Reviews & Ratings for
On Your Mark More at IMDbPro »

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16 out of 17 people found the following review useful:
Short & Sweet, 6 June 2005

Author: silentcheesedude from Florida, USA

So how could a short, 7 minute anime action/music video get so much attention and high score? Hayao Miyazaki is the answer.

Two futuristic/alternate reality policemen become involved with an unusual prisoner, a girl with wings. Realizing that she must be set free, they set a course of events to free her. No words are spoken by the characters. And no need to sit for 2 hours worth as to why the girl has wings, or why the police decided to do what they do. It would make a great movie, I'm sure, but it's to the point subtlety is what make this interesting, what it's meant to be. The music that plays isn't bad. And Miyazaki leaves his usual trademark with someone flying.

It isn't the most perfect short I've ever seen, but I'm glad I watched. If your a fan of Miyazaki, anime, or anything animated and out of the ordinary, hunt for this.

12 out of 13 people found the following review useful:
Everything you've come to expect from Miyizaki plus more!, 8 May 2005

Author: chadwholovedme from Bristol, Uk

If you Like Hayao Miyizaki's work it's hard not to like this music video. While the music may not be to everyone's tastes I can't say I wasn't enjoying it, plus it would be hard to enjoy on your mark without its soundtrack.

What is most stunning about On Your Mark is Miyizaki's converging of many of his traits and themes. It's great to see Imagery from Miyizaki's Long serialised 'Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind' Manga, Even though that appeared as a film in 1985, we get to see much of what wasn't in the film but was in the Manga. Also familiar are the two leads who aren't too far from his interpretation Of Lupin and Jigen from Miyizaki's Cinematic Debut 'The Castle of Cagliostro'. Present too are so may other touches, not least his depiction of the girl and his love of flight. What is new territory is how the future is envisioned, Many of Miyizaki's Films are set in the past, but On Your Mark is actually stylistically similar to other Anime that being a Blade Runner, Metropolis Dystopia, perhaps a set not too far in the future, whereas Miyizaki's only other future world in Nausicaa is far more sparse and Sombre.

Anyway, On You Mark is a truly wonderful and entertaining piece off work. It all seems too easy?

10 out of 10 people found the following review useful:
6 1/2 minutes that will change your opinion of anime, 9 August 1999

Author: Michael Last (m1last@ucsd.edu) from San Diego, California

On Your Mark is a music video created by Miyazaki Hayao for a song by the popular duo Chage and Aska. It tells a story (of sorts) which is a little confusing, owing to how it does not follow a linear time-flow, and has no dialogue. However, the stunning visuals and amazing sound-effects enable the viewer (even if unfamiliar with Japanese) to create their own story. Definitely more entertaining if you are familiar with Miyazaki's work, as certain motifs (the face of the angel, flight, etc.) reappear from his earlier work.

I frequently show people unfamiliar with Japanese animation my copy of this video to change their opinion of what is possible in animation, which usually helps removed those negative pre-conceived notions people pick up from American animation. I have created a number of anime fans with this method.

11 out of 12 people found the following review useful:
Incredible short anime film, 19 May 2001

Author: Anne (annepackrat) from Pennsylvania

Miyazaki is considered one of the greats of Japanese animation for a reason. This film is a great short piece set to the song "On Your Mark" by Chage and Aska. The only problems with it is that it's a bit confusing due to its two endings. Repeat viewings are recommended.

7 out of 8 people found the following review useful:
Studio Ghibli flexes its muscles...., 23 December 2001

Author: Adrian Wong (adrianwong@blueyonder.co.uk) from London, UK

...and produces a wonderful piece of animation, the visuals are really something to behold even by Ghibli standards. A non linear story is told without dialogue in this 7 minute music video, allied to a catchy song and with an uplifting conclusion this is a brilliant appetiser.

If you enjoyed watching this I urge you to seek out other Ghibli works, however I do believe I'm preaching to the converted...*lucky aren't we*

11 out of 16 people found the following review useful:
Best Short Film. Period., 28 November 2002

Author: Ben from New York, New York

A truly thought provoking and odd experience. The film runs 6mins40secs and has almost as much depth as The Matrix (1999) which runs 136mins10secs. I think that this belongs as a short film and not a feature-length film. You'll get what's happening after about three viewings. I've seen it eight times and it still blows my mind. Show this to anyone who doesn't like anime. Grade: A+

6 out of 7 people found the following review useful:
Emotionally powerful animated film in spite of the song that inspired it. (Spoilers), 4 June 2001

Author: Jeremy Bristol from Plattsmouth, NE

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

Has there ever been a film that so completely overshadows its impetus? (Okay, maybe Casablanca and Star Wars, but who's really counting?) Hayao Miyazaki's animated musical, which only follows the accompanying song (by Chage and Aska, a Japanese pop duo) in the timing of certain events and in the multiple endings (one of the lyrics says something to the effect that "I'll keep on trying until I succeed"), is in many ways his best work. Simple, direct, exciting, with all of his usual motifs (environmental concerns, old-fashioned duty, flight sequences, angels (?--see below), pigs, a short-haired girl, and redemption of humans as a species) packed into just over six and a half minutes, there is nothing included that could be cut and nothing that can be overlooked.

