We Are Aliens (2026)
Screening as part of the 2026 Cannes Film Festival, Kohei Kadowaki's We Are Aliens follows the rise and fall of the friendship between two young boys, Tsubasa (Ryota Bando) and Gyotaro (Amane Okayama), during their time in school. The film shows both of their perspectives as they grow to be best friends and eventually separate, following the impact of these events into their adulthood. At its best, We Are Aliens is an emotional look at the invisible lives everyone lives that are not presented outwardly, asking for kindness and empathy as one is never truly sure what someone else is going through, even if they are one's close friend. At its worst, We Are Aliens is a melodramatic and scattered film, losing focus on what is most important in its own narrative.
The structure of We Are Aliens is designed to catch viewers off guard. The film begins through the eyes of the shy and lonely Tsubasa. Tsubasa doesn't have many friends and stays up playing video games on his own. However, one day, Tsubasa finds a paper ninja star in his desk at school. He quickly finds out that it was Gyotaro who put this in his desk, and Gyotaro invites Tsubasa to join him on an adventure. The pair becomes inseparable, running around their town and having silly fun wherever they go. However, as Tsubasa's social status rises, he begins to find Gyotaro's presence and mischief to be more and more grating. The perspective then shifts to the eyes of Gyotaro. While Tsubasa and the audience watching from Tsubasa's perspective assumed Gyotaro was carefree and oblivious to the chaotic impact he had on the world around him, the truth is that Gyotaro was far more painfully aware than anyone could have guessed.
There is a genius to this narrative, bringing the audience in as an active participant in assuming and judging others, only to pull the rug out from under them. There is a tenderness to the emotions here that develops naturally. It is common for some kids to feel out of place, struggling to have control over their growing minds and bodies. The film gives a great perspective for not only understanding the inner conflict of this, but also what it looks like on the outside without that context. The film challenges the audience to reconsider how they interact with others, a needed statement with the rise of social media and polarizing societal lines.
However, once this is achieved, there is still the third act of the film that follows the pair into adulthood. Very quickly, this grounded coming-of-age drama transforms into melodrama, resembling a parody of anime drama at certain points. While emotional, the events that separated the pair are far from being grand enough to feel like a justifiable root to cause the adult suffering and aggression displayed. For a film that spends so long with inner conflict and inner dialogue, it is a baffling choice to craft a conclusion that takes place so aggressively outward, with the film clearly not knowing how to write itself to feel satisfying.
The animation of the project is also quite a mixed bag. While the background animation is strong enough, the character animation is often quite ugly, with the film taking a highly stylized direction with facial reactions, overdrawing the characters. It isn't that this style in a vacuum is terrible; towards the end of the film, there are more exaggerated sequences where the entire frame takes on this technique that come off as truly stunning, but when the rest of the frame is filled with standard animation, it does feel incredibly out of place. This is further emphasized by the rotoscope animation used to give these characters movement, having them carry completely different physics and weights from everything else in the shot. While it is exciting to see a younger filmmaker like Kadowaki take a risk in presentation, for it to be effective, there needs to be more follow-through, as seen in the works of Masaaki Yuasa.
Even with its flaws, We Are Aliens is an exciting showcase for Kadowaki, who serves as Director, Writer, and Editor for the film. While the 2010's saw a massive boom of unique anime directors step up to try to both fill the void of a retracting Studio Ghibli and rising international anime market, the 2020s have seen this process slow down, with many directors taking extended breaks and feeling the effects of a changing anime market. Even if his debut film is far from perfect, Kadowaki shows both an authorship and a willingness to experiment, which is needed in the modern industry, and hopefully, future features will see his voice grow stronger and stronger.
The structure of We Are Aliens is designed to catch viewers off guard. The film begins through the eyes of the shy and lonely Tsubasa. Tsubasa doesn't have many friends and stays up playing video games on his own. However, one day, Tsubasa finds a paper ninja star in his desk at school. He quickly finds out that it was Gyotaro who put this in his desk, and Gyotaro invites Tsubasa to join him on an adventure. The pair becomes inseparable, running around their town and having silly fun wherever they go. However, as Tsubasa's social status rises, he begins to find Gyotaro's presence and mischief to be more and more grating. The perspective then shifts to the eyes of Gyotaro. While Tsubasa and the audience watching from Tsubasa's perspective assumed Gyotaro was carefree and oblivious to the chaotic impact he had on the world around him, the truth is that Gyotaro was far more painfully aware than anyone could have guessed.
There is a genius to this narrative, bringing the audience in as an active participant in assuming and judging others, only to pull the rug out from under them. There is a tenderness to the emotions here that develops naturally. It is common for some kids to feel out of place, struggling to have control over their growing minds and bodies. The film gives a great perspective for not only understanding the inner conflict of this, but also what it looks like on the outside without that context. The film challenges the audience to reconsider how they interact with others, a needed statement with the rise of social media and polarizing societal lines.
However, once this is achieved, there is still the third act of the film that follows the pair into adulthood. Very quickly, this grounded coming-of-age drama transforms into melodrama, resembling a parody of anime drama at certain points. While emotional, the events that separated the pair are far from being grand enough to feel like a justifiable root to cause the adult suffering and aggression displayed. For a film that spends so long with inner conflict and inner dialogue, it is a baffling choice to craft a conclusion that takes place so aggressively outward, with the film clearly not knowing how to write itself to feel satisfying.
The animation of the project is also quite a mixed bag. While the background animation is strong enough, the character animation is often quite ugly, with the film taking a highly stylized direction with facial reactions, overdrawing the characters. It isn't that this style in a vacuum is terrible; towards the end of the film, there are more exaggerated sequences where the entire frame takes on this technique that come off as truly stunning, but when the rest of the frame is filled with standard animation, it does feel incredibly out of place. This is further emphasized by the rotoscope animation used to give these characters movement, having them carry completely different physics and weights from everything else in the shot. While it is exciting to see a younger filmmaker like Kadowaki take a risk in presentation, for it to be effective, there needs to be more follow-through, as seen in the works of Masaaki Yuasa.
Even with its flaws, We Are Aliens is an exciting showcase for Kadowaki, who serves as Director, Writer, and Editor for the film. While the 2010's saw a massive boom of unique anime directors step up to try to both fill the void of a retracting Studio Ghibli and rising international anime market, the 2020s have seen this process slow down, with many directors taking extended breaks and feeling the effects of a changing anime market. Even if his debut film is far from perfect, Kadowaki shows both an authorship and a willingness to experiment, which is needed in the modern industry, and hopefully, future features will see his voice grow stronger and stronger.