The selfless love, the sacrifice, the masking of your own anguish to protect the child from sadness that only a parent could feel. Maquia is tasked with raising this child as her own, and she does a magnificent job at showing the trials and tribulations of a single mother trying to raise a child by herself. In a different setting this story could be told as a hackneyed romance, but instead Okada weaves a much more intimate tale of love. The opening introduction has the great elder of the lorph people warning Maquia about not loving anyone outside the tribe, as she is destined to watch them grow old and die, leaving her with a broken heart. A human who is destined to grow old while she still says the same. A young immortal (ish) girl gives her heart to a human child. Maquia: When the Promised Flower Blooms seems straight forward and predictable at first.
Especially with the Mezzate king looking for more lorph to breed with his son, as their initial experiments have failed. As Ariel grows up they have to shift the narrative of their relationship, moving from mother, to siblings as Maquia keeps her disguise in check. As you could guess, Maquia is cursed with her long age and never aging features, so the only way to keep her young child (whom she named Ariel) safe is to move around every few years. Filled with compassion Maquia picks up the child as her own and does her best to raise it as any natural mother would. Inside is a young human baby that is clinging to it’s dead mother. Barely able to get up and get moving, The young lorph child sees a hut that was beset upon by bandits. Her home is gone and the only thing she has left is survival. When she wakes up, Maquia realizes that there is no going back. The place ransacked and everyone slaughtered, the only one seemingly left behind is Maquia, who only escaped due to the fact that a rampaging dragon carried her off by accident. It seems that the king of the Mezzate wants to breed lorph blood into his bloodline so that their next generation of children will be long lived like the peaceful Elvin beings. A young girl of 15 years old (which is barely a newborn for these “lorph”, as they are known), Maquia is shyly poking her nose into what it means to be one of her kind, when the nation of the Mezzate (humans riding ancient enslaved dragons) come for the females of the lorph tribe. They are blessed/cursed with incredibly long life, spanning hundreds of years, which allows them to peaceably record the passing of time and weave into intricate cloth that tells the history of the world.
Maquia (Manaka Iwami) is part of a legendary race of long lived Elvin type beings who are known as the departed tribe. A classic fantasy tale on the outside, but a wide sweeping allegory on the other hand, delving into the pain and suffering of single mothers, the true meaning of love and parenthood, and elements of bigotry and the evil tendencies of man blended into one jaw dropping tale. Maquia: When the Promised Flower Blooms is nothing short of breathtaking though.
#Maquia when the promised flower blooms full movie english tv#
HOWEOVER, much of her success has been with writing for dozens of Anime series, and she had only directed 3 small short films, so the leap away from TV and into feature film making is new territory for the legendary writer. I had heard absolutely fantastic things about Mari Okada’s latest film, and have always been a fan of hers considering that she is able to hold an unprecedented amount of creative control over her works (it’s kind of a thing of legend that she has so much artistic control, especially in a world where very few Anime directors/writers that are women exist), and due to the fact that this was labeled as her best film yet. I’m always pleased to see more Anime come from Shout Factory, but I am even more pleased at the fact that this latest one is not another Masaaki Yuasa film, or something from Studio Ghibli (not that either of those is a negative thing, I just have been wishing for a little bit more variety from the boutique studio, and variation is the spice of life).
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