Synopsis:
Scheduled to release in 2024, the anime movie “Trapezium” fascinates viewers with an exquisite combination of psychological thriller, sci-fi, and coming of age drama. The film is directed by famed Shinji Aramaki who worked on films such as Ghost in the shell: sac 2045 and Appleseed. The film is set in a future world which has been redefined by technology and artificial intelligence. This film goes deeper into personal identity, societal pressure and the thin line between reality and delusion.
The movie is about a high school girl Yuuki Ishikawa, who resides in a future city with high rising buildings and advanced technological devices. Yuuki is a perfectionist and like all her peers in the elite school, feels constant pressure to study hard and be at the top of her class. But it is as if there is something wrong with her – she seems to be isolated from other people and is constantly lost and feels empty. But things clearly begin to shift for her, as she has a series of disturbing dreams of what Trapezium, a strange place with incomprehensible structures, looks like.
These dreams turn into an everyday phenomenon; an everyday experience that is characterized by the blurring of the inside world and the outer world. As she wanders through the void of Trapezium, Yuki meets such characters as a boy in a mask called Kai. Kai, who seems to grasp the inanity of the world Trapezium, also plays the role of a tour guide, leading Yuki through the maze of metaphorical, hyperspace system and warning her of the threats that lie in the deep recesses of the world. As it is, the young lady spends most of her time in the landscape called Trapezium, she starts doubting her as a person, her feelings, and her reality itself.
The fantasy unknown as Trapezium gives her what her corporeal life cannot offer freedom from its claustrophobic confines and comprehension. She soon finds out, though, that Trapezium is not a mere idle fantasy. No, it is a hotspot for an adjective staggeringly covert organization called Ananmnesis, a daydreaming amusement. This organization has built machines capable of making people explore and fully create new spheres in their consciousness according to a design of their preference. Anamnesis is recruiting students of elite institutions such as Yuki’s, using them as guinea pigs in their quaint little experiments and virtually brainwashing them by staving them in dreams.
Yuki finds out that she along with the other students are actually the subjects in this experiment and their dreams are partly not their own. The further she goes inside Trapezium, the more a darker side of Anamnesis becomes revealed. This side aims to strip the individuality of its test subjects, and makes them ready among other things, perfect workers for a hyper-controlled society bent on organisation. Yuki also comes to know that Kai whom she meets in Trapezium, is also a student, but one who had spent more time in the dream world than Yuki. Kai is willing to make the effort to escape but is also hesitant to throw away the power and freedom enjoyed in the dream world where life is controllable.
In the waking world, Origa’s friends and her family are worried about how Yuki is becoming disconnected from her engagement. Their isolationism increases as they become detached and indifferent to their various studies and efforts to identify any differences from dreams to actual episodes. Even her closest friend, Rina would attempt to help, but contact Reinhardt too, Yuki refuses. She is wary of anyone to get involved in the trouble she was in. Meanwhile, thanks to the ‘help’ of Yuki’s relatives, her ‘family’ contacts with the ‘representatives’ of the organization become closer and closer, and the girl understands well that to get out of Trapezium she will have to fight with the structure herself.
In the last part where the film is really exciting, Yuki and Kai work together and attempt to defeat Anamnesis in the dream world through the summerization technology that imprisoned them. When Yuki and Kai are pitted against the head of the organization, Professor Nishimoto, Yuki has to deal with her worst fears about herself and her ambitions about how some parts of her should not only be social but also tied in with the experiment And for the last time Yuki abandons the enforced school life along with the forced aspects of the dream world and goes whichever way she wants. The ending of the film is somewhat inconclusive because although Yuki rises from Trapezium with a new purpose, the dream world still has an interrelation with the real world. The film does touch on the topics of individual freedom in that it does not simply enshrine the ability to cross over bars, but rather overcomes the psychological and emotional barriers put on people. Cast & Crew: Director: Aramaki Shinji, who is typically associated with works of sci-fi anime, stylizes “Trapezium” accordingly, combining modern animation and deep content.
Writer: Mari Okada, who is known for creating such stirring emotions in her works like Anohana or Maquia: When the Promised Flower Blooms that her fans feel everything in a very raw manner, writes a screenplay that has drama and complexity at the same time.
Voice Cast:
Yuki Ishikawa: Voiced by Kana Hanazawa, she usually plays innocent yet emotionally living characters which is suitable for the character since Yuki transforms through the course of the movie, as well as her character, so is Kana Hanazawa portrayal of Yuki in the movie and many others triangular plot.
Kai: Voiced by Yuki Kaji, famous in Attack on Titan and seven deadly sins anime, portrays a character that is many-layered, mysterious and sensuous, such as Kai, the boy locked away inside the world of Trapezium.
Rina: Voiced by Ayane Sakura, she represents the imaginary towards the real world of Yuki although her character development is on decline as Yuki permanently occupies herself within the dream.
Professor Nishimoto: Voiced by Akio Otsuka he is the actor behind some Japanese animes and due to his deep voice, he plays the role of the main antagonist of the film, which is a violent scientist who can be portrayed as an individual who believes that the ends justify the means and that individualism can be sacrificed for the greater good.
Animation and Visual Style:
“Trapezium” without doubt is a treat to watch. It employs standard 2D animation and CGI in an exceptional manner to emphasize the difference between the real scene and the dream scene. The real world is depicted in lifeless cold colors being the mood of a dystopian society in which Yuki lives. Apart from the monotony of colors in reality, the other world Trapezium is filled with diverse colors and more abstract shapes than the pyramid itself. The fantasy features and dreamlike imaginary emphasize the story throughout the film as it does the viewer due to the tension created within Yuki’s dream worlds, much like Paprika and Inception.
Since Polygon Pictures animated most of these sequences, aided by other independent animation studios including Inspire Studios, LeStylo, and Frame Engine, ‘Trapezium’ is animated by skillful and creative artists. The animators at Polygon Pictures, responsible for properties such as Blame! and Knights of Sidonia, utilize different styles to construct the ever transformative Trapezium as physics and common sense are out of the windows here. People are in the air, buildings are in ruins but can be restored in a second, sceneries alternately fascinate and terrify young Yuki representing the cyclone of emotions within her.
Elements and interpretation of the motion picture:
In its essence, “Trapezium” is the ins and outs of the modern man’s existence: pressures of society, urbanization and collectivization. What Yuki experiences in the film is something that many young people can relate to in a world where success entails following the path other people have set up for you. The dream world of Trapezium is a means to forget about the obligations of the real world, but it is also a false world without any possibility of action.
Relatedly, the “Trapezium” film examines one more aspect of reality. Just as it is in The Matrix and Serial Experiments Lain, the question is posed in “Trapezium” whether the so called real world is actually real or simply an idea manifested in the minds of people. Yuki’s travel through the dream world makes her understand living, making decisions, and becoming a person beyond her school and the project.
Final Thoughts:
The anime film “Trapezium” is among the most thought-provoking and fascinating movies that anime enthusiasts will appreciate in the year 2024. Its breathtaking imagery and staggering backstory, which embodies all kinds of themes of identity, freedom and the nature of the cosmos, is gratefully embraced not only by science-fiction fans, but also by more reflective moviegoers. The movie ends with a cliffhanger, which brings the real-life issues that people deal with to the forefront and encourages one to think about themselves in relation to such issues and so does the emerging genre of psychological anime.
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