On-Gaku: Our Sound (2019)
There is a particular breed of low-budget independent animation that arrives with almost no fanfare, earns its reputation entirely by word of mouth, and ends up outlasting films that cost a hundred times more to make. On-Gaku: Our Sound is squarely in that company. Based on Hiroyuki Ohashi's manga of the same name, the film follows three hulking, heavy-lidded high school delinquents who stumble into forming a rock band, not out of ambition or any particular talent, but more or less because they have nothing better to do. The premise is deliberately thin, which turns out to be rather the point. The film was produced by Rock'n Roll Mountain and Tip Top, running at a breezy 71 minutes, and it took director Kenji Iwaisawa seven years of largely solo animation work to complete. That is not a misprint. Iwaisawa handled the lion's share of the animation himself, drawing on the manga's flat, deliberately crude visual style and pushing it into something that feels genuinely sui generis on screen. For context on how Japanese cinema can wring enormous emotional weight from seemingly simple material, it is worth looking at Kore-eda Hirokazu's Monster (2023), another Japanese film that earns far more than its modest surface suggests.
The film sits comfortably within a tradition of Japanese coming-of-age stories that treat adolescent aimlessness not as a problem to be solved but as a condition worth observing with patience and a certain fond sympathy. It is a comedy first, but one that carries a quiet warmth underneath the deadpan absurdism. Iwaisawa's previous work was limited, making this feature debut all the more striking, and the film's belated international profile owes a good deal to its championing by animation enthusiasts online, where it has accumulated a fervent following. The voice cast, led by musician and artist Shintaro Sakamoto alongside Ren Komai, Tomoya Maeno, and Tateto Serizawa, leans into the material's laconic register. Sakamoto in particular, better known as a singer-songwriter, brings an almost geological stillness to the lead role, a quality that suits the character's magnificent indifference to everything around him. Kami Hiraiwa rounds out the principal cast, and the ensemble has an easy, unforced chemistry that holds the film together even when the plot is, by design, doing very little. Fans of animation that takes formal risks rather than playing it safe would also do well to seek out Flow (2024), another recent example of what can happen when animators trust their own instincts over commercial convention.
On-Gaku: Our Sound (2019), directed by Kenji Iwaisawa, had been sitting on my watchlist for an absolute age. It’s comfortably nestled in the "top 250 animated films of all time" on Letterboxd, which is no small feat for an indie project, but I just kept putting it off for one reason or another. Today, I finally had a spare 70 minutes and decided to dive in.
I’ll be completely honest, the art style shown in the trailer really didn’t do it for me at first glance. I remember looking at the main character and thinking he had this bizarre, confused zigzag mouth, only to realise about five minutes into the film that it was actually just his moustache. It’s a very specific, minimalist aesthetic that initially threw me right off.
But I am so incredibly happy I stuck with it, because once it finds its rhythm, it is absolutely fantastic. It is, without a shadow of a doubt, the closest thing to a Japanese Beavis and Butt-Head we are ever going to get. The story follows three hopeless delinquents who have zero regard for what anyone thinks of them, deciding to form a band for absolutely no reason other than they fancy it. They are completely endearing in their own delightfully stupid way, and you find yourself genuinely rooting for these muppets as they bumble their way through learning instruments and trying to make a noise.
The visual contrast is actually brilliant; while the character designs are intentionally shaky and raw, the background artwork is genuinely beautiful, giving the film a wonderful, grounded atmosphere that elevates the whole experience. And then there are the moments of pure comedic genius, like the "recorder fight scene," which had me crying with laughter for reasons I still can’t quite articulate.
I don’t entirely know why, but this film just works on every conceivable level. It’s a charming, hilarious, and surprisingly soulful little movie that completely won me over. I thoroughly enjoyed every single minute of it, and I’m already desperately hoping Iwaisawa gives us a sequel.
On-Gaku: Our Sound sits in an interesting space in the wider landscape of music-themed coming-of-age films, one that stretches from the glossy and polished to the genuinely strange. It has more in common with the lo-fi spirit of underground zine culture than with any mainstream animated feature, and that scrappiness is entirely the source of its appeal rather than a limitation to look past. For anyone who has followed Japanese cinema across its various registers, from the austere formalism reviewed over at Yi Yi (2000) to the atmospheric unease of The Snow Woman (1968), this film occupies its own odd, cheerful corner, wholly uninterested in impressing anyone and, as a result, rather impressive. Seven years of work for 71 minutes of film sounds like a bad deal on paper. It really isn't.
Rating: ★★★★ | Year: 2019 | Watched: 2026-06-22
Trailer
▶ Watch the official trailer for On-Gaku: Our Sound (2019) on YouTube
Where to watch
Watch in the UK
Rent: Amazon Video
Buy: Amazon Video
Physical: Amazon UK · Zavvi
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