There has been much discussion as to whether the girl is really an angel. While it is widely known that Miyazaki is more or less an atheist (he's a humanist, trusting humans to make their own decisions in this world and not worry about (or worse, make decisions based on) what may or may not be in the next world, such as the cult holding the girl), he never treats religious people with any less respect than others he disagrees with (something I wish other filmmakers would practice, since most of them expect the same respect of their own beliefs). Sometimes, in the case of the comic book version of Kaze no Tani no Naushika (Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind), he depicts some of them with reverence. Even so, I don't really feel that the girl is an angel.

In the Nausicaa comic, there is a legend of a winged apostle (a fresco of her on a ceiling looks extraordinarily like the angel from On Your Mark), who the reader latter discovers may have returned to the earth on several occasions throughout history, when the world was in peril. Spoilers: By the end of the series, though, we learn that everything--plants, animals, Ohmu, even humans--have been genetically engineered or altered to survive in a world contaminated by nuclear war. As it turns out, the winged apostle (the new one being Nausicaa) may well have been a genetic trait, timed by scientists to "go off" every few generations to help them with the pre-designed events leading up to the cleansing of the world. I think that maybe the angel in On Your Mark was the first of these--a prototype version that may have passed into legend by Nausicaa's time, making the music video a kind of prequel to Nausicaa.

Anyway, watch the music video, watch the Nausicaa anime, and read the Nausicaa comics. They are likely all related.

4 out of 4 people found the following review useful:
the simplicity of its message comes through powerfully through the use of Miyazaki/Ghiblis' imaginations, 12 January 2007

Author: MisterWhiplash from United States

It must have been a small but extreme labor of love to make On Your Mark, a short film directed by the great Hayao Miyazaki with his Studio Ghibli crew working at full throttle. It gets right to the heart of the idea in seven minutes through an immediate array of strange but deliriously exciting images, and its story gains momentum by the end. The end, also, is one of the happiest I've seen in Miyazaki's work (if a little fuzzy with an angel flying high into the sky). On Your Mark tells of such a winged being who becomes prey to the horrors of civilization, plague, technology, when she only got there through a tremendous blunder. But when two men finally decide they've seen enough, they go through the security, through the swarms of bio-chemical suited soldiers, and through a desperate escape they make it through the explosions and action.

All through this Miyzaki and his team create small wonders frame by frame, with small details like falling rocks just as fascinating as the large-scale amazements like the 'city' at night in neon, or the shots of the getaway vehicle running along the highway, with the helicopters chasing afterwords. How or why this has happened to the angel is never made clear, but in such an amount of time Miyazaki can only show so much. What comes through best, in the end, is the immense talents of his team, his collaborators who transform such a near fairy tale into a one-of-a-kind show. The music, too, is a curious addition, as I don't think I would've cared for it much taken apart from the animation. With it, the song works on a romantically charged, epic scale (if it were in English, I might've mistaken it for an 80s power ballad). It won't remain as a true landmark achievement for Miyazaki like Princess Mononoke, but if you're already a fan of his &/or Studio Ghibli's works and you can find it (online is the best bet), it's more than worth it, it's a must-see.

4 out of 4 people found the following review useful:
A great anime music video by Miyazaki, 14 March 2005
Author: emasterslake from United States

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

This is Miyazaki's first music video anime short. It's only like 6 minutes long, but it's still considered a masterpiece like his other works. This is also his first anime that's 2-D animated(with the help of computers). There's no dialog besides the singers who are singing in the background.

Pretty much the whole music short is taken place in a time yet to be, it's a sci-fi related short and has some high tech stuff in it. Contains a Flying reference in it like an average Miyazaki film.

Contains repeated scenes just for the flow of music and lyrics. But besides that it's a great music short to see. Might of made a good movie to someone, but I think it's perfect as a music video.

I rate it 8/10. If you want to see it, I suggest internet search till you find a download of it.

7 out of 10 people found the following review useful:
Falling Upward, 24 August 2002

Author: frankgaipa from Oakland, California

The music's forgettable but will have become part of you, once you've replayed "On Your Mark" enough times to decipher it. Bypassing as much as possible of what's already on this page, what struck me, last viewing, was except for very beginning which is really a flash forward to the very end, nothing takes place at ground level. Everything seems to happen in or between towers. Falling's a big deal. Witness the oh no!/yes go! collapse that ends the rescue sequence. Finally the two rescuers are grounded, though speeding forward, and the `angel' appears to fall, though naturally, with as little trauma as imaginable, upward. The hands' release modifies the Sistine Chapel detail, but also echoes many of Robert Bresson's shots of hands.

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