600https://m.mediaamazon.com/images/I/91bUHZFNJ3L.ACUF8941000QL80.jpg Hey kids Remember an old anime called Tokyo Pig? I remember seeing a few episodes of it here and there on TV when I was a kid but Im pretty sure I only remember it because the character designs were permanently chibi. The thing is Tokyo Pig or its original title Hare Tokidoki Buta translated as Fair Then Partly Piggy actually started off as a series of childrens picture books. The 90s TV series is a little more well known but the series actually had a featurelength movie produced in 1988 with a premise that was very different from how the series turned out. Discotek even put it out on DVD and bluray a number of years ago though that release is now out of print. Its streaming on Crunchyroll for those who want to watch it. I saw it recently myself and...not gonna lie this movie is pretty juvenile. Third grader Noriyasu Hatakeyama is your average kid who unfortunately isnt very good at anything. He doesnt pay attention in class he messes up the most basic tasks and hes gotten the nickname TwoBit because of his screwups. But one thing he does take pride in is that he writes in his journal every day. One day he catches his mother reading his journal and hes not too happy about it. But rather than yknow tell her she shouldnt invade his privacy like a normal person he assumes shes gonna try and read it again deciding to write about really crazy stuff that could never happen in real life such as raining pigs and eating pencils for dinner. To his surprise though the crazy things he writes in his journal magically come to life and weirder than that everybody treats it all as normal Things get even crazier when he tries to take a crack at making his own newspaper and writing fake news for fun resulting in an apocalyptic pig holiday Yeah that premise is as stupid and childish as it sounds and no the movie never explains how or why Noriyasus writings come to life. I didnt really jive with this as the whole movie very much screams JUST for kids with how juvenile its premise and its take on it is. It just expects you to believe that everything Noriyasu writes just magically comes to life. This isnt necessarily a bad thing by itself but the movie seemed content to just abuse it for the sake of dragging the movie out and honestly the movie is pretty slow paced. A lot of it just consists of stuff happening and Noriyasu reacting to it while everybody else treats it as another day. The characters are pretty bland and onenote too both the main and sidecast. The soundtrack isnt much to write home about either other than the fact that the kids singing the opening theme just cant sing for the life of them. The ending song is much nicer and easier on the ears though. That being said the animation for its time is pretty good. The backgrounds have a lot of creativity put into them a fun mix of both childrens crayon drawings and watercolor and the actual motion for the characters is pretty smooth. Since the characters are all deliberately drawn in the chibi style this makes them easier to animate and the creators really go buck wild here. But thats honestly about all that Fair Then Partly Piggy can offer in terms of positives. I wouldnt call Fair Then Partly Piggy a bad movie but it was clearly made for the sole purpose of keeping kids eyes glued to the TV for a little over an hour and not much else. But if you want to put this on for your kids or for yourself feel free Its just not for me personally.