to my ancestors’ tombstone on top of a small hill for the tomb sweeping festival and witnessing where I am from while enjoying the view of the city from above was an eye-opener. It shows my deep connections with my family heritage, and The Lost Tiger reminded me that we are all connected in a certain manner, and that was why I felt so emotional by the end of the movie.
I got to say, while all good things must come to an end as The Lost Tiger is the final movie in the Tales from Sanctuary City series for now, in a way, I am just as excited that the series ended in the most Australian animated movie from them, and I am just as excited to see what Like a Photon Creative will produce next now they get to do more animated movies outside of the series. The Lost Tiger left with such a deep connection that I cannot shake it off, nor do I want to because that is what animation studios need to do. They need to stop producing commercised products that only serve (and fail most of the time) to entertain its target audience, but instead produce animated movies that tell the stories they wanted to share, and The Lost Tiger is a testament to that fact.
Blaziker’s Hot Sauce Rating
Conclusion
While this Rundown has my least favourite animated movie of 2025 so far, thankfully there are more upsides to this Rundown with three very goo d animated movies I can recommend with confidence. It goes to show that inspiration in animation can come from so many places and I am excited to see what is next in the animation scene.
Thank you so much for joining me on this adventure. Speaking of The Lost Tiger, I am not done talking about that movie just yet, because next time, I will be returning back to Sanctuary City to talk a bit more about the beauty of the entire Tales of Sanctuary City series and why it celebrates the Australian identity. Until next time, see you on the next adventure!
