When I first watched Flavors of Youth, I thought it would be a lot about food— like the first part of the movie about a noodle shop. It was so mouthwatering to watch and oh- how I wish I could taste that. But as I watched even more, it wasn’t about the food. The context of flavor was about the feeling, emotions and experiences you go through during your youth. That’s to say, I was extremely misled by the trailer too. Overall, this movie wasn’t tear-jerking but it speaks so much to our past as a youth. As teenagers struggling to be adults.

2. Fate/Stay Night: Heaven’s Feel

*TW: This movie contains disturbing scenes, rap3 and ab*se

I know it feels like cheating to include this— since it became a 3-part movie but I have to put it on my top 5 list because of how much I loved the Fate universe. Also, UFOTABLE’s animation is always top-notch. This movie is dark, heavy yet sublime. I probably won’t be able to stomach it if I wasn’t ready for the light gore scene (heck, the disgusting crawlies still get to me) but it’s actually a movie that keeps you on your toes. However, only thread on this trilogy if you can accept the trigger warnings and you’re well versed on the previous Fate anime series.

3. A Silent Voice

Oh boy, this movie turned on my waterworks. It speaks so much about the effects of bullying towards people who have special needs/conditions. It was heart-wrenching when you realise that it actually reflects real society. Humans are not always kind and even though the movie ended with a good note, can the same be said for reality?

4. Children Who Chased Lost Voices: Journey to Agatha

One of the lesser known films from Makoto Shinkai before he received worldwide recognition. This movie touches about a fantasy world, life/death and respect. Journey into Earth’s core to discover a new world and civilization. This movie introduces the mythology behind Agatha in a breathtakingly beautiful world design. There’s so much magic in one movie— for Ghibli fans, you may find this the most appealing among this list!

5. Hotarubi no Mori E

Albeit a short movie, spanning over 45mins only, this movie is a real tear-jerker. I wasn’t expecting myself to be sobbing into my pillow and lightly traumatized by the movie for being so extremely sad. It’s a calm story of developing friendships, romance, growing up and the passage of time. The beautiful soundtrack will put you within the story itself as you watch it unfurl. Honestly, this entire movie can be summed within 10 minutes, it felt too short.

I didn’t include the others like Your Name, Weathering with You, Pokemon movies etc. They are wonderful movies but as I’ll only pick 5, these are the ones I’ve chosen! I hope you’ll find them enjoyable as well and leave me your thoughts on what other anime movies should be on this list?

Nelke & the Legendary Alchemists: Ateliers of a New World is a spinoff in the Atelier franchise to celebrate their 20th anniversary of the Atelier series. Wow, 20 years! The Atelier series really came a long way, yeah? Nelke features many of the iconic characters from the previous games.

The game is significantly focused on the finding of the Granzweit Tree. Nelke, a young noblewoman has always been fascinated by the legend of the Sage of Granzweit. As she grew up, she found her skills were not in alchemy therefore pushing her to study hard to become a government official. Then her life changes when she hears a rumor that the magical tree can be found within her father's lands of Westwald. To search for the tree, her father grants her permission under one condition— that she develops Westwald into a prosperous city.

Gameplay

Unlike the other Atelier series, Nelke and the other character’s lives are divided into two ways to play: holidays and weekdays. On holidays, you get the chance to visit other townmates and characters to bond, progress with your research and pursue the Granzweit Tree and explore out of town. While on your exploration, you can bring up to 3 additional party members to find materials and explore outside of town.

On weekdays, you’ll be focused on town-building. This part is pretty simple and straight-forward— when you have all the materials, you can plant a new shop and it will be ready. And because reorganizing is a hassle, I always make sure to plan the town layout in my mind before deciding which goes where.

*Important: Take very careful note of the time limit. Every task comes with a time limit (a fraction on the clock and turns) and failure to do so can instantly grant you a game over!

Now with this time limit, it really makes you churn your brains on prioritising the right things— if you use the Holiday to go out and explore when you have a pending task to solve a townsfolk’s problem, you’ll fail the task. Neglecting either one of it for too long and your town growth will decline. This game really plays with your ability to balance each task.

There’s a percentage gauge for each task to show you how much is completed and you should focus on those tasks in order for the story to proceed.

Art style & town design

Similar to many JRPG, the Atelier series focuses on building very anime-like characters with flatter features to fit a 2D definition of animation. Every Atelier series features gorgeous world design and character design to the little intricacies of every sparkle you find on the grass— and you’d think the same for Nelke, right?

The town building was horrible. A straight patch of land is where you have to build shops and farmland, even a grove?! On the same patch of land?! How ridiculous. Imagine a grove just right next to a pharmacy. It’s just terrible, I feel like weeping when I had to build plots of farmland in front of the city council building. It’s a catastrophe.

I just hope that as the game progresses, we can have a dedicated space to build and group types of land to make things look more pleasing.

Combat system

There are 3 combat systems: manual, semi-auto and auto. Basically if you’re feeling lazy and just want to breeze through the exploration and monster-fighting, you can select auto mode where the characters will battle with monsters without you stepping in to dictate their moves— although you’re still needed to trigger their burst attacks.

Similar to the other Atelier games, it is turn-based and each turn depends on a gauge. Sometimes you’ll miss a turn for your character. The auto mode is good if you’re busy eating, or you just don’t want to waste your energy on combat.

The alchemy

Every Atelier game focuses heavily on synthesizing items as an alchemist. However in this game, you’re not an alchemist hence you’ll only be writing requests to your town’s alchemist and providing them with raw materials. The synthesized item will be ready the next day.

I find this acceptable, I used to struggle with alchemy/synthesizing in the atelier games and if town management isn’t enough of a headache, adding synthesizing to it will double your pain.

Characters

In Nelke, you’ll be required to interact/visit characters on Holidays to interact with them. Here’s the thing, you don’t get to choose which character to visit, you can only visit them if/when they allow you. Also, there is a friendship level where you will have to increase/maintain by visiting or completing their requests. You can delegate tasks or jobs to the characters so beware of which character is good for certain tasks, and their wages. Most characters are recycled from the previous Atelier games. I still enjoy encountering past characters and interacting with them.

This game does not give you the option to directly control Nelke in a normal environment. No running around, No interacting with your surroundings. Let’s say if you want to visit the grocery shop, all you do is select the “grocery shop” from the list and you’re there! Even during explorations, your party members walk in a straight line, as if the entire forest is on only one path! You don’t even move them, they just walk and pick up things automatically. This is a huge face-palming disappointment for me.

Ratings: 2.5/5

Nelke & the Legendary Alchemists: Ateliers of a New World is not your typical Atelier game. The game feels more like a mobile visual novel than an RPG. Nelke is at most, a mediocre game that is so automated, you don’t even need to move your character. You’re only needed when you’ve got to make decisions— what to do, where to visit, what to develop and strategize the entire town building sim. It’s boring but oddly, I still want to play it. Overall, it felt lazy and a disappointment— but a fresh look on one of the Atelier games.

Final thoughts, it would have been so much better if we could control the characters directly to interact in a normal environment. Give us the ability to control the movements of Nelke and allow exploration to be more RPG-like. Nelke & the Legendary Alchemists: Ateliers of a New World would have been an instant favorite.