Nasu: Andalusia no Natsu

8/10 will not recommend.

What a fantastic movie. This is exactly what I was craving in Yowamushi Pedal Season 2. There's no need to create superpower artificial emotion since the sport by nature is such a rollercoaster of hope, despair, and fortunes that change within seconds. Road bike racing is such a dramatic event because so many people are vying for victory, bargaining back and forth in game theory. It doesn't take much to explain these transactions and how they can conform to the strengths of each rider and team. This movie is easily able to introduce the riders Bezal, Zamenhoff, Ciocci, Benengeli, and Gilmore as ... potential victory hunters and how their ideal strategies clash with one another as the finish line grows closer and closer. Unfortunately the same cannot be said about general cycling layout and strategy. They do not explain the strategy of peloton vs breakaway, winds/echelon formation, team sponsor politics, and stage vs overall victory. Thus it's made for already existing cycling fans and is quite unwelcoming to newbies.

Pros

- In 45 min it fits a full cycling story and a family story
- Does a great job at showcasing the drama and unpredictability of racing

Cons

- Doesn't explain shit to newcomers to the sport (should have been a TV series not a shortish movie)
- Very classic presentation. It's from 2003 but feels like from the 90s. Would prefer the hype and voice acting of modern anime.

Summer in Andalusia is a Madhouse movie from 2003 based off a cycling manga called Nasu. It’s about a guy from Andalusia in southern Spain who is participating in the big cycling race that goes through his hometown. The story flits between following the main character cycling and his family watching his race on the big screen, giving us a very vague glimpse into how his family life is and what it’s like living in Andalusia.

The movie has three main goals: Sell you on cycling as a sport, sell you on Andalusia as a place, and connect the two together into the main character’s story. ... On the first two points it does really well. I know nothing about cycling nor any of the tactics that are involved. Like a lot of athletics, I tend to think that there are no tactics beyond just cycle faster than anyone else. Summer in Andalusia definitely sells me on the concept that there’s a lot more going on, between the importance of the following pack and the teamwork involved.

It does all the right tricks to make the concept interesting. Delivering the rules of the race in normal conversations between the characters that also serve as character and world building. Dropping a plot twist 15 minutes after you understand the importance of what just happens, so you get that “oh shit” moment where you realise how dramatic that twist is. By the end, when the characters enter the final straight, you understand the importance of everything so the final few minutes can just be all exhilaration and drama and random references to Didi Senft (google it) and you don’t need characters explaining to you what’s going on. It’s fantastically well paced and well told.

Arguably one place the movie doesn’t do so well is characterising the key rivals in the race. The main character is the only one who seems to have a personality. This isn’t much of an issue because the battle is mostly within the main character’s own mind. It’s all part of this larger theme of the main character trying to escape his family life and Andalusia in general, but coming back and realising he is at home here and fighting that feeling. It’s not as well worked in as the rest of the story, since it leaves it a little too vague by the end and I’m not really sure what the main character achieved. He acknowledges his homeland of Andalusia as not being completely terrible I guess?

The movie does a really good job of selling Andalusia, but when I say that I don’t mean as a wonderful place all the time like Neo-Venezia or something. They actually paint it as a sweltering, barren, near-desert place, but one that the people who live there are really proud of regardless. There’s a lot of attention to detail with the backgrounds and setting the tone of the land. It’s really well directed in general and has the feel and look of a Ghibli movie. This is probably because Summer in Andalusia basically is a Ghibli movie. It’s directed by the animation director of stuff like Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away and is animated almost entirely by Ghibli staff too. Clocking in at barely 45 minutes, it’s over pretty quickly and paced really well. Comes with my firm stamp of recommendation.

I’m gonna be honest here, I really only watched this to claim a profile badge, so it’s not like there’s really much to say about it. Of course, this review needs to be longer. So uh.. hmm. Well, I’d say most of the movie was boring. I tried getting into it, but since I didn’t really understand it at all, I was just kinda waiting for it to end and nothing more.


I know people are gonna somehow say that this, was of course, actually very good, and that it taught them about the sport. But if you really wanna know, it was just guys ... riding bikes in the desert for 25 minutes, with *some* scenes of actual interesting things happening sprinkled in-between. I only really ended up liking the ending, which was around the last 10 or so minutes of the film.


I wouldn’t even say the movie is bad, as it *was* enjoyable, but just.. mediocre. If you’re a fan of bike riding sports, and actually care about this sort-of thing at all, then I would say this movie is for you specifically. But it’s not like anyone’s gonna read this anyways if this thing came out 21 years ago. It was just boring as hell for me because, once again, I had no idea how any of this stuff worked. If you’re a guy like me that just clicked to watch this show to get a little event done, I don’t even blame you. I’m just telling it by how it is.


The main character, Pepe, works as a team member for the other racers of his biking team. Giving them food, water, helmets, etc. But apparently something just snaps in him that makes him wanna win it all for himself, and that’s what the movie is really centered around. And yet, it still just wasn’t anything special. Nothing really captivated me or convinced me to continue watching. I just sat through it because I knew I had to.


After the 46 minutes of my time were up, I was just glad it was finally over and I didn’t have to sit through anymore of it. Literally anything besides the scenes of guys riding bikes was more entertaining (although that took up about 74% of the film.) Even the cute little cat, (who I shall not name), was more enjoyable to watch.


All in all, the movie made me feel nothing inside. I wasn’t happy, nor sad. Just blank the entire time. It’s a whatever movie. Not terrible, not amazing, just in the middle bland. If you like biking sports, watch it. If you don’t, don’t waste your time like me. That’s all.