Anime Reviews:

Fly Peek: Peek the Baby Whale

(1991)

[Peek the Baby Whale] I'm not quiet sure who the target audience is for this. It's a simple storyline not a million miles away from Free Willy especially the ending (incidentally, it predates the Hollywood movie - as yet there has been no Tarantinoesque furore as with City on Fire). But Kiseki have released it subtitled, which is hard for many adults to handle, let alone the small kids who'd appreciate the film most. Perhaps they were hoping for a crossover audience, like the Miyazaki movies.

The film isn't strong enough to manage that, but it's certainly not without charm. It avoids the Disneyfied clichés, and opts for an animation style that, while more impressionist than realistic, is effective, it's hard to imagine a film further away from the excesses of Overfiend, that in itself is no bad thing. 6/10

Jim McLennan